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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."
No.
I wanted to be a game designer forever. Then I heard all of the EA horror stories. I'm glad I never went near it.
I have no desire to "claw my way" into a job that will make my life miserable
Being a designer is about having a creative vision and adhering to it."
Or you could do it EA's way and release the same title every year and change the nametag from Johnson to Jonson and people are still gonna buy.
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.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Another way to inadvertantly become a game designer is to design a franchise. Create a successful comic book, write a successful movie, or write a succesful TV series, et cetera. Or write a good sci-fi novel. If you create a fictional universe where games can take place, and if your fictional universe gets popular enough, you'll be consulted when games are designed for that universe!
it's all about creativity you say? what job, regarding design ANY kind of software, is NOT about creativity? :~
me and my thinkpad, sittin' in a tree, c-o-d-i-n-g...
but I play one on the web.
.zip file, not just the one that looks neat.
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
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.
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.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
"Being a designer is about having a creative vision and adhering to it."
and willing to work 90 hour weeks while getting paid squat by EA.
You claw, kick and scream and push your way into it.
no that would be trying to get whats owed to you BY EA.
No one just falls into the position. You claw, kick and scream and push your way into it.
Yeah sure. And how is this different from the rest of the jobs out there (e.g. neurosurgeon)?
You will never get the opportunity with CliffB to "scrape and claw to the top" if you dont:
"...stick with your first project and see to it that you finish it with the team. I've known many people who have jumped from company to company and never actually shipped a game, and their resumes look like a "who's who" of the gaming industry. I avoid these folks at all cost, as this is the primary indicator of a lack of finishing ability!"
(From BliffyB's own website How to get hired.)
Which for these people, no matter how talented, puts their future employment fate into the hands of the project manager, moving goalpost politics, and skittery publishers.
Well if CliffyB has anything to do with the hiring process.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
It's interesting and depressing how many Slashdotters posting here think "game design" is the same as "game programming." But then, historically most people have never given a moment's thought to the idea someone actually invented the rules of the games they play.
I know for a fact this is changing, because I keep getting e-mail from elementary and junior-high school students doing assignments from their teachers. They're supposed to write to a game designer and get him to answer X number of questions the teacher has provided. For inscrutable reasons, when you type the exact term "game designer" into Google, my home page shows up on the first page, higher than any other individual designer. (Yeah, I know -- you've never heard of me.) Weird and unjust, but my penance for this fame is that all these kids write to me with their time-wasting questions. So I know at least some people are starting to recognize "game design" as a job, if not yet as a profession. Hope Slashdot follows pretty soon...
I personally think that the most direct path to a job in game design is a job in game programing. Programming is the only other non-design job that interacts with all other apsects of the industry, and it's a good way to learn about the requirements and concerns of all the elements and people in the games business.
Also, when you are the guy working on the code, it's actually fairly easy to have a big influence on the design of the final product (as long as you are willing to do the work twice - their way and YOUR way - without wasting too much time, and without minding them throwing away your version in the trash).
Also, programmers are usually involved in design meetings. Designers are (usually) careful not to waste programmer time by asking for something that would take too long to implement, so you often get the oportunity to throw in your two cents.
I'd much rather remain a programmer, though. I like doing the work, not telling others what work to do.
for great justice, this sig has been moved
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.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
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.
Just remember that you don't want to claw your way to the top, only to be stuck working 20 hours a day on "Barbie's Fashion Adventure."
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?
1) Harbor an absurdly arrogant personality, enough to power a small city. Remember, you're a game designer now. You're better than everyone else in the computer industry. You may work in a cubicle in a nondescript office building just like anyone else, but dammit you're a game designer. You are special.
2) Develop an aversion to all forms of higher education. B.S. in math? Ewww, math. PhD in computer science? Pssh, you wasted your money on that? Wrote a Tetris clone in Pascal in your high school computer class? Whoa, you are young, edgy, and obviously too cool for school. Bonus points if you mentioned how much faster your program would be if you had written it in assembly. Uber bonus points if you started programming before the age of 9 because everyone knows that any decent developer started programming before they knew what their pee-pee was used for.
3) Research the many game programming flame wars so that you can be up to speed. Some places to start: C++ is slow, OpenGL/DirectX: Which one is better? (note: DirectX and Direct3D are just different names for the exact same thing, no difference...), Doom 3 has better graphics but Half Life 2 is the better game, Nvidia is better than ATI, etc.
4) Read everything you can by Andre LaMothe because he is the most relevant voice in the game industry...period! Oh, especially his "Tricks of..." series because everything when it comes to video game programming is a trick or a hack or the product of black fucking magic.
5) Know your video games! The only way to create a truly original video game is to know what's already been made. But if that doesn't work out, you can just create the umpteenth iteration of the same tired idea with better graphics and minor variations in game play and repackage it with CGI tits and ass and republish it at a higher price.
5a) There is nothing wrong with run on sentences. You're a game designer dammit! Time not grammar for!
6) Buy a Ferrari. Game designers make shit-tons of money. Heck, buy two. Use one during the week and the other one during all that free time you're going to have on the weekend...
7) Practice your deepthroating. You will need to fit John Carmack's penis down throat on a whim in casual conversation. This is sort of paying your dues to the gaming gods.
8) Game developers play lots of video games at work. In fact, on some days, that's all they do. So practice, practice, practice. You wouldn't want to get your ass kicked all the time by your co-workers?
9) Mountain Dew and bag of potato chips is a well balanced meal and you will suffer no ill effects in the long run.
10) Sleep is for the weak.
Okay, the fact is the gaming industry is fucking insane. You're working absurd hours to meet absurd deadlines so little Johnny can see the zombie's heads detonate in per pixel lighting only to get a memo on your desk that Johnny's parents are suing the company because they find the minor sexual content in the game to be offensive. And most game developers have earned advanced degrees in CS, Math, or Physics. They are smarter than you are. Go to school. Get a degree. Oh and avoid everything by andre lamothe, he only serves to belittle the accomplishments and hard work of very bright, very talented people in the industry. It is not black magic, it's just really fucking hard.
This brought to you by a frustrated RPI computer science major who realizes he's just too fucking stupid to make it as a game developer/designer.
btw, I think John is a brilliant developer, a nice guy, and I would gladly service him. Go spaceman, go...
i like grapes
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/
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?
Actually, math comes in really handy. Your first pass at balancing anything will need to be a mathematical one. You'll need math and algorithms to create healthy systems.
Far more than anything, though, you will need economics. The feedback systems that economics focuses on are exactly the sort of things that you will need as a game designer, without the stuff like calculus and O of n.
Of course, you will also need a healthy dose of writing and management. Design is 1 part writing designs, and one part managing teams.
To counterpoint the original poster, things you will need as a designer:
1. Backgrounds in basically everything. This ranges from the history of 17th century naval battles to being able to name all modern men's shoe styles. Everything comes in handy somewhere along the line.
A. Take Art. If you're a bad artist, or not an artist, this is even more important.
B. Take Programming. If you're a bad programmer, or not a computer guy, this is even more important.
C. Take film studies.
D. Take management.
E. Take economics.
F. Take a little of everything else you can get your hands on.
2. Yes, know all of the games out there. Play them all. Try to avoid making the same mistakes that 30 other teams already have.
3. Be stubborn sometimes. Being a designer involves adhering to a vision doggedly, which can be hard after 13 months of development. Be flexible, but when need be stick your foot down to stay true to the experience of the game.
4. Stay focused on what you're making. Remember, while it may be 13 months to you, it's 4 hours to the player.
5. Become a good communicator. Design is to a large degree about communication. Learn how to tell someone that something they just spent 6 weeks on sucks without discouraging them.
6. Be aware of yourself and your experience. You know, that touchy-feely junk. You are your best laboratory. You're also not your only laboratory, so run playtest sessions, but you really do need to know how you're experiencing things at all time.
The ______ Agenda
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.
That AliensTC mod was one of the best damn gaming experiences I ever had.
Why don't you give them a hot tip instead: buy Neverwinter Nights from bargain basket and start making modules. Sure, it lets you make D&D adventure games instead of Zelda games, but you have to start somewhere.
Coming to think of it, Zelda 3 wasn't a particularly complex game, as far as game engine goes - the fun came from level design. So it shouldn't be all that hard to make a similar Open Source engine.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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. :)
There are plenty of adventure game engines out there, and they rarely have complex sentence-recognition algorithms.