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In a studio, who comes up with the next project to work on. I was just curious on who is responsible for that or is it variable by studio. Does it come from the CEO, sales department, lead designer or is it agreed upon by committee.
This is available for anyone who knows, but I would love to hear from those with studio experience.
A lot of studios are a Work-For-Hire business model, where they don't really get to decide at all what they're going to make. Instead, you find publishers/IP-owners who need studio to make a game for them, and then you create a pitch to try and secure that work (which may involve making a GDD/TDD, concept art, a budget, and even a small prototype)... and then hopefully your studio is selected to make the game.
At self-funded studios, it will usually be an executive/director who makes the choice of what game to make next -- CEO (managing director in real English) or creative director, etc... Hopefully though, the design and concepting teams would have a lot of input in the process, and even flesh out a few different game designs before one is chosen.
In a studio, who comes up with the next project to work on. I was just curious on who is responsible
for that or is it variable by studio. Does it come from the CEO, sales department, lead designer or
is it agreed upon by committee.
Oh ok. Very enlightening.
Do programmers ever have a say in design during production of a game or are they only restricted to programming.
Do designers have any other skill other than "design". Do they code/script, or do they just write up a design document then pass it along to a programmer.
Our company is still independent so all our games are internal IP. We do pitch nights that anybody can submit to whenever we get close to starting pre production on our next game. A lot of times a designer will hook up with somebody who has reasonable Unity experience so they can knock out a simple proof of concept for the idea. Having a playable demo goes a long way to see if the game is going to be any fun before further design time is put on it. We will get a short list of ideas from the pitch night and maybe some old pitches we didn't do anything with before and the senior design people will figure out which one they want to do. At that point the high level ideas will get a tech pass on them to see if it is something we can do in a reasonable amount of time. That goes back and forth for a bit and once the overall idea is finalized actual design starts to take place.
Do programmers ever have a say in design during production of a game or are they only restricted to programming.
Yes, programmers and artists have a say. If they don't... I'd say it's a poor studio. Programmers need to be consulted on the feasibility of what can be done ("this is easy", "this is hard", "this is next to impossible", "we already own tech to help us with that", "I know someone experienced on that area we could hire/consult", "that will take X man hours", "what you're proposing won't work the way you think, it's going to suck/be awesome"). Exactly the same happens with artists.
At least the tech leads and art directors need to be consulted. Whether every single programmer or just the ones with authority have a voice depends on each studio's policy and their size.
It depends on the studio. Some studios will allow anybody in the company to pitch a game idea. I have worked at one company where we ended up working on a game that was pitched by a 15 year old school work experience kid who was only there to make the tea and coffee.
Most of the time the ideas have usually come from the designers and producers as these guys have the most experience at putting a successful pitch together. You can have the best idea in the world but unless you can effectively communicate it to everybody then it isn't going to get picked up.
Do designers have any other skill other than "design". Do they code/script, or do they just write
up a design document then pass it along to a programmer.
