I am actually very happy to see this post, guys. It clearly means that you sat down and thought for a while. You drew conclusions and started over, with a much better approach. Congrats, that's the first step in the right direction.

I admit, that the previous topic did bring a smile on my face - my own road to the industry started with a similar abstract concept that having great ideas is enough

if we have a more thourough understanding of the industry, maybe we'll come to find something we'd like to get into

That's a very good approach, actually. I think 90% of people who wanna get into gamedev want to be game designers. It is mostly because they don't know how many other great jobs there are in the industry. I too wanted to be a game designer. Took me "only" 6 months to figure out that I would rather be a producer with prospect of someday becomming an executive producer, able to push in some ideas without having to get into all this annoying system details.

I don't think I can give you better links than the ones that have already been given. I could give you some book titles, but they seem like too much of an investment for now, since they get very deep into the topic of game design. It's better to start with sloperama or extra credits for now - they will give you a better overview of the industry.

Read, explore, play games. Good luck!

It just comes across as not willing to do your homework when they say they're not open to learning any aspect of what it involves other than to be the "boss". You're not going to design programmable games with no understanding of limitations or without being able to weigh different mechanics vs available budget vs. impact on the game. You may be biased in some weird way having "no idea" about feasibility and blow the budget on something that doesn't do much for the game.

Subcontracting everything, with no idea what you're doing, isn't going to succeed at much of anything in life. Sorry if that sounds negative it's just a fact of life.

There was a guy that won 27million in the lottery who started a kickstarter to make his dream game with no experience. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-14-lottery-winner-takes-to-kickstarter-to-fund-pie-in-the-sky-mmo

A few more links for you:

• What programmers want from a designer. This is a forum discussion on what a pure designer might be able to offer to interest programmers in working with them, and seems directly relevant to your situation.
• How to get started in the game industry. This focuses mostly on professional development rather than hobbyist or indie, and it's a little dated, but it's still an excellent read on the industry.
• Obscure.co.uk articles. A selection of short articles mostly covering the professional development process and offering some insight into the business and legal side of things.

Honestly, unless you're able to contribute money I really think your best bet would be to invest time and effort to learn a useful development skill, or to work on making your games yourself without programming.

After taking some time to read all the provided links, do you still have any questions about the development process or any specific development roles we could answer for you?