Are we talking about writing code, making art or the whole development process? For the former two, I don't think you have to be a player, for the last one, obviously you have to be a player. At the very least you have to play with your own game, it's called testing.

I'm a programmer,but you could respond for designers too. Sure,a person who doesn't play games could make a game,but I think it might not be what we expect. I mean we,the gamers,are used to a certain style of gameplay. FPS,RPG,MMORPG whatever,in fps we are used with the feel of the camera,the weapons etc, a non gamer might design a game which might feel uncomfortable to us. For example,let's take a small ideea: most games use a fov of about 60 degrees,a non gamer might use a different value,since he's not used to seeing games like we do(yes,its a forced example,since everyone could probably view that the image looks kinda distorted,but if you search deeper,there are many places where a non gamer dev might do mistakes).

Personally,I think games are like movies,one should definitely watch great movies in order to make great movies.

I take a slightly different approach. In attempt to avoid subconsciously cloning other games, I'll isolate myself from game while designing and creating the first iteration. I'll then go back and play similar games to see what I can do better and iterate. I find this approach allows me to gain different perspectives on lots of little gameplay elements that would have just automatically gone the way every other game did them if I was used to that. I must say though, this is approach is often difficult since I love playing games!

You can also watch some HD Youtube movies instead of playing, you will see more, and its cheaper to.

Sometimes when gaming i also take a picture of the screen for inspiration.

greetings

You can also watch some HD Youtube movies instead of playing, you will see more, and its cheaper to.

Sometimes when gaming i also take a picture of the screen for inspiration.

greetings

Very true, all of the let's plays out there can be really useful from a research standpoint. Plus, not only is it cheaper, but it doesn't take near as much time. Let's face it, if you start playing a quality game, you are going to end up playing it a lot longer than you would watch a video on YT.

let's plays

It's not a bad idea to examine the let's play curse for yourself, it's very similar to talking on a cell phone while driving. If a game is engaging and difficult, the average person talking and playing at the same time will make really obvious mistakes.

Also there's plenty of controversy about let's plays, business section. http://www.gamedev.net/topic/651085-banning-game-related-videos-from-youtube-for-copyright-abuse/

From a design perspective, it’s almost certainly necessary to play games a lot in order to understand how to make a good game. I think it’s a good idea to have a deep understanding of the specific kind of game you’re making by playing lots of similar games, but also to have a wide general understanding of game design in other genres so you can bring in design principles from other types of games that might make your game stand out. Even as a programmer or an artist, playing games can still give you an idea of what is possible and give you inspiration for effects or other things you’d like to make in your game.

For example,let's take a small ideea: most games use a fov of about 60 degrees,a non gamer might use a different value,since he's not used to seeing games like we do(yes,its a forced example,since everyone could probably view that the image looks kinda distorted,but if you search deeper,there are many places where a non gamer dev might do mistakes).

I think that’s one of the potential pitfalls of being overly influenced by existing games. A FoV of around 60 has become standard for console shooters, but first person games on PC (where the monitor is a lot closer to your eyes) are much more natural with a FoV of around 90 degrees, so looking at it from a fresh perspective can be good in some cases.

I have found that I get more game programming done now that I largely don't play games. It was important to have played games when I was younger to know what kinds of games I like, and what is often wrong about mass-produced, giganto-corp games, but for the purposes of actually getting the work done, not playing games is probably the second most important thing I've done. The first most important was probably "quit bitching about not getting enough done."

There are times I open a game and actually play it for entertainment and don't pay attention to many technical or design details, except for what I absorb naturally here and there.

Some other times, I open games on purpose, just to analyze whats good about them, and how can I transport the concepts to my own games in a good way, with a mutation that makes it unique again, yet without losing the essence that made it fun in the first place. No creation is really original, but a composite of many other works we've seen before, so why not dive in into this concept and absorb information wherever its looking promising?

"To be good at writing books, you must read books" - This is something I fully agree on, and something that, in my opinion, applies 100% in game development too. Sure, there are those guys who play games like Call of Duty and League of Legends hundreds of hours and claim to be learning from it, as developers, but never get anything done. Otherwise, anyone who is serious about making good games, can and should take other good games as inspiration. The more you get inspiration from a source, transform that into creative energy and effective work, learn what failed in your creation and then repeat from the start, the better developer you become, as a designer, artist or programmer.

I've played many games myself, some a lot of hours, other less. But I can say there wasn't a single game I really liked and got me interested that I didn't examine deeply, and that helped me a great deal to improve as a developer. I've stopped by games like Assassins Creed looking at the city in detail, thinking and sketching on paper how I would implement such a city myself. Braid, figuring how to solve the time-traveling problem by myself. Opened League of Legends in a map with no players or bots, just to examine every single system in the game and figuring how I would implement it.

These are just examples on the top of my head among many other cases, but in sum, yes, playing the good games will help you see what great things are being invented by the best designers, and if you look closely enough, you will have some insight on how to actually get the same done. The more you do this, the bigger the creative "soup" in your head gets and you can do better games, getting the mechanics almost always right by experience!

I do think that one should play good/games to make proper ones. My problem with that currently though is that I kinda stopped having fun playing games :S