Job as Game Designer?

rnw159 · 2010-07-13T10:21:03

I love to program. I try to get 20-30 hours in each week and it isn't because I am forcing myself to, I have fun programing. For a while I have heard a guy talking about wanting to 'design' games and I asked him if he knew how to program or had any experience. He basically said, "I have cool ideas so I don't need to know any of that stuff. I can get a job as a designer and just tell the programers what to do." Now to me, a quarter of the fun of making a game is being able to mold the gameplay however you want. I need some assurance, that in the game development industry, there will not be room for that guy. If there was a job that only required you to come up with cool ideas while other people put them into action who the hell wouldn't take it? I would honestly take it but I would probably still keep programing. My dream job is one that will let me develop and program all in one career.

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by rnw159 July 09, 2010 04:40 AM

22 comments, last by Hoywolf 13 years, 9 months ago

Kylotan

10,510

July 13, 2010 06:45 AM

Quote:Original post by rnw159
Well, I am a programmer and I like it that way. Its just that in smaller games maybe garage indie? why would you need a designer.

I've done some work for a company that had no dedicated designers (or producers), just programmers and artists, even though they had at least 20 employees. The most experienced people in the code and art teams worked together on the overall design and the low-level design was shared among appropriate team members. They've been going for 20 years so it hasn't harmed them too much. On the other hand, they've not done anything revolutionary either.

All configurations are possible, really.

Tom Sloper

17,201

July 13, 2010 09:31 AM

Quote:Original post by Katie
So, week 1, 40-something people squeeze into the room. People have brought their mates along who couldn't get on the course themselves. The room is rammed. It's SO COOL, we're all going to be in the movie business. Wooohoo.

Lecturer arrives, opens this HUGE folder full of notes and starts a two hour lecture on things like 9-point story arcs, 3 act formats &c.

Week 2, 8 of us returned. Which is where we got down to the really nitty-gritty stuff.

Apparently the course is like this every time. Everyone and their dog *wants to have written a movie*. Very few people, it turns out, actually want to have to write a movie first.

I LOVE that story!

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

rnw159

120

Author

July 13, 2010 10:16 AM

Wow. Thats a good story. I can see what you're saying, and I still am glad that I'm a programmer.

Quote:Original post by rnw159Screw game maker.There's your sig quote for the forums :D[/quote]

Hoywolf

104

July 13, 2010 10:21 AM

I feel that a Designer should know some programming languages/scripts or something technical, it looks that way as well when I look at game designer positions. I would love to be a game designer, but I still practice some game programming so that I can better communicate to the programmers, or heck, be one myself.

A game designers job is not to boss around programmers, they are a team, and knowing what your teammates do will only make it stronger. :)

-You can not determine what cards you draw, but you can determine how you play them.-My Programming Blog

Job as Game Designer?

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Job as Game Designer?

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