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So You Want To Be a Game Designer?
Gamespot is running a feature which talks to designers such as CliffyB and Akira Yamaoka on the subject of what it means to be a game designer. From the article: "No one just falls into the position. You claw, kick and scream and push your way into it. Most designers start off as programmers or artists. They understand gameplay systems; they live and breathe games. From my perspective, I was making my own games, programming them, doing all the artwork, the production, level design, and everything because I didn't have anybody else to do it for me. That background helped give me the perspective it takes to pull a product together and have a creative vision for it. Being a designer is about having a creative vision and adhering to it."
Finally, something to give the idiots at school when they fantasize about creating the next Zelda game...
You might be joking... but there was the eawife thing that started it all
http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/
then there was the reports of them giving employees low wages, overworking employees without overtime - maybe illegally etc.
Rejoice that FC has given you the honour of educating the infrared masses so that they may better serve FC :) Are you saying this doesn't make you happy?
I have no idea how good it is, but Ferris State University's Grand Rapids MI campus launched a game-design program a couple years ago. For what it's worth, I (an employee of Ferris' art-and-design college) have just been assigned to take over tech support for them, so I'll be getting a better picture of the program in the coming months.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The 99% of programming that companies will pay you to do? Over half the programs in the world were weritten in Visual Basic. They do simple, repetitive tasks such as converting files, displaying files, and giving the user a couple options and then doing some simple other thing. They are not creative. They are not interesting. Nobody wants to do them. They are what you will write.
I'm the author of the Shadowlords, Dreamcatcher, and Demon campaigns. They're all in the Hall of Fame over on Neverwinter Vault. These days I'm working on a pirate adventure, mostly likely for Neverwinter Nights 2.
Here's a good place to start if you're interested http://www.gamedev.net/reference/ Looks like it would takes years of dedication, but the payoff would be ... low wages long hours?
First, I've worked for EA, and I work for Sony now as a game programmer, so I know something about this. In all my 10 years, I've only known one person go from programming to design. The reason? Who wants to take a huge paycut to be some creative director/execs lackey? Good programmers make 50% more than good designers. The gap is even wider between so-so programmers and so-so designers. Programmers get more respect with management, although they don't always get all the fame. So I guess if you want to trade a little fame for a huge chunk of cash, go for it. I'll take the cash, because I like my BMW, thank you.
I guess if you're a shitty programmer you can go into design and do better, but I think that's the exception and not the rule.
Remember, unless you're making your own game, you're somebody else's bitch.
A few years ago I started a Myst-style adventure game project called Verenia. It's no longer active because it failed horribly. ;)
However, leading the project has given me an incredible amount of experience. At EuroMysterium 2005 (a convention for Myst fans) I gave a presentation on the subject of leading a project. It's aimed at doing adventure games, but it applies to most, if not all, game types.
I hope this is useful to anyone who has been thinking of starting a game project. :)
Besides, designing is only necessary when there is something new or different.
Utter bullshit. You obviously have no experience of games development.
The fact of the matter is that ideas are, for the most part, completely worthless. And it's not ideas that game designers, in general, are paid for.
What game designers do get paid for is the ability to make the thousand little decisions along the way that separate the truly great game from the merely average. Why is Halo great, but Killzone merely so-so? They're both basically just shooters. The ability to analyze what's working in your game, what's not, and what you can do to push your game in the right direction is not an easy thing. And that's what most game designers are paid to do.
Now, it's true that there are some designers out there who every now and then come up with a genuinely different idea. A Will Wright or a Sid Meier, say. But those are the exceptions. The vast majority of designers are not going to be those guys. The vast majority of designers, even when they are working on original IP, are still working within the framework of an established genre or blend of genres.