Hey everyone,

Something I've been curious about on the more business end of things is how you would go about making individual ideas and features for games feel or seem unique for potential employers to make them more likely to hire you or use your idea? For example, I'm dabbling in AI for the first time and one of my first ideas was an AI character that learns and grows with the player as they play. I realized that this was very similar to the “Amiibo Fighters” from the Super Smash Brothers series and other games with AI characters. So in a hypothetical situation where I was trying to pitch this idea to a potential employer what should I do to set it apart? Or would it be better to embrace the similarities and try to show how improved my version is?

Your post is all over the place. The title you chose suggests you're asking a Game Design question, but then you say you're curious about the "business end of things," but then it turns out you're really asking how to get hired, and that you are under the impression that an employer will hire you because they actually want to make games from your ideas.

1. Nobody can answer your title question, "how to make an idea 'seem' unique." It's an impossible question.

2. The business end of things is funding, sales, marketing, licensing, and yes, HR is a small part of that.

3. Your ideas are not what'll get you hired. It's your education, mad skills, your accomplishments at getting things done, your flexibility, your team player skills that get you hired.

4. As for your last two sentences: don't try to make a game that you think a potential employer would want you to make. Make whatever game you want, that YOU are passionate about.

Going further: companies don't hire workers for the worker's ideas. The company isn't going to make your ideas, they are hiring you to make their ideas. Your ideas really don't figure in to the equation.

On your other question

Renzu said:
I'm dabbling in AI for the first time and one of my first ideas was an AI character that learns and grows with the player as they play. I realized that this was very similar to the “Amiibo Fighters” from the Super Smash Brothers series and other games with AI characters.

It's actually been an idea in games since the 1980s. It's been implemented in various forms many, many, many times. It only sounds like fun while you have no idea what machine learning actually does. Once you understand what machine learning actually does, you'll understand why it is a terrible idea to make fun games. AI cannot train against ‘fun’.

One of the first requirements for designers is to study the past so they learn from failures and from successes.

frob said:
Going further: companies don't hire workers for the worker's ideas. The company isn't going to make your ideas, they are hiring you to make their ideas. Your ideas really don't figure in to the equation.

it's disturbing how many people in games don't understand this.

This seems to be an industry myth, that if you join a indie company, they will make your ideas for you.

They will make the game they decided, and sure, you might have some ideas, that bolster the project, but rarely will you join and have them let you “design” a game all your own. People seem to target the “game designer” position, thinking that is what they get to do.