How to be a Game Designer | Ask Booker

Ask Booker is a weekly feature here at Udderpunch. If you have a question you would like an answer to, just click the contact link at the bottom of any page and send it in.

Jon asks: During SGP I saw that I do in fact enjoy coding, but in regards to my future questions, also enjoy the design aspect of creating a game. Coming out of the FS GD program, how useful is this degree pertaining to jobs that focus more on design rather than actual coding? What are some positions in the industry that may need a strong familiarity with code in order to design and not necessarily have to code? How does one become management when just starting out in the industry and how much involvement with coding and/or designing does management have?

That’s a ton of good questions Jon, so this is going to be a fairly long post. Unlike previous “Ask Booker’s” I’m going to talk about the general concept of your questions as opposed to each one separately. Also if anyone has any more specific questions about this topic, or would like me to elaborate on something, just send another question to ask Booker. Another thing to note is that I can only speak to my personal experience in the industry and information I’ve gotten from friends. This is by no means the ultimate answer, just what I’ve learned.

The first thing you need to realize is that there is no such thing as a “Game Designer.” No-one really gets paid to “Design” games. Why is this? There are many reasons. The most important of which is, what does a game designer do when the game is in production? Once the original concept of a game is finished and the doc is written what does a game designer do? Do you really think that a game developer is willing to pay for someone’s time when they aren’t earning the company money? There are exceptions to this rule. Once you’ve made a company a fortune through your game concept, people will hire you just to design a game. Note that they aren’t hired to work on the game, just to design it. So this is purely contract work. And when the doc is done, they leave or stay on in a producer role. I can only think of a few people in the history of gaming to achieve this very high pedigree. (Will Wright, Sid Meire) Those guys with a degree from Collins College in Game Design are truly fucked.

So your next question is going to be, “Well, if there aren’t any game designers then who designs my games?” The answer is traditionally the Producer. The producers (AP’s for those of you who took SGP) are usually the people that design the game. Sometimes the whole development team is invited into brain storming sessions, sometimes they aren’t. Something to keep in mind is that games usually are not built from the ground up. Most publishers go to the Development Company and say, “Hey we’ve got X money for you to develop a game about Y.” The producers then build a game concept around Y with a schedule and itemized costs. If the Publishers like what they see, development is started.

There are a few cases where this division of development and design is not strictly true. Scripters usually design and develop the concepts they integrate into the game. If it’s your job to build 20 new quests by the end of the month, you are both designing that quest and building it. (You will have to get permission for the quest from your producer, of course) This is most commonly seen in MMORPG’s and massive single player games like Oblivion. These are pretty much the only obtainable design jobs for student’s that just graduated from FullSail. People suited to this type of design would do better to study History, foreign languages (especially Latin), and English. A strong foundation in creative writing is pretty necessary, and I’m sorry to say that FullSail does not appropriately prepare you for this.

This degree is not useful for people wanting to design games rather than build them, which is a good thing. If there aren’t design jobs, then you can’t get into the industry through design. But, there ARE programming jobs, so you CAN get into the industry through programming. Then, you work to become a Producer and therefore get to design. There aren’t really any jobs that require strong foundations in coding that aren’t programming jobs. The exceptions don’t involve the type of design you want. (IE User Interface Programmer, Tools developer)

So this brings us to the final question, “How do I become a producer out of FullSail?” You can’t. Game producers are not hired off the street, they never have been and hopefully they never will be. You become a producer by either creating the company yourself or getting promoted. If you take charge in meetings, are good at getting people to work for you, and are a good salesman then you can be a producer. You just have to work in the industry for several years first. Having a background in programming is a benefit to producers because they will know if their employee is padding their schedule, or if they should have had some tech piece done by now. This knowledge can increase your pay significantly. The closest thing to Producer experience you will get at FullSail is Project Lead in Final Project. If you’re really interested, ask your team if they mind you taking that role. It’s a tough job though and not one you’re really going to be prepared for. But, it will be a good learning experience.

I hope this meandering post answered all your questions Jon. If you, or anyone else, have anything to comment, click the comments link below. If you have additional questions click the contact links at the bottom of the page and ask away. Just keep in mind that getting into the industry is the first step, and we will do everything we can to make that happen. (85% of Game Dev graduates have jobs in game dev)

Tags: code, coding, design, designer, game, management, manager, producer