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."

Comments

false hopes

[Danzigism]

seems like some of those people were merely lucked out thanks to their previous hollywood careers.. of course some had done some pretty hard work, but it almost feels like it could turn into one of those fields like "communication".. you do a lot of work, and can't get shit worth of a job.. but i encourage it.. simply because I really need good freakin video games.. they are great works of art, and its a good outlet for their expressive minds.

Well, I'm not a game designer . . .

[PIPBoy3000]

but I play one on the web.

I've been creating modules for Neverwinter Nights for the last few years and have had far more exposure than I would have thought possible to the world of game design. I've had teams of people working for me, dealt with NDAs and contracts, stayed up way too late debugging, and gone from extremes of giddiness to despair.

It sounds silly, but making games is a ton of work. Most of it isn't pleasant and it requires someone who enjoys creating things for the sake of the creation. The pay is lousy and you'll get hate mail no matter what creative decisions you make. Things will break and people will complain and ask for help. I find myself playing tech support to the world, explaining how you can't overclock your computer on a hot Summer day in Spain, or how you need to extract all the files from a .zip file, not just the one that looks neat.

Still, I've kept it as a hobby for a long while now and don't plan on stopping any time soon. On the plus side, I've gotten some extremely uplifting e-mails from cancer patients, Israeli soldiers, and Peace Corps volunteers talking about how happy my games made them when all seemed bleak. As cliche as it sounds, it's that sort of thing that keeps me motivated.

Re:do people still design games ?

[Coryoth]

I thought they just added some textures and models to a someone-elses/IDGames/Valve 3D engine , add in a movie franchise theme

Oddly enough I have a friend who works in game design and it was essentially doing that that helped break him into the field - way back when the original doom first came out he created the AliensTC mod for Doom by himself at home for fun. It had good enough artwork, level design and general atmosphere that it got him noticed in the gaming community. Since then he's gone on to various jobs in game design, including working for Valve on Half Life 2.

The article is right - the best way to get into the field is to just get out there and put in the hard work. If you're good enough and manage to prove yourself you can do well.

Jedidiah.

Whatever happened to Crawford?

[John Seminal]

I was curious, what happened to the game programmers of yesterday, like Crawford who worked for Interplay before EA got to them. He wrote most of the Bard's Tale games.

As for how competitive the job of programming games are, I can say this much. I had a roomate a decade ago. He was addicted to games, did not go to sleep at night because he could not stop playing. I think one of his games was Warcraft, I don't remember, but I used to hear him at 2am on the phone, giggling as he called up other people playing the game over the network. But the guy also was barely making "C" grades in his classes. I dunno what happened to him, he eventually moved out because he could not tolerate my drinking, and the fact that I banged his sister when she came to visit for a weekend. I guess he should not have ditched her to go play more Warcraft. I was more than happy to show her the bars, among other things.

I kept telling him, it is different liking something as the consumer and liking it as the manufacturer. I love sports cars, but the one summer I spent working in an automotive factory was pure hell.

Anyways, the ones that I think would make cool games are the story tellers. Who knows, maybe an english lit major would make a better game designer than a programmer or math guy.

Stop Pretending It's Special

[robocrop]

Frankly I think the game industry will only mature when we stop pretending that it's this special, outlier, uber-hipster profession. It's a job, like anything else. All creative jobs require you to a. be creative and b. be skilled at what you want to do.

Want to make games? Learn a skill and come up with a game idea. Big news. Everything else is just self-congratulatory window dressing and delusion.

If more people treated it like a profession, the industry would naturally become more professional.

Re:Answer:

[abandonment]

I'd have to say that this is the case with most things in life - you never know where things will take you.

i started my 'official' game industry career (as opposed to my 15 hobby years of programming games starting on the vic20 on up) by participating in an open-source game engine project many years ago as 'user # 3' using the engine...

2 years later suddenly i was hosting & designing the website & forum, 2 years after that i became project lead organizing the community & planning features, roadmaps etc...

which all led to me and my business partner incorporating and launching our game company a little over 2 years ago...and we now have 10 employees, 2 game engines, just finishing a mobile title for a very large publisher and a number of large contracts under our belts going forwards...

all of which came from me donating thousands of hours helping & donating to an open source community and project.

the trick is - if you want to do something like 'becoming a game designer', then go out there and design games - there are hundreds of free / open source engines available and thousands of people looking to make games...organize yourself and the rest will follow.

what's the quote?

'free your mind and your ass will follow'

You can't look at the immediate financial benefit to start - look to the long-term goal and you will reach it...one baby step at a time.

Re:Obviuos things for nerds

[patio11]

For one, there is a defined path to becoming a neurosurgeon. You can decide, in eighth grade, "I want to become a neurosurgeon/lawyer/police officer/accountant" and, at every year from that point on, anyone relevant who you ask will say "I know what your next step needs to be". The steps generally involve a lot of work, but generally not clawing, kicking, and screaming -- just nose-to-the-grindstone following the path thats been clearly laid out for you.