Every game that I've worked on at a studio has had at least one game designer, often several (e.g. a 'lead', one focussed on character control/abilities, one focussed on enemy encounters and combat, one focussed on level layouts and puzzles, etc). The lead designer answers to the producer (just like the lead programmer does), who answers to the guys that are fronting the money: the publisher. These projects were just typical console games with small budgets of $1-10Mil. "AAA" type console games are the same but with budgets of $10-100Mil...

were they full time "spec guys" ? they didn't do anything else, like code or art or biz or marketing stuff?

i suppose in a tight enough schedule, with a big enough army of coders, artists, etc, and established code base/libraries, and the money being available, management could define a target product, the designers would flesh it out, and the "army" would build stuff almost as fast as the designers could specify it, so the designers would never sit idle towards the end.

or is it done out of phase? once the spec is done, the designers start on the next project's specs, and just go into caretaker mode on the current project?

were they full time "spec guys" ? they didn't do anything else, like code or art or biz or marketing stuff?

Yeah, their job is "game designer", or "level designer". They don't do art or code. The closest they might come is some grey-box art to demonstrate how they'd like something laid out, or tweaking some variables in a script file that a programmer has given to them, or plugging in triggers/events/objects in a level-editor / visual-scripting tool.

They're still a very rare position though, with probably a dozen (or two) other staff for every one of them.

or is it done out of phase? once the spec is done, the designers start on the next project's specs, and just go into caretaker mode on the current project?

They definitely have a disproportionate amount of work at the beginning of a project. There will hardly be any staff on a project initially - no big team of artists or coders yet. The bulk of artists and programmers can't join the project until they have concepts, designs and a schedule/plan to follow.
During the project, the designers are still kept busy though. No plan survives initial contact with the enemy, and with game designs that often means that when you first get to play it, it's not as fun as it should be.

A lot of details will be impossible to specify in complete detail -- e.g. the designer can't really say up-front that a storm-trooper's "raise weapon to aim" animation should take exactly 0.54 seconds. This detail though does have a knock-on effect on the gameplay, so when reviewing the progress of the game, the designers, animation programmers, and animators might all iterate on this minute detail to tune in the fun.
As character abilities, enemies, AI, etc all come together, the design might need to be changed to account for features that didn't work out, or things that were accidentally invented/discovered along the way and turn out to be fun.
The guys with the money might also butt-in with feedback during development, making demands that the designers then have to massage into their design.
Towards the end of a project, the designer might even be involved in the final bug-fixing stages, prioritising which bugs are "must fix before shipping" and which ones go into the "we can pretend that's a feature" pile ;)
Often designers also take on the role of a producer/project-manager somewhat: assisting in scheduling of milestones, which features should be worked on each week, liaising between departments or otherwise making sure that communication is happening, etc... and if they really have nothing to do, they can help QA find problems in the current build ;)

But yes, the staffing needs of a project typically start small, explode in the middle, and then go back to being fairly small at the end. Big studios with a lot of full-time staff need to find ways to keep everyone busy (and employed), so having two or more overlapping projects can be a good idea (assuming the biz guys can drum up enough business, or keep enough cash in reserve to independently fund the studio).

Yeah, their job is "game designer", or "level designer".

oh, ok. i consider those two different things. i consider level designers to be more like 3d artists, although they are actually more like the director of a movie or a stage play. game designers in my mind are the ones who define the weapon types, the combat rules, in general the rules of the game and the environment in which its played. by my definition, a lot of "design" work is delegated. a dedicated designer (like Romero) may specify 4 environments and X number of bad guy types, and specific types of bosses, but delegate the details of things like the exact look of a given boss or the exact layout of a given level to 3d artists or level designers who flesh out the design. So both the "dedicated designer" and "3d artist" or "level designer" are the designers in that case. I guess the distinction that i draw is that a pure designer draws up specs, but does not produce content or perform other biz/marketing duties. So in my book, a level designer is both a designer (determines the details of how a level is laid out and plays), and a content creator (actually creating the level in an editor), and thus not a "specs only" guy.

So in my book, a level designer is both a designer (determines the details of how a level is laid out and plays), and a content creator (actually creating the level in an editor), and thus not a "specs only" guy.

The level designers that I mentioned don't actually create the level content, besides crudely drawn layouts on napkins
A concept artist paints a picture of what different parts of the level should look like, a designer decides on the flow for gameplay's sake (this enemy introduced here, a big firefight with cover happens here, a platform timed-jumping puzzle happens there, etc), and then environment artists do the 3D/texture work that's required based on the concept and design.

by my definition, a lot of "design" work is delegated. a dedicated designer (like Romero) may specify 4 environments and X number of bad guy types, and specific types of bosses, but delegate the details of things like the exact look of a given boss or the exact layout of a given level to 3d artists or level designers who flesh out the design.

Yeah that's what I was getting at with the design team. He'd be the lead designer, and there might be a combat designer (who tweaks damage amounts, etc) and a level designer (who tweaks layouts, etc) underneath him, etc...

In my experience, stuff like the look of a character usually wouldn't be touched by the design team because it doesn't impact game-play. There'd be an art director, who's delegating to concept artists to come up with initial "look" designs, and then delegating to the 3D artists to implement them.

The exception is if there's a "creative director" on the team -- this guy wants to be a dictator over everything, from looks, to gameplay, to story, to sound... He'd basically be the lead designer, lead writer and art director in one... possibly also the executive producer, and CEO...

The level designers that I mentioned don't actually create the level content, besides crudely drawn layouts on napkins
A concept artist paints a picture of what different parts of the level should look like, a designer decides on the flow for gameplay's sake (this enemy introduced here, a big firefight with cover happens here, a platform timed-jumping puzzle happens there, etc), and then environment artists do the 3D/texture work that's required based on the concept and design.

those would be true "spec guys" then!

fascinating.

i suppose those positions are usually held by true gamer types, eh?

so they design the play layout, then hand it off to others to punch it up in the level editor...

that would be a big team there.

ah, to command such a crew! think of the games one could build! <g>.