Quote:Original post by Spoonbender
What's elitist about wanting to hire those who have relevant experience? Is it elitist that no one will let you run a major bank? Direct the next big Hollywood movie?

It's no different than any other industry. Intel isn't going to listen to you if you say you have a good idea for a new CPU. Ford isn't going to listen to you if you have an idea for better cars. Spielberg isn't going to listen to you if you tell him you've got an idea for a movie. That's not elitism, it's simply protecting their investment. They've got a lot of money at stake, and face it, it's risky to gamble it all on an unknown. If you want to become more than an unknown, then it's up to you. Don't blame anyone else for not falling at your feet at the mere mention that you have an idea. If no one are sufficiently impressed to hire you, you haven't sold your idea well enough. Or, possibly, the idea isn't good enough to be worth the trouble.

Nono, that’s not what I mean by elitism, what I mean is the kind of thing I see a lot when modders get a bit too good at what they do, and they view the work or ideas of less experienced people as ‘worthless’ without paying much attention to what those people are actually doing.

What I feel is that the industry simply ignores people like that and rather hires people who share their philosophy of ‘money money money’ rather than ‘lets make a game people will really enjoy and keep playing for the next 10 years!’

Of course if you train and have proven yourself at something you have a better chance at getting the job, I have no problem with that. I just wish the gods of the games studios would come down from their clouds once in a while just to see what other people are doing.

Afterall, how often do you actually see a developer posting a personal message on the forums for their own game?! The only person I know of personally who know does this is John Smedley of SOE, and I respect him for doing that. He actually answered my email personally, something I doubt most execs do!

Anyway, this thread has reached its limit of usefulness for me, I appreciate the replies guys, especially the ones that were helpful. However I cant help but feel somewhat worried about the future of game design, afterall in our modding community ideas, whoever comes up with them, are treated with a certain amount of respect, far from being ‘worthless’.

Maybe I will stick to writing a book instead. . Or if I feel lazy and suddenly become rich, get a ghost writer to do it for me…

But anyway, I’m sure you have heard quite enough of me, obviously this is world where I have not done enough to be welcome, therefore I thank you all for your time, and say goodbye!

Noz

Meh. This deserves to be said. People like you are the most annoying kind.

There is absolutely no reason why anybody on earth should take you seriously or even bother reading your post.

-IF- you really were a passionate aspiring game designer, you'd be at DigiPen, or making a mod, or learning to program. Read all of those things as -DOING SOMETHING- other than sitting there working on your pretend game design document which is worth less than a splash in the toilet bowl.

Everybody has ideas. Everybody. The clerk at GameStop has an idea for the best game ever. The cashier at Best Buy has an idea for the best game ever. My toddler has an idea for the best game ever. None of this makes any of these people a game designer, and none of them have the best idea ever, and none of them are going to get 2 minutes with a studio to pitch their idea.

Game design is not about ideas. It's about implementation. Yes, a game designer should have great ideas, but game design as a -PROFESSION- is the ability to turn ideas into something functional and entertaining that other people will actually pay money to play. It's a creative and technical skill and unless you create something to demonstrate that you have that skill, even a portfolio is worthless, because ideas on paper don't equal design talent.

If there weren't already 3 pages of this discussion, I might have been more patient with you. But all I really see at this point is your incessant whining and arguing and brash dismissal of everybody here that's telling you the bold truth, which is - PUT UP OR SHUT UP! So why bother?

Bottom line is this. You have no idea what you're talking about. Every single one of your assumptions is blatantly incorrect. Your ideas do sound like derivative dribble. You haven't demonstrated any real effort to accomplish your goal - making maps for a game you like is a start but only that. So sadly, this is probably simultaneously the beginning and end of your "gaming career". Short lived. Thankfully.

You're what we like to call an "Arm-Chair Designer". You like to come up with ideas. You like to think that your ideas are special, unique, beautiful flowers. You're not interested in understanding technology or how game art is made. You're not interested in doing any work. You want all of the control and none of the responsibility. You'd just like to sit there, pretending to be Miyamoto, barking design orders at a team of significantly more talented people (than yourself), and just smile as everyone else puts in the long hours to realize your "vision". Oh, and let's not forget that you'll also sit there and boldly critique and correct them, because you know better, of course.

Yes, an Arm-Chair Designer indeed, which is why we hate and reject those people and they get nowhere. This type of person is the truest bastard in the industry.

So, very simply, either get busy with a mod team or some education that's going to help you understand how games are made, or just go write a book - or make a movie - since those seem to involve less effort which is clearly very attractive to you (not that there's any truth to that notion).

Quote:Original post by Nozyspy
Anyway, this thread has reached its limit of usefulness for me, I appreciate the replies guys, especially the ones that were helpful. However I cant help but feel somewhat worried about the future of game design, afterall in our modding community ideas, whoever comes up with them, are treated with a certain amount of respect, far from being ‘worthless’.

Maybe I will stick to writing a book instead. . Or if I feel lazy and suddenly become rich, get a ghost writer to do it for me…

But anyway, I’m sure you have heard quite enough of me, obviously this is world where I have not done enough to be welcome, therefore I thank you all for your time, and say goodbye!

Hey Nozyspy, I understand what your fructuation is. Some of your points made here are quite legitimate.

Fact:
A genius designer is gifted and born with. Not any hard working nor any experience nor any academic qualification can make one a genius designer. A genius designer is genius because he's genius. And only a genius designer can make excellent games. It's more or less like any artists or even any politicians, what is magical is the gifted part, not the hard-working part, not the experience part, and not the academic qualification part. Hard working plus experience plus sound qualification will never never never make any genius artists or desingers or politicians.

That said, a genius designer knows how important hard working is, how important experience is and sometimes how important qualification is to assist his art works.

Without good ideas there will be no good games at all, and only a genius designer will have the correct set of 'good ideas' which are not only implementable technically, but also will result in the great games. So no, not everyone will have those decisive ideas which can result in great games. To simply put, the greatest designers are not someone replacable with hard working, experience and academic qualifications. Just like the greatest artists and even politicians in human history.

So all you need is a good game engine to lessen your effort/cost/money to bring your good ideas into reality for everyone to appreciate. This is not allowed yet due to the fact that such a good game engine is technologically not available. You have to either persuade those big bosses to invest, or to make it yourself. The big bosses are usually stupid, they tend to fall for lies by those extremely communicative scammers instead of trusting a great designer. To put it short, they will treat great designers as scammers and will treat scammers as great designers simply because they are usually stupid and great designers can hardly be with candy-coated words as scammers.

So the only option is that you have to fund yourself for such a game engine to implement your ideas. Or else, you may have to wait for human technology to be mature and cheap enough to use at all. Microsoft XNA is just in its infant stage, it is not good yet at all. You need a good game engine and an arsenal of artistic works such as toom models and game items. By the current human technology, a good game engine plus the tons of sound artistic works may worth more than 10 million bucks. That's the point!

Moreover, all the executives inside any indy studio need to be politically correct. So they will not hire you or else they will be fired.

[Edited by - Hawkins8 on October 14, 2008 1:28:32 AM]

Quote:Original post by Hawkins8
Fact:
A genius designer is gifted and born with. Not any hard working nor any experience nor any academic qualification can make one a genius designer. A genius designer is genius because he's genius. And only a genius designer can make excellent games.\

That is most definitely not a fact, most certainly not true, and actually somewhat absurd to say...

Quote:Original post by QuantifyFun

Quote:Original post by Hawkins8
Fact:
A genius designer is gifted and born with. Not any hard working nor any experience nor any academic qualification can make one a genius designer. A genius designer is genius because he's genius. And only a genius designer can make excellent games.\

That is most definitely not a fact, most certainly not true, and actually somewhat absurd to say...

Indeed, and what an overly depressing view he has on life and the industry!

Thanks for attempting to clear up this thread, QuantifyFun.

Quote:Original post by QuantifyFun

Quote:Original post by Hawkins8
Fact:
A genius designer is gifted and born with. Not any hard working nor any experience nor any academic qualification can make one a genius designer. A genius designer is genius because he's genius. And only a genius designer can make excellent games.\

That is most definitely not a fact, most certainly not true, and actually somewhat absurd to say...

Ah, thanks for your comment without a valid argumnet in it (you lack it?).

You want fact? The fact is, the mediocre indys today who only know how to clone from EQ caused alot of complainers saying that they have no good game to play. That's the fact, a fact due to the lack of the gifted designers in the industry.

[Edited by - Hawkins8 on October 15, 2008 2:09:50 AM]

Quote:Original post by Hawkins8

Quote:Original post by QuantifyFun

Quote:Original post by Hawkins8
Fact:
A genius designer is gifted and born with. Not any hard working nor any experience nor any academic qualification can make one a genius designer. A genius designer is genius because he's genius. And only a genius designer can make excellent games.\

That is most definitely not a fact, most certainly not true, and actually somewhat absurd to say...

Ah, thanks for your comment without a valid argumnet (you lack it?).

You want fact? The fact is, the mediocre indys today who only know how to clone from EQ caused alot of complainers saying that they have no good game to play. That's the fact, a fact due to the lack of the gifted designers in the industry.

If you need me to explain why you can't state that silly opinion as if it were a fact, than there are some life lessons you still need to learn and I can't help you.

I'm done with this thread. No flame war intended, just keepin' it real.

Quote:Original post by Nozyspy
What I feel is that the industry simply ignores people like that and rather hires people who share their philosophy of ‘money money money’ rather than ‘lets make a game people will really enjoy and keep playing for the next 10 years!’
Noz

Others have said what I'm about to say, but I'll say it again anyways.

There's a financial responsibility that every publicly shared company (which pretty much all publishers would be) to their shareholders. And that is to give them a return on their investment.

Making a big-budget game is very risky, and requires multi-millions to make ($20,000,000 + in some cases). The longer the development cycle (and a AAA title needs a LOOOONG dev cycle for a first iteration title), the longer it takes before shareholders will see a return on their cummulative millions of dollars. Pissing away money for 4 years in hopes that you'll get a return is not a smart investment. This is why you see so many sequels, because it's a safer investment.

"Oh, Halo sold 8 million copies. Halo 2 should be able to do the same and we'd only need to invest for 2 years. I'll invest in that."

Games with smaller scales (say a smaller more focused game that only has 10 hours of playtime instead of a huge 40 hour masterpiece) are more appealing since the dev-cycle is shorter and ROI is faster.

If it's risky to invest in something, less people will invest. If less people invest, where is a company going to find the money to make the game?

Also, if a huge investment is made and that money is not recouped, huge ramifications are seen in terms of employees being let go. Why would hardworking employees want their company to hire unproven workers for top design positions? I've worked with bright eyed people, with great ideas, and a lot of times they either get frustrated with financial realities or technical limitations, and end up slacking off and being terrible employees. If these people were given more responsibility up front we'd have been screwed.

This is a reality in all industries. You haven't really given any real examples of some no-name having been entrusted with millions of dollars to build their dream work.

You don't hear a painter say: Man, I have such a great idea for a painting, but no one wants to give me money to paint it. Painters paint.

Directors make movies (Kevin Smith spent his own money and made a movie he didn't think would go anywhere, but the key is that he MADE a movie).

Musicians write and perform music (and optionally record) before they're offered a record deal.

I can pretty much guarantee that a screenplay writer with no experience has to know people, or have done something before they get their story made into a movie.

To be successful you need to DO somehing successful, not whine about it.
You're still young, and I was probably the same way at your age (hell, at one point I wanted to write my own C++ book since other books used too many proper technical terms... WTF???)

Quote:Original post by QuantifyFun
If you need me to explain why you can't state that silly opinion as if it were a fact, than there are some life lessons you still need to learn and I can't help you.

I'm done with this thread. No flame war intended, just keepin' it real.

The term 'EQ clone' itself is self-explanatory enough to state the truth. Live with that. Continue to live in denial does none helpful to the industry.

I start to know why a giant such as EA has to embrace a 10-year-old UO for its its own survival in the MMORPG game sector. Its executives never think that they lack the genius to...hmm...patching such an old game.

Quote:Original post by Hawkins8

Quote:Original post by QuantifyFun
If you need me to explain why you can't state that silly opinion as if it were a fact, than there are some life lessons you still need to learn and I can't help you.

I'm done with this thread. No flame war intended, just keepin' it real.

The term 'EQ clone' itself is self-explanatory enough to state the truth. Live with that. Continue to live in denial does none helpful to the industry.

I start to know why a giant such as EA has to embrace a 10-year-old UO for its its own survival in the MMORPG game sector. Its executives never think that they lack the genius to...hmm...patching such an old game.

wipe the rabid foam from your chin and start again.

game design is a process. It has creative elements but its mainly down to experience, motivation and inspiration - the giants dont care about such things and thus make crap games, it has nothing to do with ability, its just money and time.