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[moi]

you know eres is out of arguments when he starts spinning definitions around

[Zecks]

i'd say it's important for the programmer and designer to work well together.

good design is still the most important for the actual gameplay awesomeness factors, and most of the time not just everyone designs something groundbreaking or even generally awesome even if they think they can.

so while programmer = game, programmer + great designer = great game, and atm great games are going extinct-ways. i see quite a bit of potential in indies who are both good designers and programmers.

(this might not make sense, i blame 3 AM)

[Kramlack]

The short answer is that they're all important. Plain and simple. They all have a job to do as Gilbert said.

The designer is NEEDED to give a sense of direction to the team, both to the artists, the musicians, and the programmer. Without a designer, you're just pissing in the wind really.

The programmer is NEEDED to build the foundation of the game. You can't make a video game with just art and sound.

The artist and musician's are NEEDED so the player can be immersed into the world you want to create.

At the end of the day, you could simply say a programmer is the most important, since they're needed to build a video game, but that's a pretty ridiculous mindset to have. A game is only as good as the the whole team, not just one part of it.

[Triplefox]

Some sarcastic answers:

The idea guy. Cause you need ideas.

God. Because the best games are divine works.

And my serious one:

Skills matter far less than mindset and management; while you can make the argument that a good programmer is necessary to engineer more complex things, that's an argument for minimum requirements, and the assets have minimum requirements too(art style, sound fidelity, etc.). A development team with modest skills that is organized to a coherent vision will be able to design around these technical limitations by picking modest goals for the programming, art, etc., and not overdoing their scope. If they aren't all on the same page, though, it doesn't matter if they're a superteam, they won't even be able to ship.

And, surprise surprise, this has already been demonstrated and put to rest within indie games; for example, Derek Yu made Spelunky in GM by himself. He worked in all the roles, even though he's known primarily for his art skills. XBLA Spelunky has a full-time programmer working on it, but his job is relatively straightforward - take the original game's vision, and engineer it more tightly with some new features. So adding more skill  makes the game more polished and more marketable, but it's not the same as making the game.

For comparison, there are innumerable proud-programmer projects that litter the floor here and elsewhere through the history of video games. They had code without a purpose, or code built for a scope that couldn't be matched by assets. Similarly, artists and writers will push out mountains of assets intended for games, but they don't make actual game designs. And designers will write up docs and theorize on all sorts of things, but then fail to make a functioning prototype.

And there are many big-budget retail games that got a large, skilled team together, shipped and made it to shelves, and then failed because they were "zombified" games - while they look and act like a game, and pull off a great presentation of skill, they don't deliver on basic expectations.

Fortunately, all of the skills can be learned in "fake it till you make it" fashion, even game design. So to me it really just comes down to the mindset.

[14113]

The artist and musician's are NEEDED so the player can be immersed into the world you want to create.

I dissagree, have you ever played a text adventure? or a game like elite?

I think programmer, mostly because of what Gilbert's said, but also as I feel that the medium is designed by it's reactiveness, and the interactiviy, which I feel mostly comes from the programmer.

[Nix]

I don't know many indies who make a distinction between designer and the other roles

[BattleBeard]

 Our God, who created the mothers who birthed us to create the games.

And candy bars. They keep you up for X-TREME coding!

[Paul Eres]

It's essential AND important, you channel everything to it:
ART? file format, size constrain, frame rate, tools, etc..
Design? well you better explain it well because implementation might fuck the plan and you may have to live with it.
Producer? you can't really plan complexity that arise from good you need to deal with it. Subpar but complete art can be time and it "work", design can be bad but does not prevent a game to run, Code that break? mmmmmmm

yeah but you don't require a *programmer* to have a program. anyone can create a program, not just a programmer

a programmer doesn't become an artist when he makes programmer art, he's still a programmer. so an artist or a designer doesn't become a programmer when he programs, he's just an artist or designer who programs

so another way to phrase the question is this: which would you rather play, a game made by a designer or artist who knows how to program, or by a programmer who knows design?

[Nix]

This is such a silly question because it depends so much on the project itself and the team dynamics of everyone who is working on it.

[Gimym TILBERT]

My former boss send me this

[boxedlunch]

i haven't read this thread yet. is it basically like that graph?

[14113]

anyone can create a program, not just a programmer

Not so. Sure, you could use gamemaker, but who wrote that? A programmer. Or, you could use basic, on a BBC Micro, but who wrote Basic? A programmer.

The point is, eventually, if you go back far enough, you'll find a programmer. This is the point that seperates games from other mediums; their interactivity, and for this, you need a programmer.

However, this only answers the question "which is most important" if it is interpreted as "which is most essential"

I think it's a programmer, as without a programmer, there is no game.

EDIT:
however, if it's interpreted as "which is most important to the design" then I feel that the programmer isn't as important as any other member of the team, aside from possibly defining the limits of what's possible. As an example of this, the original metal gear's design (top down, cover, rooms) stems from what was possible on the hardware at the time.

[Xardov]

The designer is NEEDED to give a sense of direction to the team, both to the artists, the musicians, and the programmer. Without a designer, you're just pissing in the wind really.

The designer is NOT needed.  As C.A. Sinclair said, designers only exist in the minds of 13 year olds who want to make an MMORPG, but do not know how to sprite, make music, or code.  Any advertising about designer work is bull.  Usually, I find that the each of the 3 people, the artist, the programmer, and the musician give a little input on how the design of the game should be.  Designers are useless.

[iffi]

Is "programmer" in this case referring to someone who specializes in programming, or is it just referring to anybody who writes a program? If it's the former, dedicated programmers are not necessary to create a game (unless you count those who built the game-making tools, the libraries, the operating system, etc.), but it almost always helps. If "programmer" refers to anyone who writes a program, I don't see how you can have a video game without creating a program of some sort, unless you don't count Game Maker, Construct, etc. as programming (though in my opinion even those count as programming, just in a different way from the traditional code-writing).

The same question can be asked about the "designer." You don't often (if ever) see people dedicated to game design, but it's still an important part of making a game - it's just that the people who specialize in other aspects such as programming, graphics, and sound, can all contribute to the design and thus may be counted as "designers," depending on who you call a "designer."

[Nix]

There are plenty of people who just design in the AAA industry. The designer job position isn't bullshit, it just isn't common among indies