How can a game have any personality what so ever if everyone involved gets a real say as to what direction the game goes in.

Are you suggesting that the industry has never produced a game with "personality"?

There may be a lot of blandness out there, and a lot of games that aren't to your liking, but in the overwhelming majority of cases most if not all participants in a games creation have some impact on the direction of the final product, and I'd say there are definitely some games that have real character that have resulted from this process.

Compare it to music -- which is typically considered an art -- and where it's common-place for multiple people to collaborate on the writing and production of a song to produce the final product. There's no reason you must have a single artist to produce a piece with "character" or to stick to a vision, and music provides thousands of examples of that -- even in Classical music where the composer has dictated the entire piece note-for-note and often includes additional instructions, performances can vary greatly based on nuances introduced both by the conductor and by individual musicians. Songs are also often covered by bands with completely different styles who produce an entirely different take on the original piece, or remixed to produce an entirely new piece of music. All of this is widely accepted as art, and all of it is the product not of a single individual's vision, but of a collaboration between many people who all contribute.

If music is art produced by collaborations then why can't games be the same? Perhaps the solution is not for individual designers to establish dictatorial control as you're suggesting, but for teams to learn to work better together with a shared vision.

What if that idea has been refined over the course of months, or even years, to the point where just about every detail of the game can be explained in words precisely, down to each minute aspect? What if the design document is so comprehensive that it can be followed to a T, with little need for interpretation?

If you disagree, please provide the name of the game you finished this way :) Because so far I have not met a single dev who managed to make a design doc that was sufficient to make a whole game without any need for interpretation (or even changes!) upon implementing.

Hello everyone, please excuse my poor English & naive character

I must say I was intrigued by this conversation. You see people consider me an artist, as I'm part of a rock band that's started back in 1995 and I happen to write both the music and the lyrics of our songs. I just felt like sharing with you my thoughts on that. If we seek to answer the question "can a game be considered art?", we must first answer the question "what is art?". As I perceive it through my years of observation to all forms of art but mainly music, art started out as the initial wish of man towards self awareness. The tendency to reveal and embrace universal or fundamental truths of once existence. Now, unfortunately or fortunately art in our days is more of entertainment than of a quest towards revelation. Some people perceive art only as craft, like the fact that someone painted a painting with those specific brush strokes or someone played the guitar by doing awesome "tapping" for X seconds and say: "what an artist". Bottom line is that since we people think subjectively, we won't agree unanimously to what art is. As for me I choose to believe that art should be an expression of once strive for self awareness and redemption because I want to place art as a sacred expression for the person who performs it. Craft is just the practical part of it and something you need to do at least pretty well in order to have a beautiful outcome.

Now, the video gaming industry, from day one was all about entertainment. So, no matter how many years I've spent playing video games, I must say that I had to deal with the conclusion that in the end, video games tented to act as drag in my life.

Now, if art is a craft then video games are art

If art is entertainment then video games are also art

If art is a journey to self awareness then video games are not art

As for the "idea guy", I believe that the fact that most of the people have ideas that they think are great but actually isn't or have a general idea and nothing more, gave the "idea guy" the bad reputation he/she bares today. I consider myself to be an "idea guy hybrid" if you allow me to invent the title, because at least I've written down every single detail of my game (points, awards, rounds and penalties algorithms) starting small for an expansion on a title that had some hardcore fans and tested it for two years in order to see the flaws and fix it till it's viable. I say this in order to try and save me being "word punched" to death after I press "post"!

The problem I have with the "idea guy" is that the people I have met that take that role, usually have tons of "good ideas" but they lack any real skill/talent/motivation to actually MAKE a game. Because they have never tried or been involved they don't know what it takes, or how hard it is do even the "simple" things sometimes. So its really hard to listen to someone talk about all their great ideas for games, when they have not even tried to make one.

Its like that for any part of life though, its hard to respect someones ideas/opinions when they are not educated, or founded on experience on the subject. Its no different with game design/ implementation.

Thats my $0.02.

Call me when somebody finds an 'idea' guy has skills outside his ideas and has produced a completed game that has gone to market. The "idea" of the "idea guy" is nothing more than children trying to justify their lack of real work on real products. Learn to code, to create artwork, and see a game through to the end. Only THEN are you allowed to tell anyone else what value ideas have.

If you've never made a game, either individually or as part of a team, then you're not an idea guy. You're audience.

Now, if art is a craft then video games are art
If art is entertainment then video games are also art
If art is a journey to self awareness then video games are not art

When using the last definition, there is a big difference between "no game that I've yet played is art" and "games cannot be art".

Just as how most popular music is not at all art when using this definition while there is a smaller amount of music that does fit the definition, games are the same. Most popular games may just be entertainment in this definition (just like pop music is), but there are also a small collection of games out there that are capable of and designed with the express intention imparting a large emotional impact impact on the viewer that changes their way of thinking about themselves.

As for an example of a GDD that is sufficient to make a whole game without any need for interpretation, there is no need to look any further than the myriad of games based on physical, tabletop games (or even a board game such as chess). The rules of these games serve as the GDD's for their digital counterparts. There is no need to interpret the rules and the mechanics of the game.

This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the field of design. The rules of chess are not a GDD, they are (in and of themselves) a complete implementation of the game of chess.

The GDD for a digital version of chess would require significantly more content than the mere rules. Where in the rules of chess does it specify if the user interface is 2D or 3D? Where does it specify whether input is via mouse or keyboard? Where does it specify the AI necessary to provide a computer opponent?

To answer the title's question of "What's the true worth of an initial game idea?": nothing.

The initial idea in and of itself is not worth anything. Initial ideas are incomplete, flawed, and vague.

Refined ideas that are complete, specific, etc. might be worth something though. But it's not the initial idea that gives them worth. It's the refining process that gives them worth. That refining process takes time and involves feedback from those doing the actual implementation. It takes good communication skills, and requires a smart and creative mind to work around legal and physical constraints and limitations that might come up when implementing the actual game. It requires the ability to look at the initial idea from different perspectives and fill in holes and missing details.

In short, you don't pay the idea man for his initial idea. You pay the idea man for his ability to refine his initial idea into a full fledged game (at which point he's no longer an "idea man" but a proper game designer).