I dont think there are really any bad idea''s. I think they just might be presented wrong though for the person to like it. Idea''s are what make games though. If a guy didn''t have an idea for a game system we wouldn''t have game systems. If someone didn''t come up with the idea for a calculator we wouldn''t prolly have computers.

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Original post by chronos
The proper criticism in those cases is to say that the person''s idea is unrealistic and unimplementable. It does not follow at all from such posts that ideas are worthless, only that this particular idea is worthless.

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You''re nit-picking and arguing semantics when the context is absolutely clear. No one''s going to say something more verbose when the meaning is apparent to a moron with three words.

Sand is worthless, but glass isn''t. Mud is worthless, but mud bricks or houses aren''t. There''s zero ambiguity in all of these statements. This thread thus lacks merit (ie, is worthlessm to coin a phrase). But even things that are worthless are often fun to play with, so sling away with your opinions!

Also, let''s get specific here. We''re not talking about ideas for, say, building a better reclining chair, or ideas on solving a mathematical problem, or ideas on how to run the country.

We are talking about ideas for video games. Dreaming about new video games is one of the most fun things in the world. I think most of us play video games for the escapism- and imagining ideas for new games is just another form of escapism.

So ideas for games are certainly less valuable than ideas for building chairs, just because we have all spent time coming up with the former. (and we would all love to be paid to think of some more)

The only way ideas are worth anything is if they have inspired publishers, programers, artists, etc to actually make a game.

All other ideas are worthless, but have the POTENTIAL to be worth something if they are actualy implamented.

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Original post by Oluseyi
You're nit-picking and arguing semantics when the context is absolutely clear. No one's going to say something more verbose when the meaning is apparent to a moron with three words.

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When people in these forums keep insisting that "anyone can come up with ideas" or that "ideas are a dime a dozen", the "absolutely clear" context you speak of becomes rather muddled.

Maybe I'm thicker than a moron, but it isn't at all clear to me that these posters' definition of worth is limited to an idea's intrinsic marketable value. In fact, many of them appear to state, quite unambiguously, that just about anybody can come up with ideas for a game and that ideas are worthless because of it. Such an interpretation of worth requires that every idea have the same potential influence over the final product, which is absolutely false. Suddenly the meaning of these people's statements about worth becomes quite different from that which you suggest any moron could determine through context.

Comparing ideas to sand or mud is misleading. Coming up with good ideas requires a greater degree of sensibility and experience than picking up mud (so that mud may be worth very little, yet a good recipe for mud bricks may be worth a lot).

Don't attack me for arguing semantics when Diodor's post clearly invites such an argument. When meaning is ambiguous - which it is in this case, as I hope I've shown - arguing meaning does more good than it does harm. Even if I were only stating the obvious, my argument is no less valid: different ideas differ in their value.

[edited by - chronos on July 7, 2003 5:51:39 AM]

The ''ideas are worthless'' mantra stems from the fact that no-one is interested in buying raw ideas. They want an implementation of that idea.

It''s exactly like Oluseyi''s mud example. No one is going to buy mud, they can get their own mud from their back garden. However, they might be interested in buying bricks which have been made from mud.

And then of course, some types of mud make better bricks than others. However, the raw mud is still pretty worthless.

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Original post by Sandman
The 'ideas are worthless' mantra stems from the fact that no-one is interested in buying raw ideas. They want an implementation of that idea.

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I agree, but the problem is that some people here take the argument beyond this limited statement and suggest that ideas are worthless simply because everybody has ideas, as if implying that anybody can easily come up with good and useful ideas. It's better to suggest that ideas have no market value because working developers are either pretty good at coming up with their own good ideas, or at least they're free to clone existing game concepts without additional monetary investment.

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It's exactly like Oluseyi's mud example. No one is going to buy mud, they can get their own mud from their back garden. However, they might be interested in buying bricks which have been made from mud.

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The problem with Oluseyi's example is that ideas are less like mud and more like a recipe for mud. Mud is just mud and indeed you can find it in your back garden, but a good recipe for mud bricks is not as easy to come up with as a bunch of mud.

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And then of course, some types of mud make better bricks than others. However, the raw mud is still pretty worthless.

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I agree. The mud itself has no monetary value, but the knowledge about which kind of mud is better and the knowledge about turning that mud into bricks (both being abstract, as ideas, unlike the mud itself which is an object), has a great deal of value.

[edited by - chronos on July 7, 2003 6:45:29 AM]

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Original post by chronos
I agree, but the problem is that some people here take the argument beyond this limited statement and suggest that ideas are worthless simply because everybody has ideas, as if implying that anybody can easily come up with good and useful ideas.

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If you rephrased that as 'anybody can come up with ideas that they think are good and useful', then I think that statement would be pretty much true. The only people that wouldn't apply to are the people who wouldn't be posting about their great new MMORPG idea in the first place.

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I agree. The mud itself has no monetary value, but the knowledge about which kind of mud is better and the knowledge about turning that mud into bricks (both being abstract, as ideas, unlike the mud itself which is an object), has a great deal of value.

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Not really: unless you can prove that your mud is better than someone elses mud, or your recipe is better than someone elses recipe, then still no-one is going to be interested in buying either of them. And the only way to prove it is to bake some bricks yourself.

[edited by - Sandman on July 7, 2003 7:40:06 AM]

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We''re not talking about ideas for, say, building a better reclining chair, or ideas on solving a mathematical problem, or ideas on how to run the country.

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Actually, I have a few interesting ideas like these as well

In all honesty, quickly pronounced, undeveloped and unresearched ideas are indeed quite worthless and are alot of the times the indication of such a raw idea. It''s true many people come up with ideas all day long, what isn''t true is that even half of them are realisticly feasible and then they''re either not fun or even implementable in many ways. In short, good, really original, creative, and constructible ideas are very hard to find and should be worth their weight in rarity and implementation possibilities.

My 0.0083 cents

- Christopher Dapo ~ Ronixus

I''ve heard and have probably said or written that an idea is worthless... but I think the proper way to say/write this would be:

"Your idea is worthless to everyone but you."

This implies that an idea has worth to you but not to anyone else.

In a group setting this may or may not be true. A time when this is untrue would be during a brainstorming session in which every idea is written down or recorded for further analysis or discussion at an appropriate time.

Although I have been in brainstorming that left me feeling that my ideals had no worth – but that is another subject



Just my $0.0083333333333333333333333333333333 worth.


Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser