My stand on the extent I reach through concept has always made time spent on building lesser projects seem trivial.

This line of reasoning is holding you back, and you said it yourself in your original post; your ideas are worthless unless you are able to somehow express them to create an actual game. Unless you make the effort to proceed with the next steps of development your concepts will never be more; they will always remain a concept rather than a playable game.

Working in a sandbox to experiment and having a sandbox within your mind may not seem the same to some but it is exactly how I've approached things.

No offence intended, but this just proves that sticking to concepts and thought is inferior to experimentation -- if your approach was equal or superior you would have some results to show, but you're still stuck with nothing more than some ideas in a database and will never go further without taking the next step towards implementation. If you share your ideas you'll have the chance that someone else might make your ideas real, but it's just a chance -- the only way to definitely take your ideas to fruition is to make it happen yourself.

I don't mean this to be discouraging at all, but rather to point out that you can take your ideas to the next stage of development and perhaps even see them through to a completed product if only you're willing to put in the time and effort to do so. Not only that, but with the wealth of information and good quality tools and engines now available cheaply or in some cases even for free it's easier than it's ever been to do so!

In truth, game design is as much science and engineering as it is art, if not more, and you just can't do science without experimentation.

Absolutely, and this is an area talented an successful developers have put a lot of work into, such as Daniel Cook's "Chemistry of Game Design" and other articles, many of Ernest Adams' "Designers Notebook" columns, and a great number of other works. Thinking and dreaming will always give you nothing more than thoughts and dreams unless you're willing to put in the additional work to implement your ideas.

I have a feeling that what I've said has lead to inaccurate assumptions. I've never expected my concepts, designs and theories to fast track me into a finished product or allow me to skip parts of the development process. I'm well aware of what a design is, in reference to the many facets of developing a game. A design is simply that, the blueprint and starting point to a much greater prospect. I've known where my work stands in relation to any project that may spring from it.

To put it in metaphorical terms, I've only created the seeds, I know this much. Planting, growing, maintaining and eventually harvesting the fruits of my labor are all different facets which I am conscious of. The role I'd play as well as what else I'd contribute during the other development phases are also within my realm of thought. I haven't spent my time ideologically fantasizing. I have, to some extent, consciously kept things at a design phase. This does not mean I am ignorant to what Game Design & Development is all about.

@JTippettes: I understand the technical aspects within the development process and am in fact quite fond of delving into them. You can't build a rocket if you have no concept of aerodynamics. However, you don't need to retrace ALL the fundamentals of rocket science (and experiment with EVERYTHING that has been done before to reach some where close to current practice) to gain some concrete understanding and advance in the field.

I'm glad you brought up the topics of "Game Design: Art or a Science?". I'm strongly against the common, somewhat naive/misguided, notion that the technical aspects of development are a hindrance and of no consequence to the artistic and creative aspects of the design process. If you don't know what can and can't realistically be achieved with the tools and technology available, you can't effectively design anything. This applies to every form of design, not just games.

@ Legendre: Although I strongly agree with the point you were making as far as the difference between dreamers and doers, I wholeheartedly disagree with your differentiation/definition of what is and isn't Game Design.

Game Design = Taking an idea (existing or brand new) and making it work in an actual product under resource/time constraints.

What you defined is functional game development. Game design is in fact more about daydreaming and spewing ideas. Where they meet, tying into what you're saying, lies within the balance of ideology and functionality/feasibility.

Game design is in fact more about daydreaming and spewing ideas.

"Daydreaming and spewing ideas" is the activity of arm-chair designers and the dreaded "idea guy", but it's only a small part of what real designers (that is, professional game designers or those who successfully design for indie or hobbyist games) do, and I would tend to agree with Legendre's suggestion that a lot of the difference is in making your ideas really work -- and work well -- within a set of constraints. See:

• Sloperama lesson #14: All about the job of "game designer"
• Extra Credits: So you want to be a game designer?
• Evolutionary Design: A practical process for creating great game designs.
• Computer Game Development: An Overview

If you're happy to be and remain an arm-chair designer that's fine, but the job done by those who professionally work in the role is more about implementation and less about day-dreaming and thinking about ideas. Anyone can daydream and think of ideas -- a designer must be able to take those ideas and make them work within a given set of limitations.

Do you want to be a real designer, or just someone who thinks of (and writes down) ideas? Either is a fine goal if you're happy with where you're at, but don't think more highly of your role than the reality -- if you want to take the step from idea guy to designer you have more work to do.

However, you don't need to retrace all the fundamentals of rocket science (and experiment with what has been done before) to advance in the field.

Actually, that's exactly the material that some of the introductory courses in an aero-space degree (or related courses) cover, and it's common in many fields to cover at least briefly the work that has been done before. In any technically complex field you simply cannot -- savantism aside -- advance to the bleeding edge current research without first having a sound practical understanding of the fundamentals.

Architecture students begin by studying existing structures and designing smaller, less complex buildings -- they don't go straight to a sky-scraper.

Physics students begin by studying classical mechanics, dropping balls and rolling things down inclines to learn about gravity, friction, etc. -- they don't skip to solving the mysteries of the universe.

Game developers begin by making small, functional games or prototypes -- they don't jump straight into complete large AAA -- or even good indie-quality -- titles.

if you want to take the step from idea guy to designer you have more work to do.

Ofcourse

I haven't once claimed to be a designer nor do I think that conceptualizing is the majority of what a designer does. I know the vast difference between the "idea guy" and a professional Game Designer/Developer.

the difference is in making your ideas really work -- and work well -- within a set of constraints.

a designer must be able to take those ideas and make them work within a given set of limitations.

Which I truly understand. This is best proven by my comments "..the balance of ideology and functionality/feasibility." and "I've only created the seeds, I know this much".

I'll be posting my first share in a bit (just got home). Thank you all for taking your time to read as well as all your feedback

I always get puzzled, why there are so many people that want to "be game designers" and so few that "want to make games"? I mean, there are like hordes, huge hordes, of people that scream "we hate making games but we love inventing them". I don't really get it Where is the fun of designing a game without making it? Isn't designing merely a tool to make a game the reality? Isn't the process, the sweat during coding/making graphics, the fun part in all this?

To me is like being a gardener who is planning and putting on paper where each single plant shall grow but later not wanting to go and dirty his hands to plant them? Isn't all the point of gardening the manual labour with soil and seeds and plants the fun part?

You said you were thinking about your game for more than 10 years, yet you never got an urge to actually make it? If you instead used 1 year for thinking about the idea and 9 years for coding/drawing/etc you should have it finished by now. I don't understand...

Design is really not the same kind of activity as development. There are many people who enjoy one activity and not the other, in both directions. And that applies to gardening as well as game development, since you mention it, lol. At one point I was all kinds of excited over the idea of experimentally breeding tulips, but that crashed and burned in the face of the reality of the kinds of time and resources necessary to breed them. It turns out, tulips grown indoors tend to get eaten alive by fungus gnats. Also it's a fact that many existing types of tulips are sterile or mostly-sterile and can't be bred. On top of that I randomly turn out to be allergic to tulip seed pods.

Design is really not the same kind of activity as development. There are many people who enjoy one activity and not the other, in both directions.

That was my stand all along. I felt I was being berated when the topics as well as my words were being taken out of context or jarbled to benefit a point. Alls well though, I think I took away quite a bit from this post as well as shared/showed where I'm coming from without letting tension get out of hand.

I am not sure why people come to this forum all the time with no technical knowledge, never made a game before and want to build grandiose sandbox revolutionary MMORPGs right from the start.

'Twas always so.

Back when I started on these forums, MMORPGs were still a niche hobby, mostly the preserve of people who used to play MUDs. So everyone on here wanted to make RPGs, which were the most complex popular game of the time. We tried to discourage them but with limited success.

But it's like that famous Ira Glass quote. "All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit." They come into game development seeing the top games and that's what inspires them. Why would they want to make Pacman? But very quickly they get discouraged by the gulf between the kind of thing they want to make and the kind of thing they are currently capable of making.

The answer is going to be different for everyone, because not everyone has the same degree of patience. Some will be more discouraged by having to make 5 prototype games first, while others will thrive on that experience.

Design is really not the same kind of activity as development.

It's a bit of a false dichotomy really. You have a whole spectrum of tasks which range from high level to low level:

• Coming up with an idea for a game
  
• Deciding on the features that will contribute towards that idea
  
• Drawing up precise specifications for a feature's gameplay and presentation
  
• Deciding how to organise the feature's gameplay in terms of tokens and values within the game
  
• Deciding how to implement the gameplay behaviour to change those tokens and values
  
• Using the relevant programming language to instruct the computer on how to run the planned implementation

These are all development. Designers do more at the top. Programmers do more at the bottom. Both tend to pretend that the bit in the middle are the other discipline's problem, and both are wrong. The people I respect most are the ones who are willing to take on all of these, and I've been lucky to meet quite a few of them.

Architects may not construct the final building, but they don't just have ideas of what they want - they have to create detailed and precise plans and probably a scale model as well.
Web designers don't merely come up with ideas for what they want to see; they break out the tools and make the HTML and CSS for the site.
Fashion designers don't just draw a picture of the clothing; they have to learn pattern making, draping, cutting, and make wearable prototypes.
Sound designers don't imagine the noises they wish to hear and write them down; they open up their audio software and start manipulating samples.
Graphic designers don't just decide on what they want to see; they open up Photoshop and they create it themselves.

So I don't know why game designers often feel that their type of design often just means coming up with ideas, maybe writing them down, and eventually letting other people work out all the details and create the implementation. That's not what a designer does. Design is development, just the more abstract aspects of it.

Designers do more at the top. Programmers do more at the bottom.

Design is development, just the more abstract aspects of it

Well said, totally agreed.

I said something earlier along the lines of "The point where Game Design and Development meet is where the balance of ideology and functionality/feasibility is struck". Like you said, Design encompasses a whole lot and is no more or less than any of the other disciplines involved in development.

The people I respect most are the ones who are willing to take on all of these, and I've been lucky to meet quite a few of them

I also strongly agree that if I am to become a designer of sorts I would be more than willing to contribute to other, if not all, the aspects of development.

Thank you for your feedback sir

Part of this is just the relative amounts of labor as well as supply/demand of contributors.

For example, it might take a designer 20 hours to come up with the ideas for 2 new races, each with 3 main solider classes with personalities that really fit well together in the game and most of the stats / weapons involved "the archer has a bow that does 10-20 damage with a range of 5" etc.

Now the programmer has to take 100 hours to implement this, and the artist needs 100 hours for creating concept art, polished images, frames of animation, package them correctly etc.

So if your team has 1 game designer, 1 artist, and 1 programmer and you are working on weekends, the game designer might just need to meet with the team once a month, while the programmers and artists are working each weekend.

Your bottlenecks will be waiting for programers and artists 95% of the time. A game designer conceivably could work on 5-10 different hobbyist games at the same time on weekends as 1 artist and 1 programmer are dedicated to a single game. You couple that with the fact that many artists and programmers (at least who aren't getting paid) will want to also contribute to game design, not just implement from a fixed blueprint, and the ratios skew even further.

How many games have failed because they couldn't find enough game designers? Sure, some have bad game design and that dooms a game. But in terms of hours of work of game design needed? Very few, in fact I've never heard of such a case. How many games have failed because they don't have enough hours of artists or programmers? 99.9%.

Many of the game proposals here have requirements like 5 man-years of programming and 2-man years of art. Their teams often include 1-2 part-time programmers and artists who come and go, working in their part time (thus spending half their time just learning the existing code/game/processes before they can get productive). Projects are understaffed compared to their goals by an order of magnitude. They eventually get abandoned when being only 10-30% complete.

Any plan that fails to solve for this very simple labor equation is doomed to failure and this is by far the reason most hobbyist games fail.

Of course, even completing a game is no guarantee it will be successful.. that is where quality, community outreach, innovation, (dare I say it "good ideas") , come into play. But, none of that even matters if you don't end up with a product on iTunes store, Steam etc. You might have the best idea in the world, with incredibly high quality artists and programmers, and it is still going to be a failed project if your staffing levels are inappropriate. If you release a game, even if is sloppy, it is something you can iterate on and you are ahead of so many teams because you successfully delivered something. One sloppy, buggy game that is 100% complete even with bad reviews is still "better" than some product written by god-level coders and artists that doesn't get finished, just by virtue of one of these is playable, and the other is not. A Yugo that breaks down every 3 months and looks like crap is still orders of magnitude more useful than a Porsche engine without the rest of the car in terms of getting you to work.

@starbasecitadel: Definitely and entirely agree with your statement

This is why my current phase/work is so important to me and crucial to anything that may develop from it. In my eyes, the quality of my projects potential is equal to how well and detailed I have laid out my plans (coherent enough for others to grasp my perspective as well as combine with their own) or envisioned the foundation. My goal is to be able to clarify any misunderstandings/miscommunications and have a solid base within my work. This way I can assist and contribute to the eventual hang ups/bottlenecks/deterrents that will undoubtedly come up in any aspects/department/discipline within the development phase.

Thank you for your input