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[Tatsu]

A few years back I graduated from one of those gaming schools (UAT). Towards the end of my time there, I saw more and more new students arrive that I can best describe as "game designer wannabes." I'm pretty sure they were the result of the ads the school started posting in PC Gamer magazine. Since that time, I made a friend who's a student adviser, and from her stories I'm convinced that kids growing up want to become game designers more than ever before.

Now, the problem isn't that there are more and more people becoming passionate about games -- that's great. The problem is that 99% of these folks have no clue what it actually means to make a game, and no concept on how to be a team player. I don't know where this idea came from, but the common mentality is that you don't need to have a useful skill to contribute to a game project; you only need one "really good" game idea and others will make the game for you.

This bothers me, so I've been working on an article that I can refer these types of people to. I've read "so, you want to be a game designer" types of articles, but the ones I've found don't directly address this issue, or are too brutal to the point where it's easy to disregard. My goal is to diffuse the "idea guy" fantasy, give a bit of education on the amount of work that goes into a game, then provide some resources for those who are still interested.

The reason I'm posting this here is mainly because I'm not used to this type of writing. I'm looking for suggestions from those who have written articles for wannabes. In addition, I know how I got into game development, but I'd like to hear how a lot of you guys got started; I think that would be encouraging.

And of course, feel free to share any fun stories you have about these game designer wannabes. My goal here is to help them out, but I've found that they do provide endless hours of unintentional entertainment.

[dmoonfire]

Make a semi-serious game about game development and have people like programmers and idea people. Even if you go with a snarky attitude like the McDonalds game, it probably would get the point across.

http://www.mcvideogame.com

There is also a FedEx/Kinko's version out there, but I can't remember the name.

The hard part is writing something that gets the point across. One great idea never works by itself just as a home improvement project never looks as big as when you are "almost done" and you still have 90% left.

[Xion]

that reminds me of this.

[PowRTocH]

that reminds me of

.

also the fourth one is pretty funny but far less relevant

[joshg]

I'd suggest the best thing to do is to focus your writing on what game designers actually do - ie. how they spend their time and what keeps them busy after the "hey I have this awesome idea" phase.

I haven't done much design work, but I do know I've watched designers spend unhealthy amounts of time juggling data in Excel spreadsheets.

Also, let us know when you get this written.  I'll be doing my part to edumacate the youngun's this fall by teaching a workshop class on game design (hopefully, if enough people sign up).  I might be able to use something like this in the beginning of the class.

[Sk8rCai]

Althought I can't talk about game design or development specifically, I can refer this to my experiences in software development and in IT in general.  The whole reason I'm in the IT industry, and here for that matter, is that I love what I do.  While I'd be the first to admit there are some aspects of the work that I do that arent always things I look forward to doing or relish doing, as a whole I really enjoy my work.

I think to be sucessful in any endeavour, especially in the more technical industries such as game development, enjoying the work is even more important.  One's motivation should be an interest and enjoyment of all aspects of one's job and not just for financial motivation.

The perception I get of the younger, or even current, generation is that they can get paid a huge amount for doing very littl.  Which is far from true, especially if you're in a managerial position.

I think an insight into the reality of working on large projects is always an eye opener for people, where working long hours for no visible bonus on small, crazy yet vital problems that need to be solved, serve as an interesting wake up call.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

My impression of people who attend these game design / game programming schools like Digipen and Full Sail and the like is (although this is not universal, it seems to be generally true) that they are less self-motivated, knowledgeable, and usually less talented than people who learn game development on their own. They also are too concerned with the technical aspects of games to the exclusion of the important stuff. I think those schools do more harm than good, and make people worse at game design.

[c-foo peng]

I remember walking around GDC, talking with various of the young aspiring game developer types. The story's all the same: they're "networking", hoping to land jobs at FAMOUS DEVELOPER X, and going to GAME COLLEGE Y. And then I ask them if they've made anything I can check out, and the answer is something along the lines of "when senior year comes along" or "nope."

BULLSHIT.

There's a reason they're game designer wannabees: they don't make games!

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yeah, but I think you get that in all the artistic fields. There are tons of "writers" who have never finished writing a novel or even a short story. Occasionally they finished a fanfic, or a poem that doesn't rhyme.

[Mitchard]

Yeah, but I think you get that in all the artistic fields. There are tons of "writers" who have never finished writing a novel or even a short story. Occasionally they finished a fanfic, or a poem that doesn't rhyme.

Since when does poetry need to rhyme? Am I missing something here?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Huh? I didn't say it needs to.

[Mitchard]

You compared poetry that doesn't rhyme to fanfiction.
I would say that was pretty damning.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Not exactly. I compared poems that don't rhyme written by people who have never written anything substantial to fanfiction written by people who have never written anything substantial. There's good poetry that doesn't rhyme and there's even good fanfiction, but when they're combined with someone who has never written anything substantial it's not a good mix.

[Mitchard]

Fair enough.

To contribute, game design schools/courses always seemed a bit naff to me. Do they teach any real skills at these places? I mean, how are these guys going to get jobs? You can't exactly build a portfolio of game designs.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

They have no problem getting jobs, because the game industry has a very high turnover rate (meaning it hires and fires a lot of people all the time). People are hired for a few years and then fired, unless they're really lucky. They do that because that way they can pay lower wages (you have to give people raises if they stay) and because young people fresh out of college are less likely to complain about the 80-100 hours a week necessary during crunch time, which would burn out older workers in any case. So in most cases they will get jobs, just only for a few years.

[Casey]

I took a game design class once and it was a joke, we learned nothing that couldn't be picked up from playing a few games.  The worst part was that in the program you didn't even touch a programming language or any type of graphics software until your third year.

Most of the people in the class were completely oblivious to what it takes to make a game, and most of them didn't even have any desire to start with something simple like Game Maker.  I think a lot of people just have the perception that they can go in with a "great idea" and get a bunch of programmers and artists underneath them to make their game for them.

Granted, this was just at a community college so it might not be representative of some of the other game design programs out there.

[joshg]

I took a game design class once and it was a joke, we learned nothing that couldn't be picked up from playing a few games.  The worst part was that in the program you didn't even touch a programming language or any type of graphics software until your third year.

Ok, I'm going to be starting up something at a local university at the  "continuing studies" level, and I will not be pushing a programming language at anyone at all unless they specifically want to go for it.

From both what I've read/studied and from what I've seen firsthand, you can learn good game design principles much, much more quickly by practicing with analog game components - decks of cards, board game pieces, etc.  The more time you spend on developing code/art/sound/etc, the less time you're spending actually working out design problems.

I'm thinking of introducing GameMaker and/or Construct to the workshop as a possible quick-prototyping digital environment, but unless I see specific interest in it I would spend zero time using it in class.  (If people are interested, I will totally encourage them to go for it and do digital games as assignments, but I would warn them that it could take longer and they'll have to work harder to keep up.)

This isn't so much to say "hey this is how it is supposed to be" as to ask - would this make sense to you?  Do you think this is what your instructors were trying to do, and you still didn't like it?

On a totally different note, there is plenty of poetry written with strict restrictions and/or strong emphasis on good composition that makes no attempt at rhyming whatsoever.  If you want to compare poetry to fanfiction, it should be "free verse", not just "no rhyming".

If you want me to prove it to you, I'll point you to some completely mind-bending insane stuff that a dude I know does with palindromes and other weird constraints.

[Synnah]

Make a semi-serious game about game development and have people like programmers and idea people. Even if you go with a snarky attitude like the McDonalds game, it probably would get the point across.

I think Petri Purho's Truth About Games Development gets the point across pretty well!

But yes, we do need more games about the games industry.

[Farbs]

Just a quick tip: Don't swagger into a networking event telling everyone that you're looking for work as an artist, but that you're actually just trying to get into design. Nobody wants to hire an artist who isn't interested in art, and I'm running out of places to hide the bodies.

[William Broom]

Free verse is a bit like Game Maker. Because it's easier to produce something with GM than a 'real' programming language, you get a lot of trashy games made with GM. But that doesn't mean all GM games are bad. Similarly, it actually takes some amount of effort to line up rhyme, scansion and meaning into a poem, even if you do it really badly. Whereas free verse you can just churn out with ease.

The other day I heard a radio program about modern haiku writers in Australia. They have abandoned the haiku structure of '5,7,5' because it's 'too restrictive'. So what they're writing now are just really short, non-rhyming poems. It's pretty... laughable.