Yes and this is why most companies don''t make any money

"There''s so much too do, and a lot of you are wasting time.
This is ART dagnammit! get creative or get buried."

Some of the ideas in this thread smack of "there is no such thing as a composer... what could he do without the band members." or "there is no such thing as a TV Show writer... what could he do without the actors and production staff?" That''s fairly thin-brained (similar to narrow minded but sounds cooler).

To quote Bob Bates from the introduction to his book "Game Design: The Art and Business Of Creating Games":

quote: "Game design is a highly collaborative art. Each of us who works in the industry is a game designer, whether he knows it or not. From testers and producers to programmers, artists, marketers, and executives, we all help shape the games that pass through our hands. The product that finally appears on the shelves is the sum of all our efforts."

I think where the issue lays (not lies) here is the use of the term "game designer". Mr. Bates uses the term "game designer" as the person who "creates the design document and updates it throughout the course of development." For the most part, he is the one who is guiding the programmers, level designers, artists, etc. He is the "vision guy" who has, tucked away in his often cramped cabesa, the image of what the player will do and how things will look - generally laying out the overall experience. I would suspect that a game designer would often be found quoting Dr. King... i.e. "I have a dream!"

Are there game designers in major production houses? Sure... someone had to come up with an idea somewhere and say "let''s do this... I want it to look like... I want it to play like..." Does that role tend to fall to more than one person? Sure. I am sure there are brainstorming committes, etc. Are there likely to be suggestions made by programmers, artists, sound people, and the ocassional wayward janitor? Sure. However, to say that there are no game designers at the major production houses would mean that games seem to spring up as random cosmic events... not unlike the "if you give 100 monkeys 100 typewriters..." scenario. That''s silly.

Additionally, if there are no specific game designers, why then is Microsoft advertising one on Gamasutra at this moment? [link]http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/jobs_display.php3?job_id=802[/link]

Now, does one have to be a programmer, etc. in order to be a game designer? No... as long as you surround yourself with competent people. Does it help? Definately. Lionel Richie and Phil Collins couldn''t read music. I think they managed to put together a few tunes here or there... they surrounded themselves with good people and communicated what they wanted... probably through a lot of humming and tapping. (I am an ex-pro composer/arranger/musician myself!) For someone who is a programmer, or at least knows how it works, it helps to pre-process your ideas as you pass them on to the staff. You have already (I hope) been trained to think linearly, modularly, logically, etc. and are already working from basic premises as you formulate ideas. However, if we were to limit game design to those who knew ALL of the facets of programming, art, music, level design, etc., there would be very people in the job. Thankfully, all that is necessary is to come up with ideas - preferably cool ones - and be able to pass that on to people with skills in individual disciplines. (Having someone around with large checkbook doesn''t hurt either.)

So, don''t be daunted or depressed because someone tells you that there is no Santa Claus... er... wrong speech... uh... that there are no game designers. If you have designed a game, then you have obviously proven them incorrect.







Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development

quote: Original post by InnocuousFox

Lionel Richie and Phil Collins couldn't read music. I think they managed to put together a few tunes here or there... they surrounded themselves with good people and communicated what they wanted... probably through a lot of humming and tapping. (I am an ex-pro composer/arranger/musician myself!)

Don't want to stray off topic, but I don't agree with what you're saying here. You're implying that you have to be able to read music notation to be able to play/write music. This may be true for most instruments but not guitar. Most of the famous guitarists don't know squat about music notation, many of them may not even know what notes they're playing (well I don't know about that but.. who knows, with guitarists like Slash that are fully self taught it's possible). Oh and of course the reason I brought this up is because I play guitar for ~4 years now and I have figured out solos purely by ear, but don't know music notation at all. Though I can tell what notes I'm playing and what chords I'm playing, but anyone with a good ear can figure out how to play simple tunes on a piano without ever taking a lesson.

We now return you back to your original programming


Edited by - Supernova on January 6, 2002 10:03:44 PM

Wow! I can''t believe you guys...sure game designers exist. I am one of them at Sony, lead designing games for Playstation 2 (twisted metal: black was the last game I worked on and I was the director of that game). I''ve been doing design for the last 6 years (Tm1,2, black; worked on Kinetica; as well as some 16 bit stuff). I don''t do art, don''t code, and don''t run the company. I come up with many game docs and me- along with 2 others (head of the studio and the producer)- make the call as to what we make (after making sure the lead coder and art director are on board). There are 4-6 other designers doing the same thing (2 internal projects and about 4-6 external). So don''t let all this negative and cynical talk get you down...sure at some companies there are no designers (or the designers are idiots) but most companies (big and small) are beginning to realize you need a good designer (with experience) to guide the creative end of the ship....and yes, there is TONS of input from the rest of the team but smart companies realize it can be no democracy (that=disaster)...it''s like directing a film...creative wise, it''s your call but you''d be very very smart to listen to the rest of the very talented team...

This whole negative ''i''ll never get to show off my vision'' is bullshit...however, anyone with the gumption and self-starting mindset to push thier ideas into production probably don''t need me telling them this...I can''t tell you how many testers have have asked me ''how can I design''? And then I say ''well, write some stuff up, and let''s talk about it...'' but they never do, they just stay all negative and talk about ''if I were in charge, these games would ROCK!''...yeah,right..then do the freaking work and GET IN CHARGE!..I think the best analogy could be people who say they want to write but never sit their asses down and do it...design is a real job that can be attained if you are willing to do the work...TRUST ME..I''d kill for 1-4 GREAT game designers to work with me on my next game...a great game design (and designer) is gold...someone walks into my office with a design I love, you can be damn sure we''d hire that guy (or at least offer to option/buy the design)...most of the designs I see suck (including many of my own)! Yes there are those out there who say ''bah, design documents...who needs them''...and YES, you don''t want to be a slave to design docs AND most of the best ideas come during production...but more and more, the foundation of the game needs to be laid out at the start...there are fewer and fewer development houses that- with the teams getting bigger- can simply go ''hey, let''s start a FPS and just see where it goes''...these projects tend to (not always) crash and burn...however, it is neat/interesting that many of the best games are STILL made this way....but they are few and far between...

spidey



spidey

woohoo!

Although I''m sure there are a lot more design positions for consoles since the market is much bigger.

Innocuous - why not "lies" ?

quote: Original post by Argus
Innocuous - why not "lies" ?

Refering to my original sentence:

"I think where the issue lays (not lies) here is the use of the term "game designer".

Because I would then be implying that the issue is not telling the truth. The proper word to use, despite the severly compromised state of the predominant American dialect of the English language (read: how much we have hoarked up English over time), is "lay". That would accurately convey my intent of stating that the issue is positioned in a certain place... i.e. in "the use..."

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development

quote: Original post by Supernova
Don''t want to stray off topic, but I don''t agree with what you''re saying here. You''re implying that you have to be able to read music notation to be able to play/write music.

You solidified my point for me... which was, you don''t have to be entirely technicaly proficient in order to be the "designer"... just able to have a general knowledge and the ability to communicate it to the others whose services you need in order to flesh it out.

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development

I think we strayed a bit here. My post was to point out that the job of game designer rarely falls upon the shoulders of one individual person. Sure, some companies do have genuine game designers, but the vast majority of them do not. Furthermore, a game designer with no prior experience has no rights to a big-budget game, therefore it is a sucky starting job. I'm just trying to get this across to all the starry-eyed visionaries around here with all these great ideas that may never see the light of day as a highly-published title because it's the first thing they want to pull off in their game developer careers. Better to start off in some field at the bottom and work up to a position where you can preach with impudence and cater your grand ideas to big name publishers who will drool over your every word. Okay that's a bit too much exagerration but you get the idea It's just that too many people think a game designer is an entry-level job, when it really isn't. I'd like to repeat what I said about Diodor's posting of the Salary Survey, and that an entry-level programmer stands a better chance at making more than an entry-level designer. I'm not trying to kill off any flames of people who want to design games, I'm just saying that there really isn't a direct route to game design besides starting your own company. If people really want to do nothing but design games, all the power to them, they'll just have one hell of a time finding a job at any existing development house, that's all. So that's the grim reality, not the idea that you can never become a designer.

_________________________________________________________________

Drew Sikora
A.K.A. Gaiiden

ICQ #: 70449988
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Blade Edge Software
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3-time Contributing author, Game Design Methods , Charles River Media (coming GDC 2002)
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As one of my college teachers told me - "anybody can learn to code, but not everybody can be a programmer"

hell, i've learned to play the guitar, drums, basketball, how to paint, build houses, etc, etc...But I never consider my self a musician, basketbally player, painter, architect, etc...

I think that the position of game designer is over rated sometimes as others have pointed out. The overall attidude I get from most people here is that they have dreams and goals, but they have no idea the work behind it all. Why do you think that the sudden upspring of all the "how do I use oop" and "I know how to code, but I don't know how to put together a complete game" posts get posted like they do....These people know how to do the stuff on a small scale (like I paint rooms sometimes) but they can't get to the level they want (like If I wanted to be a pro painter

They want to be a game designer, but most think it's just a position where you make up ideas for games.


-Pactuul

"The thing I like about friends in my classes is that they can't access my private members directly."
"When listening to some one tell about their problem (whether it's code or not), don't listen to what went right or wrong, but what they assumed....."





Edited by - Pactuul on January 7, 2002 2:42:10 AM

The few game designers that I am acquainted with got there after years in the industry, starting from entry level programming grunt.

I think the whole point of this thread is that there''s no such thing as some people''s vision of a game designer. Rather I think its more like a management position. You pay your dues, gain experience and credibility, and work your way up.

Many of the games I''ve bought have a "lead design" credit, so there seems to be such a thing as a game designer.

I''m sure its not just a think tank either. Ideas are a dime-a-dozen, and you don''t have to strain much to come up with ideas and high level plans. The strain comes from the expense and time to implement them.

The few game designers that I''m acquainted with are involved every step of the way, reviewing code and getting their hands dirty when necessary. If the success of the game rests on their shoulders, they better damn well understand its inner workings, not just the high level.

With few exceptions, I don''t think you can jump into the industry and start as a game designer. I think you have to earn it.

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