I´m not trying to downplay anything. I think you did a lot of interpreting on that line of mine... what I was trying to say is that nobody loves every genre / type of game the same, nevertheless that cannot stop you from making a good game in a genre you wouldn´t normally play. Nothing was ever said about NOT wanting to play the game, or game designers "being in it only for the money". I usually (!) don´t play sports games. Still that would not hinder me from successfully designing a sports game.
Sure, some of us have the luxury of designing exactly the kind of games they´d like to play - but most of us don´t, and that´s where you have to be able to make the leap and suspend your own tastes to replace them with that of your target audience. If I have to design, say a football game, I´ll have a look at all the football games that are out there, have a look at football as a sport, and have a look at all the stuff people may have written about football - I´d probably even play it myself sometime. And then, after having a good look at the people who you´re designing the game for, making a good, fun football game will neither be an insurpassable problem, nor a displeasure. It´s not about doing it only for the money, or doing somethign you hate - it´s about suspending your personal tastes and creating something fun, even if it´s not your current "baby project". I even think that sometimes that´s an advantage, because you can be much more critical with yourself if you´re not that emotionally involved with your game.

quote:Original post by MSW
I know gamedesign is a lot of hard work...I never ment to say otherwise....but gamedesign is not a completely surefire structured process (if it REALLY was, there would be a crap load of much better games out there today...and there wouldn''t be much need for this discussion)

I''m not so sure... my personal view is that it would be a surefire structured process if we only knew what the process involved. Of course, you probably couldn''t make a game that everyone would like, because of differing tastes and abilities, but it should be possible to make accurate predictions on how popular a game would be, what are the best design decisions to make in order to achieve a certain goal, etc.



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Hmm, I missed this.

quote:Original post by Hase
Rubbish, game design is not about "mastering genres", every game is different in its way, every game requires a lot of research before design proper even gets underway. Every designer will have some preferences of genre or system, but a good designer will be able to write you a good GD for every game, no matter what the genre is.

Given enough time and research, anyone can do it. But that''s not the point. It''s not possible to research everything that you need to know beforehand. If it was, there wouldn''t be any ''un-fun'' games out there, would there? Not to mention that many games are on the leading edge of technology and encounter new and unknown barriers. Good designers learn more from experience, and can generalise from that experience, but it''s the experience that is worth the most. That means you can''t move to a totally different genre and expect to be just as effective, as much of your knowledge applies to different technology, different players, different themes.

quote:Game Design is not a mystical process, its a very solid and structured process which, granted, is a little bit different every time, but which relies on principles which are valid and useful for every genre out there.

It''s not mystical, but neither is it well known either. The good game designers are those who can make informed guesses while avoiding mistakes. I compare Game Design to Psychology - lots of people have their own theories, but beyond a very abstract view, nobody has the whole answer.

quote:A good game designer does not design the game HE wishes to play, but rather that which the target audience wishes to play.

That''s just an opinion, and implies that (a) the designer isn''t the audience, and (b) the customer is always right. Sometimes the customer doesn''t know what''s good for him.

quote:PS: your sig is horrible in quotes.

So don''t quote it...

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