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I have been asked to move my thread to this forum. I'd like to start a discussion about game designers, design documents, what game design is, and the methods used by the computer game industry to design games. Accompanying this thread is my web site, with an example of a game design document based on the game design konwledge of a bygone era. It is very different than what the computer game industry calls a game design document. The link to the web site is in my signature at the bottom of this post. I have other articles to post later in the thread, after this first one has been thouroughly hashed over, and it is my intention to keep this thread going for a very long time. So, please, join in the discussion and let's see what we all learn. I'm sure that I'll learn many, many things... and I hope to teach a few things of my own along the way. -- Pirate_Lord The Industry Method There are many different ways to design a game. The computer game industry settled into their way of designing games many years ago. The method they settled on was known to real game and simulation designers long before the computer game industry ever even existed. The method they settled on is known as “design by committee”. The ironic (or is it pathetic…) thing about this is that the phrase “design by committee” held a very specific meaning among professional game and simulation designers long before the computer game industry even existed. The phrase “design by committee” famously translates as “the worst possible way to make a game”. This is the method that the computer game industry has chosen to institutionalize. And they wonder why game design seems so “risky” for them? “Design by committee” essentially means that you don’t have a game designer. You might have someone with that title, but they are not acting as a game designer. They are more of an assistant designer, or level designer. The game itself is essentially designed through a democratic process. There is a reason why Hollywood does not make movies this way, and the computer game industry really should pay attention too that. They like to compare themselves too Hollywood, well, can anyone tell me the last time that Steven Spielberg was over-ruled by his Key Grip or outvoted by his cameramen? Of course not, Hollywood isn’t that incompetent. They know better than to attempt to direct a movie by committee. This is a lesson that the computer game industry truly needs to learn. When it comes to certain creative endeavors such as writing books, making movies, or designing games a single vision will utterly destroy “groupthink” every single time. Hollywood clearly knows this. Sid Meier is, of course, a perfect example of this in the computer game industry. The fact that his games were not “designed by committee” is actually the primary thing that sets them apart from most other games that the industry has produced. It is the source of that “thing you just can’t quite put your finger on” that make his games stand out. Sid’s games were, largely, his vision. There are a very few others like him, you know their names because they all stand out… because their games are the result, for the most part, of a single vision. That’s why their games stand out. That really is just about the only difference between them and the rest of you, their games are the result of a single vision and yours are not. But you still don’t see it. There are many ways to make a game. “Design by committee” is famously the worst way. The method that game and simulation designers had, long before the computer game industry even existed, come to a general consensus on as being the best method is known as the “benevolent dictatorship”. It was a very famous quote, and one that I know at least some of the older people in the computer game industry have heard before because I’ve heard them use it. “Game design is a benevolent dictatorship”. In most cases, if this phrase does not apply to your game designer when it comes to the actual design of the game (not to be confused with the production of the game) then you are using a substandard method. This method allows an experienced professional to create a game with a single vision. It allows that professional to do new and innovative things that would otherwise have been shot down in the “design by committee” process. It allows a true artist to do their thing, without that art being muddled and watered-down by people who are working outside of their field and don’t really know what they are talking about. It allows the resulting game to be unique, and not just an imitation of existing games. They even have the proof of this in their own industry, where they idolize people like Sid Meier and Will Wright. The only real difference between Sid and Will’s games and theirs is that Sid and Will’s games were largely the result of a single vision and their games were not. But they still don’t see it. The “design by committee” method always results in an imitation of an existing game. It works just fine if you are making a clone of a previous game, but it can’t achieve anything else. “Groupthink” will always gravitate towards the familiar. This is the primary reason, by far, that the computer game industry has been stuck in a 20-year long rut of crawling forward at a snail’s pace in imitating their own past games. Imitating existing games is all that their method can achieve. The method they use is actually incapable of doing anything truly new. There are very few computer games that are the result of a single vision, and those games serve as almost the entirety of the source material that they have to work with. Hence the snail’s pace of advancement. Where the computer game industry has wound up after over 20 years of almost exclusively designing by committee is not pretty. “Game Designer” has become a bastardized term in their industry. With very few exceptions, they don’t have game designers. They have people who have been given the title of “Game Designer” but don’t actually know the first thing about the subject. These people are actually more assistant designers, or level designers, the “game designer” is essentially everyone involved with the project in any way, shape, or form. They pretty much all have an equal say. In the end this group of people, that in most cases doesn’t include a single person who actually knows anything about game and simulation design, inevitably wind up “blindly blundering forward through trial and error, praying that things work out well in the end”. Then these same people explain to real game designers how “risky” making games is. I would agree completely, actually, it is very risky to make games if you are “blindly blundering forward through trial and error, praying that things work out well in the end”. It is far less risky, of course, if you just let a professional do it. But they don’t see that. You’d think that they would have a frame of reference to “get it”, since they would surely balk at the artists voting down the programmers on how something will be coded… but apparently they just don’t get it. The ugliness continues… in fact it gets handed to the gamers. Actually finishing a game or simulation is, by far, the hardest part. Starting about 10 years or so ago the computer game industry finally found a way to address this problem. They don’t finish their games anymore. They can’t. It is, by far, the hardest part and very few developers have a professional game and simulation designer who would be capable of achieving such a thing for them. Their very method precludes them from being capable of finishing a game; by that stage of the project there are too many visions in place for them to ever resolve them all. So they gave up trying about a decade ago, and they let the gamers finish designing their games now. They get it as far along as their amateur abilities are capable of and then they release the game. They plan, right from the beginning, on a series of patches that will complete the design of the game. They need the gamers to tell them how to finish designing the game, because they don’t have anyone who knows how too and the method they use makes it practically impossible for them to do it by themselves. This only further exacerbates their “design by committee” problem because it greatly expands the committee… to the entire audience. There is a difference between incorporating player suggestions into a published game and having the gamers finish designing the game for you. Computer game developers have the gamers finish designing their games for them because they are incapable of completing games on their own due to their method, and the fact that they don’t have a real game designer who is capable of doing the job. So here we are, after 20 years of “design by committee”. The people who so foolishly have devoted their lives to the study of game and simulation design are working in offices, driving cabs, and delivering pizzas. Meanwhile, groups of programmers and artists “blindly blunder forward through trial and error, praying that things work out well in the end” telling everyone else how “risky” making games is. Then when they get the game as far as they can, they release it to the gamers so that the gamers can finish designing it for them. All this to wind up, in almost every case, with games that would be considered “B-Games” in comparison too the ones that those office workers, cab drivers, and pizza delivery drivers who should be leading such efforts would be making if only the computer game industry were not so totally and completely clueless when it comes to game and simulation design. -- Marc Michalik (A.K.A. Pirate_Lord) Lost Art Studios – www.piratedawn.com
