As we've grown, we constantly try to find people to promote into leadership positions and form new teams - however, it rarely works. Much more commonly someone arrives on the scene or emerges as a super-talented individual. To make a top movie, you have to be super talented, to make a top game you have to be super talented, to write the best book ever written you have to be super talented. You can pick up skills on the job and you can refine your skills, clearly, but the very special talent that is required to truly be a top developer of any creative property type is not something that you can start life as B talent and a few years later emerge as an A talent. At least not commonly, it's sort of a lifestyle attitude that begins with people at a very young age. You can see they've got a top talent even before they have all the skills all they need. Those are very rare. For example, in the history of Origin, we really had 2, in 20 years, Richard Garriott, myself, who could develop Ultimas, we had Chris Roberts who could develop Wing Commanders, and those were the two triple-A hitmakers in our company. We had a couple of B+ guys, Warren Spector and Tony Zurovec [designer of Crusader: No Remorse] were sort of our B+ guys, and Warren went on to become an A player, but I don't even know what Tony's doing any more. But the same thing is true for almost any company, you go back over time with, people who are triple A talent, who have pretty good odds of making a hit, and then there's everybody else.I'm not sure how I feel about this, as I consider game design to be a skill like any other. It can be learned, practiced, honed, but more importantly it can be critiqued and judged against a set of standards and practices.I will admit however, game designers are subjected to much gray area as the success of game design is measured by an elusive, intangible, immeasurable, subjective statistic: fun. How fun a game is determines how well it was designed, which is then reflected on the ability of the designer. But it brings up the question:
Are Game Designers Only Born, Not Made?
I will not argue that some just simply "have" that passion. I can speak for myself in the matter of those types of people referred to as "AAA types" by Garriott: making video games is close behind falling in love and raising children for giving life relevance. That sounds dramatic, but it's true. I referred to it in a previous post as the onus of the artist. I believe all creative people, regardless of their medium, can only be 100% fulfilled when they are creating. The act of creation can be expressed solely through a healthy marriage or raising kiddoes, it is not limited to an "artistic medium", but these people need to express it. They need to create.
But they are only a handful of individuals, and they are scattered throughout all sorts of walks of life. I doubt every well-respected game designer is one of these "AAA types". Many game designers simply "ended up" in that position, even if it wasn't their career goal. Especially on small indie teams, the "game designers" are not some tribunal of wisemen who convene at a round table to discuss mechanics, elements, story, etc. The hat of the "Game Designer" is one worn underneath other larger, more impressive hats like "AI Programmer", "3D Artist", "Level Designer", "CEO", "Producer", etc.If the team is small enough, the design of the game is really determined by the team as a whole. Each person has a skill set, but chose to work in the games industry because they have a passion for games, they like to work on and create them at some level. Everyone in the games industry is a "Game Designer" on some level, with a few exceptions.
But the ironic part is the design of the game is the MOST important part of the game. Good design(ers) lead to innovative new mechanics that spawn countless knock-offs and reproductions (cover mechanic from Killswitch is what pretty much made Gears of War famous). Good design leads to fun, and fun is the reason any of us (developers, publishers, consumers) are here; fun should always be the main goal, you really cannot have too much fun.
I came across this post from Peter Bottomley while looking for UDK tutorials (couple weeks into the massive UDK tutorial library which dwarfs Unity's support library by a mile). Peter's post mentions the aforementioned issue that "everyone" on a team is a Game Designer, but details the double standards game designers face to show how, really, not "everyone" on a team is a Game Designer. Peter mentioned he was inspired by an article by Mikael Säker,which is also a fantastic read. Mikael details the real duties of a Game Designer versus a Programmer/Artist/Producer who has a nice fitting game designer hat:
Designers are good at creating work (problems) for others. Designers are bad at providing the tools necessary for solving these problems.
In other words, the role of the game designer is not to create “ideas” for the team. It is to provide design. Those are two very different things. Design is not about dumping problems (the “ideas”) on other people and force them to do the actual design work.
I have heard designers say things like “this move doesn’t feel good, it has to be animated better so it feels right” – heck, I’ve said stuff like that myself! And you know what? That is a piece of utterly worthless feedback! If I work on a mechanic, I should know the purpose of it. If I can’t answer why it is in the design, what its function is, how could I ever know what to look for during implementation? It is lack of understanding that leads me to blurt out vague statements like “this has to feel cooler”.
It is my duty to properly drill into the designs. It is our job to sort out unknowns, find answer to questions and make sure that all those uncomfortable issues that appear during the drilling process are called out and dealt with. When our co-workers start to implement the design that we have created, we should give them the answers and tools they need.
When a programmer needs diagrams describing the flows of moves and metrics for speeds, distances and timings, I should be the one to turn to.
If a level designer needs pacing plans and a library of blueprints for combat encounter set pieces – I should create those tools because it is my job to understand the game and answer questions.And if that is not inspiration to keep working on game ideas, keep learning C++ and C#, keep teaching myself UDK, Unity, and other kits, then I don't know what is.
But where do quality Game Designers come from? Game design, once defined, IS a skill you can learn. You can be good at, you can be bad at, and while "everyone" on a development team can do it, only a few can do it well. Game Designers, above all else, are problem solvers. We look at the current state of an idea and provide solutions that meet the necessary criteria of that project; eg. will it appeal to a certain demographic? Does it utilize our quirky programming lead who has an affinity for AI? Does it require our team to do things nobody knows how to do? Is it marketable? Is it within our budget/timeline? These are the questions Game Designers ask when "everyone" else simply goes, "Wouldn't it be cool if the game had ...?"
I think, then, that all a Game Designer is is a creative person with a knack for solving problems, and able to work extremely well with other people. These types of people are found in all fields, being separated only by their respective medium. My father, for example, is a union pipefitter. He is now rather high up in the company, but retains a position that requires, above all else, creative problem solving and being able to work with his team. He knows the strengths, weaknesses, schedules, lives of each of the men on his crew. He knows his field better than anyone else.
Maybe my father is responsible for why I became a Game Designer: growing up watching him solve all these complicated math problems I didn't understand, looking over his shoulder at the giant blueprints of pipe architecture that enveloped the entire dinner table, listening to his crew members talk about him like he was their best friend, maybe I just wanted to be like him. Maybe that's my origin.
