I must say, a lot of the words exchanged in favor of this show little understanding of how any of the technical or artistic side of game development.

I'll try to throw my opinion in here, without restating what's said before too much.

Interpreting the words literally, an "initial game idea" has a worth of near nothing, and I'll tell you why: only the end result of proving the concept has value, and most "idea guys" come up with the same ideas that both artists and programmers can come up with, and need to fix.

I hold not value in the ideas of someone that has no hand in any other aspect of the game development process for one good reason: "idea guys" who have a hand in actually implementing ideas are the ones who come up with really good ideas. I get so many friends and acquaintances that suggest either making clones, or making games that are ridiculously impractical games and cannot be convinced that what they are suggesting will take a lot more effort than they think for the amount of reward that they want.

Don't get me wrong, there is a chance that someone who has no idea what goes into making a game can come up with a good idea, but people that are experienced can expedite the process of hammering away at the faults of the idea, by already knowing what needs work before drawing up the original plans.

In this region, "nerd" is a derogatory term for someone in the information technology field, typically used by people with no respect for them. If you feel that most gamers are boring people, then I think that you might be in the profession for the wrong reason, like a social worker thinking that people down on their luck are lazy, or a chef thinking that people that eat at a restaurant are lacking merit. If you have no respect for the people that you work with, or the people that buy your product, then I would have a hard time imagining what joy you might find in the field.

Now, back on topic, the way most people see an "idea guy" is a person that wants something either already done or not worth doing, but wants no part in actually doing it, and expects others to do it for free. The truth is, most idea guys don't have enough of an idea to actually put forth a game. Their idea spans a single page, at most, and leaves a ton of details out, that the programmer is expected to come up with. I'll give you a quick example:

"A game like Pokemon, but different: people can see each other in the fields, and battle each other, and there world will be expanding through downloadable updates, with new areas."

Pokemon clones are very popular. However, there is a lot missing. In fact, the whole game. How exactly do players interact? How does the battle system prevent cheating? How do you prevent too many people from being in the same area, since there are only a certain number of tiles in an area? How will the network be laid out? There's a lot of work in "just letting everyone see each other at once and interact in real-time". How will the downloadable data be handled? Is it done with a scripting language, to allow events and such? What capabilities should it have, to allow more than what you've imagined right now? Routes in Pokemon have a finite amount of exits; adding another area requires modifying areas that previously existed on one's local machine. How do you handle a player that was last in a location that was modified in an update? Perhaps they are now in a tile that is not walkable, or they're surfing where there's no longer water. Updates don't just happen for new content; if the map has a bug, that needs to be reworked. How does one "save"? If they simply return to the last position they were when they logged off, how do you prevent people from reappearing in the same coordinate when they log on at the same time? If they are merely bumped to the next tile, what if that isn't possible? How do you prevent more people from reappearing in the same area, either by exiting a building or logging back on, than the limit imposed on that area? If they get dropped at a neutral starting point, what happens if that is full?

The list is nearly infinite, full tiny details in that one simple idea the idea guy had. Most of them only concerned one topic. Most people that only provide ideas are usually incapable of figuring all this out, and instead leave it to the "nerds" to hash out essentially the whole game. People look for you to provide an equal amount of work relative to everyone else on the team. If your idea of design is giving a starting point, and having everyone that implements it figure it out, they you aren't the idea guy, you're a muse, and everyone else is the idea guy, that started from your idea.

If you can provide a fully fleshed out idea, covering just about all aspects (which requires experience in the field), and can produce a many paged proposition and design, following the life cycle from start to finish, then you are more welcomed on the team as a distinct role.

Put another way, if the programmers and artists can come to you with problems in the design and implementation, and you can resolve those problems, then you'd be worth something to the team. If you provide an idea, and you can't give anything more than that, then your role is very limited.

Providing an analogy, a lot of programmers look at "idea guys" the same way that that web developers look at people who want a website done, but want it done by Friday, and also want it to have a giant Flash slideshow on the homepage with Comic Sans font for all of the tabs that make a "Whoosh!" sound, and make it look just like their competitor's site.

I always laugh at this topic. The very concept of an "idea guy" as artist is ridiculous.

Have you ever heard a painter/writer/photographer/director/sculptor say "I have a really great idea for a painting/story/photo/movie/sculpture" and then expect someone else to do all the work for them?

No, you have value when you produce something.

where did you get that from? did anyone here claim that?

I believe that people working in game development could take a lesson from this process - and possibly give something like it a try. The concept of the game should be worked out, prototyped, and refined until all of the mechanics become finalized (this prototype is essentially the "pencil draft"). This would preferably done by the game designer alone (though probably with play testers for some feedback). Only after this process would the game be taken to the studio, where the production team of artists, programmers, and composers, and QA staff should come in to create the final product (the "painting").

This is a wasteful and time consuming process. Many Game Designers are not programmers and would struggle to create suitable prototypes on their own. Even those that are programmers would struggle to create prototypes for non-trivial designs alone, in a reasonable time frame.

To me, a game designer who cannot create a working game on his own is like a composer who cannot play an instrument and thus cannot play his own pieces. Just as it's necessary to be able to play music in order to compose good music, it's also necessary to create games in order to design good games. That immediate feedback loop is necessary to develop the skills you need for either area. Also, who said anything about programming? Creating a working table-top, pen and paper game is also sufficient as a prototype. Sure, it's quite limiting in what kind of game can be made, but if it's all the game designer can do then it's what he should stick to. Furthermore, it's easier than ever today to create a game with little to no programming knowledge. With the ever increasing number of programs designed to allow one to get a game up and working quickly, there is no excuse for a game designer who cannot create a working prototype on their own.

Also, it's only time consuming for the game designer. But how is it wasteful? When the concept for the game has been finalized in all of it's details and it begins production at the studio, all of the artists, programmers, sound design, and composers know exactly what they have to work on. There is no time and effort wasted on guessing and waiting. In a previous post I asked this:

"What are the artists doing while the concept is still in the process of development? Are they creating the graphical assets for a level that might - or might not be in the final game? Are the composers creating music for a certain cutscene that may or may not exist? Are the programmers implementing the core mechanics that could possibly undergo many changes?"

No one answered to this, but I believe most of us know the answer is yes to all of those questions. There is a bunch of wasted time and effort caused by not have a detailed design to follow. Heck, there's even an entire website dedicated to unused content that exists in the code of retail games - everything from art assets, animations, weapons/items, sound effects, entire soundtracks, unused AI code (as well as a bunch of other code), and in some cases entire unused levels - and this is only what's left in the game's data. I can only imagine what gets cut out entirely during the whole development process.

Games can already take a lot of time and money to create. What do you think we would gain from this rigid process that merits increasing this time and cost - and increased uncertainty in terms of overall budgeting and timescales that come with such an inflexible approach to development - even further?

How can what I suggest be much worse than the development process as it already exists, which is already quite messy and wasteful? Why would this rigid process merit increasing cost and time? If anything it would cut costs as production would be far more focused and thus take less time. Of course, there is the game designer who has to do all of the draft and prototype work before the production begins at the studio, but I imagine that the publisher would commission him to do this work.

On this thread it seems there are many people who are staunch defenders of the way games are currently being developed. I merely suggest a different way that games could be developed - whether or not it would actually work is debatable, but would at least need to be tested for any informed conclusions. Do not forget that video games are a very new medium. Who's to say that we've already found the best way to create video games? Who's to say that there won't be any large paradigm shifts in the way games are developed? Because of recent developments such as Kickstarter, we have already seen massive changes in the way games are being made.

In programming, sketches mean not only art sketches and game-play idea sketches, but sketches mean some playable stuff too. Be it a table game or actual coding.

As I mentioned before, the game designer is the person who is making the playable prototype of the game - just as the artist is the person who's making the sketches and pencil drafts.

As something to think about, there is something that a game developer calls someone who provides only an idea, and lets the rest do the "manual labor": a client.