Everyone has an idea and some think they are good or the best. 3,500 pc games came out last year and only a less than a hand full did well. So why do so many strive and think they got the best, when what they have is a outdated game? Do you think that the worst pc game today is better than an average game 10 years ago (maybe)? Well 2 heads are better than 1, so maybe 10 designers making 1 game will have a better chance that 1 designer. Well my guess is that most designers are in a way over confident and will not put a lot of ideas in a game which another person can. Well its good to see some comeing in the forum to ask for advice but it would be better if the game had more than 1 or 3 designers. Its like, how many new game designers does it take to equal a expert (maybe 10-50)? lol But 10 exprets can''t come up with 1 original idea that a new designer makes sometimes. So why should it be you? or another? or even I? (you don''t know me so don''t ponder me) Sorry for any errors on the page. Take care and good luck Don''''t say something is great by compairing it to other thing, but by what technology can do.

I''m not too sure about what you are trying to say (especially considering the last line of your post), but some things to keep in mind :

- a lot of ideas sound great on paper but turn out to make boring games. If you invested a lot of money and time into developping one of these, you would still try to get at least some of the money back by marketing it (and with good marketing you can sell pretty much everything). Sadly, somtimes you won''t find out if the idea was great until you actually tried it out.

- If you''re not a professional game programmer : even if you make the Nth Quake or C&C Clone, in the end you will be proud that you did it, even if others did it before you. It''s a bit like climbing the Mount Everest. You start small, and climb higher and higher mountains. Sure .. you won''t have been the first one, but what should matter is that YOU did something which most mortals only dream of, not whether you did it better than everybody else. Beside, coming up with a truely original idea is extremely rare (in all fields, not only in game programming), so aim to do things a slightly bit differently instead of doing them ~better~ (highly subjective term anyway)

quote: Original post by Warsong
So why should it be you? or another? or even I? (you don''t know me so don''t ponder me)

Why does it bother you? Why is this what consumes your time?

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

Are you simply saying that because there are thousands of games on the market, and only a handful did well (which really isn''t true unless ''doing well'' means the very top tier of the recent games), why should anyone bother to make games? The answer to that is simple: Why not? If you think you have a shot to make a game that is on par with (or better than) the top tier of games, why not take a shot at it?

However, I share your feelings, not many games are original anymore. It seems that every game recently are merely just an update of some games in the past. But you neglected this factor - the whole reason why this thing is called "Video Game ''Industry.''" No matter how original idea that a designer comes up with, it still needs to be ''okay-ed'' by a higher up. The vast majority of these higher ups would not take a chance on original idea because there''s no way for them to tell if it''ll make money or not. That''s what designers have to face, they try come up with the best idea as they can possible just to watch it get cut down because the company fears it may not profit much.

Expert designers and new designers both share a want and need to make games as original as possible. The only real difference is that the expert designers know how to convice their company to keep as much of that design intact.

That''s my two cents.

quote: Original post by Warsong
Everyone has an idea and some think they are good or the best.

There''s is nothing wrong with that. Think of it like this, why would anyone would want to make a game with a crappy idea?

quote: 3,500 pc games came out last year and only a less than a hand full did well. So why do so many strive and think they got the best, when what they have is a outdated game? Do you think that the worst pc game today is better than an average game 10 years ago (maybe)?

Outdated game isn''t the reason why those games didn''t sell well. They failed due to other reasons. And yes, the pc games today is better than the average game 10 years ago in terms of graphics, AI, and music. But originality is actually worse than 10 years ago.

quote: Well 2 heads are better than 1, so maybe 10 designers making 1 game will have a better chance that 1 designer.

10 heads certainly have 10 times more brain power but they also have 10 mouths to argue. And if you have 100 designers together, they would spend the whole day arguing instead of doing actual work.

quote: Well my guess is that most designers are in a way over confident and will not put a lot of ideas in a game which another person can. Well its good to see some comeing in the forum to ask for advice but it would be better if the game had more than 1 or 3 designers.

Shrug, whatever fits your budget.

quote: Its like, how many new game designers does it take to equal a expert (maybe 10-50)? lol But 10 exprets can''t come up with 1 original idea that a new designer makes sometimes.

A designer is a designer. There are no experts. (Try and find someone in the industry that actually have a card that reads "expert designer" if you don''t believe me.) And stop making comments that "10 experts can''t come up with 1 originial idea...". If you want to design, then design. If you want to compalain, then you''ll just be wasting time not designing.

quote: So why should it be you? or another? or even I? (you don''t know me so don''t ponder me)

Why shouldn''t it be me? They goto work and spend 8 hours designing. I goto work, come home and spend my 8 hours of leisure time on design everyday. They perform research for their projects; I goto library and research for the game too. They do documentations; I''ve written several game faqs. They done webpages; I''ve done clan webpage for game. But, there is one thing they have that I don''t, a heck lot more experience.

But that dosen''t stop me since I know if I can keep going at this pace and maintain it, eventually I''ll have enough experience and catch up to rest of them. I''m not a designer today, and very unlikely I will be one tomorrow, but someday I''ll be able to level with the rest them.

Yes the results for last year was that only a hand full of 3,500 games did well, and the rest of the people lost money, time in making them.

And why are your good at game design? Why not another designer?

Arguments will happen if their are more people but their should be more than 1 designer in a game I am saying but their can only be 1 captain on a ship, or at least a vote with explanations or why and have a main designer.

Well if the worst game of last year had an extra 10 designers with their own somewhat original concept wouldn’t the game have succeeded more?

So the point I am saying in a way is no matter how good you are it is always good to have another designer.

Well I think I am good in my design and most like the originality.
So I say I am good mostly because others say so. lol So why do you say you are?

take care

ps. hey whats up mooglez havent seen in a while.

Don''''t say something is great by compairing it to other thing, but by what technology can do.

about the 10 designers is better than 1 thing:

If you''re lucky you''ll have 10 (or whatever) designers that all share a vision and are able to collaborate to make that vision a reality in the form of a game. If you aren''t so lucky, then you''ll have 10 people all with slightly different ideas about how the game should be and you end up with an uncoherent patchwork of ideas from 10 different people.

I''m not saying that all games should have but one designer. I''m simply saying that more is not always better (as others have said before me ).

The good thing about having one designer is that the ideas are coherent and they link together well. Also, you don''t have interference so that the one designer can fully realise the vision idea he was shooting for. That is, if the designer is a good one.
The bad is that the designer may have a flawed vision to begin with, or that he doesn''t cover all the angles (so he might stuff up a good game with sloppy interface, or he might have even left out some basic stuff, that becomes apparent once you start playing through it).

The good thing with having 10 designers is that you can specialise designers in one area (so you have one person working exclusively on the battle system, and one on the interface, etc.) You also get more feedback and angles on the overall design, and a few designers might come up with something cool that a single designer wouldn''t have thought of.
The bad is that you get miscommunication, undermining of some ideas, as the visions aren''t necessarily the same and maybe a lack of cohesiveness in the final product.

Of course the best is to have 1 talented designer, with members of the team contributing regularly to the gamedesign, even if they''re only artists, or programmers, or even QA.

As far as games been successful, they''re many reasons why they can fail, sometimes perfect products are released, but they fail because another competing product or lack of public intrest stalls its sales - such as the game Planescape Torment. Most people that play through it recognize it as one of the best PC RPGs around, but then again, not that many people have played it!

I agree that if you could have 10 designers with the _EXACT_ same vision of how the game should be, this would probably benefit the game for the best. But that is never the fact in any project, at least not in software design. The larger the team the more struggle with getting the common goal visible to everyone.

I think the suggestion with 1 (talanted, but most of all open minded to others ideas) designer and a team of co-designers, let it be artists, programmers or whomever that feel they can contribute, is the best solution for team work today. The lead designer definitely needs to have input from people around him. I have a hard time believing he can have _ALL_ aspects of the game clear in his head, and have anticipated all ways of looking at the game. This is what his co-designers can help him with at an early stage.

...guess that was my 0.02$

- Captain

quote: Original post by Warsong
How do you know you are good in creating games?

I don´t, but I assume that I am in order to do my job right. And sometimes it works...