quote: Original post by irbrian
Actually, game companies are seeing the value of having a dedicated designer more and more these days, especially as games get bigger. Many commercial games even have whole teams of designers dedicated to supporting their ongoing content development -- this especially applies to MMORPGs.

Calling them teams of ''designers'' is quite a misnomer. A majority of content ''designers'' for MMORPG''s are volunteer positions. The fact of the matter is if a company is looking for ideas for whatever reason, they could easily get feed back from thousands of 15-26 year olds with a single request. Since that is their demographic it is non-sensical to propose a company would pay for content designers.

"Sorry but this simply isn''t the case."

I do disagree, but the blanket statements I made before certainly don''t hold true across the board.

"The reason most people wont get to be designers is that they don''t have the skills or talent to do the job."

Skills yes, talent no. The most important attribute to getting a designer job is having experience, which leads me to my point about knowing someone. You have to know someone to get into the loop in the first place.


" Most of them think that liking games is the same as understanding games and it isn''t. Designing games is about understanding and being able to communicate what makes a good/bad game."

I love it when people try to make game designing so esoteric. Everyone who plays games understands what makes a game good or bad. Lets not make this more complicated than it needs to be.

As far as being able to communicate; this much applauded game designing skill believe it or not can be aquired in other areas of life. If you arent a good communicator, your going to have far worse problems dealing with your wife than with your design team.


" It is also about having the bloody-minded determination to do the same things over and over again until you get your great idea to fit into the limits of the technology available."

Very true. Once again, lets not imply that only a select few have the brain power or drive to do this.


" Just having the idea is worthless unless you can actually implement it."

You have to have more than an idea, I believe you must be talented. At least, ideally.


"Sure the industry is about making money but the best way to do that is to hire talent."

C''mon! Lets not go overboard here, friend. Sure, I agree with the principal, but this is not the practice. The practice is to hire experience. You could have loads of talent, but the guy who has worked on 7 Age of Empires clones will beat you everytime. Experience is not the same as talent, look on the shelves of your local computer store.



"The main problem is in proving that you have the talent but if you can do that they you will get hired."

Ties in with the above.


"Just look at companies like Raven, id and many others. They are full of designers who got their jobs based on talent. They proved they had it by taking their ideas and making them into real levels that worked for games/mods and as a result the developers snapped them up."

There are exceptions, some more notables are Blizzard and Bioware. Blizzard hires experience and talent, with an emphasis on talent. Ive seen Bioware attempt to hire pure talent, which isnt a bad idea in my book.


From my point of view, the industry has a closed talent loop, as far as creative content. Experience is the order of the day, talent isnt a serious consideration. If the requirements are experience or some skill in a piece of software that costs $10,000, you have made talent a non-factor. #1- If you must have expience with a major shipped title, you have just dialed out 99% of the talent pool. #2- If you must have experience with Maya or Studio Max, you would have no doubt already worked at a game company or are a pirate.

Now, Im not saying the game companies dont have good reasons why they do this.... *cough* *cough* .... money

That is what it is about, hiring talent is more expensive and probably more risky than hiring some brain dead idiot who has worked on 5 Age of Empires clones.

You can say its about skills and experience, but dont say its about talent.

To forestall to upcoming personal attacks, I work outside of the game industry. I develop games for fun as a hobby, I create games I want to play. I believe creating entertainment is an artform, which outside of the indie world is corrupted by money.

I am also a game player. What gets me mad more than anything else is the steaming piles I see on the shelves of my computer store. The gems are rare and far between, and there is no need for that. If the game companies were not so fixated on short term profits that might see that quality can also be profitable.

Rip away, it wont be the first time!

quote: Original post by Swatter555
" Most of them think that liking games is the same as understanding games and it isn''t. Designing games is about understanding and being able to communicate what makes a good/bad game."

I love it when people try to make game designing so esoteric. Everyone who plays games understands what makes a game good or bad. Lets not make this more complicated than it needs to be.

I don''t agree with this at all. Players may be able to tell a good game from a bad game, but that doesn''t mean they''ll know to identify and avoid the pitfalls that game designers often fall into. Being able to tell good movies apart from bad movies doesn''t make you a filmmaker.

Nor does it prevent the so-called professionals from making the same mistakes over and over again also. I am not saying there arent rules to game design, but saying that these rules can only be known to a select few people is wishful thinking.

Ok, I dont want to be too hard on professional game designers. Sure, they do this for a living and are more experienced to the ins and outs of making game content/systems. Its just like anything else, some people are more cut out for it than others. At the same time, lets not put them on a pedestal and say they are overly special people, because they are not. Some are very talented, I could probably name a few. I think most are more average, because most games today are very mediocre(though not all the designers fault.)

quote: Original post by Swatter555
Nor does it prevent the so-called professionals from making the same mistakes over and over again also. I am not saying there arent rules to game design, but saying that these rules can only be known to a select few people is wishful thinking.

I''m not suggesting that designing games is beyond the reach of the average person. I''m suggesting that a person''s ability to distinguish between a good game and a bad game does not imply the ability to identify and explain those specific elements of game design that make the one game good and the other bad. Awareness of game design''s "best practices" generally requires study and experience (I say generally because it''s not a rule, it''s just a tendency).

"I''m not suggesting that designing games is beyond the reach of the average person. I''m suggesting that a person''s ability to distinguish between a good game and a bad game does not imply the ability to identify and explain those specific elements of game design that make the one game good and the other bad. Awareness of game design''s "best practices" generally requires study and experience (I say generally because it''s not a rule, it''s just a tendency)."

I dont disagree, but at the same time the industry is choking itself with an over emphasis on experience. I think that game developers would profit greatly in the long run by hiring people on the basis of pure talent and training them to specific industry practices and skills. Im not saying that is how you hire programmers. Im saying if you want creative and original content in your games, you will need new blood in your company. Im also not saying to hire an entire team of rookie designers, either. A good mix of new ideas and experience would benefit everyone down the line.

There are two major factors that come with evaluating wiether a person is fit for a designer position or not. One is indeed talent; a designer must be able to generate enough creativity to give reason for a game to have life, looking at what makes the game fun, what type of audience to effect and how to effect them, and all the stuff that will make the game that much more original and inspiring. The other factor is the technical side of things, being able to lead a team, working with all sides of the development process and knowing what''s needed generaly for each at least, and then being able to influence how to go about generating the desired effects within the game.

Above all, the designer must be able to generate the creative content as well as conduct the ochestra of developers in their team to bring the designs to life.

Knowing this, there are a few things that help a game designer. Being able to go hands on in many or all of the different aspects of development is a strong technical plus. Being able to take the reigns of a large team and hold them through thick and thin is another huge bonus.

When you read that experience is required for a designer position, they are looking for those who have a strong grasp of what''s required technicaly as a designer. They mostly expect such a person would already satisfy the talent requirement, but if this is lacking then there really is no reason for a person to be in such a position. So, just because a job dosen''t have talent as a requirement don''t mean they don''t expect it, it should be there automatically. The technical side are the main worries and thus, the main reason behind the required experience (If you''ve done it, and done it well, then that requirement is fulfilled ).

My orthodox is as a designer, not an artist or programmer or animator or even a writer, yet I have experience in all and I can and will do them if needed. I''d suggest anyone who has any similar ambitions to seek out getting their feet wet in as much as possible. Also, whenever there''s a chance to lead/manage, do it as best you can and find out what you need to work on in order to strengthen any leadership/management qualities you posses. This will help to go a long way!

@Swatter555 - You''ve got the right idea there. I myself would like to see more opportunities presented by development companies to bring in more talent in exchange for technical experience. It could only strengthen a company IMO

- Christopher Dapo

quote: Original post by Ronixus
Above all, the designer must be able to generate the creative content as well as conduct the ochestra of developers in their team to bring the designs to life.

Ronixus, I think you''ve stumbled upon the best analogy I''ve ever heard for anyone who thinks they can design a game or direct a project without knowing much about programming or any of the technical stuff: It''d be the same as a person writing a symphony or conducting an orchestra without any knowledge of any of the individual instruments.


-Desco-

If you want an idea of what it takes to become a designer, you can also look at this link: http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/jobs/positions/technical_designer.html

or this one:
http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/jobs/positions/writer.html

Sometimes a good way to get into the business is to impress creators by posting levels for existing games. I came close to it once when I designed a campaign for starcraft a while back that I had posted on the net. It caught the eye of the founder of www.stainlesssteelstudios.com. Well to make a long story short on that one, I''m not there because I wanted to finish my degree and ... well I was bad at selling myself but that''s a whole different story. The point is though that if you try your hands with an editor that''s fairly easy to use, sure you might not have the knowledge to start out with but with persistance, you could make something pretty impressive nonetheless.

Smoo

A thoughtful reply Chris. I agree that you wouldnt want to throw a rookie to the wolves by putting him in a lead design role. It also seemed like you were mixing being a producer and a designer a bit. Overall, you made some great points.

I guess I just get my underwear in a bunch when people try to put game designers at big companies on an unreachable pedestal. Most of em arent as good as you think.

I made this same argument at the Gamasutra boards some months back. Most people thought I was bitter about not being able to get a job in the industry. People couldnt grasp the greater point I was trying to make, they seem far too indoctrinated to see the situation for what it is.

I am simply mad at the state of creativity in the industry. I am mad because I cant buy games anymore. I am mad that when I do buy a game it is either too buggy to play or I was fooled by a reviewer in the Industry''s pocket. I am mad because my beloved hobby no longer creates games worth playing for more than 2 days.I am mad because it doesnt need to be like this.

Now, I might be wrong as to the solution, but I certainly think it will help.