What it really comes down to, if you've got an idea or a dream, go for it.  Does it matter what the other people say in this thread who doubt you?  Not really.  Take their advice but don't let anyone's negativity stop you from doing what you want to do.  Many of the world's great things would never have been realized if the people who made them let negative people stop them.

While the 'real gamer' comment I'm sure rubbed some people the wrong way, I'm quite certain there's some developers who thought the same thing just never said it out loud.

What you're going to want to do is think of building a game like building a house.  You need to have a good foundation, and most likely you are not going to be able to build the house by yourself.  This means, you need to know how to market your idea.  Get a website with a forum preferably so you can explain yourself, put your idea on it, be as detailed as you can sort of like a business plan, then get a facebook page, twitter, youtube, etc, and market it.

In doing that you should be able to grow a following, and maybe attract other developers who wouldn't mind teaming up with you if they are sold on what you want to do.

Building a game isn't much different than anything else you build.  You need to get your framework and blueprint up so people can see it, and go from there.

   Here's the thing Mike....

  Concepts are pretty meaningless without a technical background.  I'm gonna guess you aren't a skilled programmer...else you'd offer some physical form of the concepts in action to present to would be creators.  Thats okay, I'm not a skilled programmer either.  But that is where the problem starts.  You can, on paper, have amazing ideals.  But the fact that you don't have an intimate knowledge of what your technological limitations are means that those concepts might not even be possible...or that they cannot be implemented in a fluid, playable, and fun way.  Take minecraft, for example.  Thats an ugly game.  But it will absolutely abuse your CPU when trying to play on some large server with lots of people and things going on.  Thats because having a game track every single piece of grass that MIGHT be getting punched out while everyone is punching everything into pieces is a pain. 

  You can't even have a really meaningful thought about game design unless you have some pretty good understanding of what it takes to make them.  Its like trying to build a house without understanding engineering or the physics behind structure.  You can SAY, "Hey a giant glass ball on a steel rod is AWESOME....but if your design cannot be supported with current equipment then its just a fantasy.  I don't want to deter you from a dream, mind you.  I want you to really understand the dream and why you need education for even the most rudimentary aspects of it.

I have not checked the whole thread but I think that Star Citizen is pretty much what you are mentioning.

A real gamer made a concept fron start and went to crowd funding to avoid certain investors and publishers, so he has full control. He is making the game for PC and only PC and for the best PC you can get.

So, yes, it's not only possible but actually happening.

Originally posted by gordiflu

I have not checked the whole thread but I think that Star Citizen is pretty much what you are mentioning.

A real gamer made a concept fron start and went to crowd funding to avoid certain investors and publishers, so he has full control. He is making the game for PC and only PC and for the best PC you can get.

So, yes, it's not only possible but actually happening.

I'd say that there's a slight difference between the OP and progammer/designer/producer Chris Roberts who has already brought multiple successful games to market over the past 20 years.

More info on Chris Roberts here.

A lot of people have great ideas. Most game developers do. But translating those ideas into a working game is another thing all together.

Nothing is going to sell that idea better than a working prototype. You see, what might look good on paper might not really translate to an actual game. The reverse is also true. Look at a even small games like Cut-The-Rope or Angry Birds. Try to put on paper what makes those games great in a design paper, and try to really capture the magic on paper... Good luck.

If you want to sell your idea, you will almost certainly have to prototype it.

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Originally posted by mikecackle

What's your point?

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My point is that statements like this:

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Originally posted by mikecackle

I know how to design fun because I know what the players are searching for

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are false and you are just full of yourself only.

High self-esteem followed by self-delusion...

I say go for it! (and send me PM when you do :)). I think there are many theorycrafters out there that will happily destroy your ideas and glue them back together to forge crude ore into precious ore :)

Tbh I think you will fail horribly, but why not try it? Even failure can be good lesson after all.

It would be much better to focus on single aspect of game and try to polish that one. Maybe add to that later... but doing everything at the same time is suicidal.

Originally posted by OG_Zorvan
I think I'd like to hear the OP's definition of a "real gamer" before any "concepts" he has for any game.

Indeed, and has been pointed out many people working in the industry are 'real gamers' too. Any real gaming fool can specify the 'what' part of a game, the difficulty comes in defining the 'how', frankly that requires a broader skill set. Adventurines Darkfall was a great example, started with a massive laundry list of features and systems that even after a decade they simply could not deliver a large proportion.

I'd be interested to hear what other skills th OP brings to the table over and above being a real gamer (which can be taken for granted really).

Originally posted by Gorilla

Originally posted by OG_Zorvan
I think I'd like to hear the OP's definition of a "real gamer" before any "concepts" he has for any game.

Indeed, and has been pointed out many people working in the industry are 'real gamers' too. Any real gaming fool can specify the 'what' part of a game, the difficulty comes in defining the 'how', frankly that requires a broader skill set. Adventurines Darkfall was a great example, started with a massive laundry list of features and systems that even after a decade they simply could not deliver a large proportion.

I'd be interested to hear what other skills th OP brings to the table over and above being a real gamer (which can be taken for granted really).

Oh, please cut the semantics. Every thread has somebody going like "define X" with X beeing anything, like "casual", "sandbox", "open world", even actually "MMO".

You know very well what the OP meant when he was saying "real gamer".

I am really sick of all those semantics derailing the actual point of threads.

I have been working for the gaming industry, and my own experience is not that "many" people working on the industry are "real gamers". My experience is that everybody and their cats and dogs working on this environment is an actual gaming freak, plenty of times also into pen and paper games, figurines, comics and similar stuff.

Originally posted by gordiflu

I have been working for the gaming industry, and my own experience is not that "many" people working on the industry are "real gamers".

I'm sorry to hear that was your experience. Other than maybe the receptionist at one of our offices, I can't think of anyone in our company (500+) that isn't an avid gamer. The same with the studios I visited when I worked as a journalist. Everyone I met from CEOs to GMs to Programmers was a gaming freak. I was interviewing Jeff Anderson back when he was CEO of Turbine and something like Freelancer or Elite came up in conversation. The dude completely lit up and just went on for 10 minutes about old school gaming.

Originally posted by gordiflu

 

Oh, please cut the semantics. Every thread has somebody going like "define X" with X beeing anything, like "casual", "sandbox", "open world", even actually "MMO".

You know very well what the OP meant when he was saying "real gamer".

I am really sick of all those semantics derailing the actual point of threads.

I have been working for the gaming industry, and my own experience is not that "many" people working on the industry are "real gamers". My experience is that everybody and their cats and dogs working on this environment is an actual gaming freak, plenty of times also into pen and paper games, figurines, comics and similar stuff.

This is very different from my interactions with most of the employees at game studios / publishers / PR.

I think PR guys are the least into 'games' but still I'd say over 50% were 'hardcore' gamers.

Some are young so they might not get why 'Legend of Zelda on the NES is the best game ever and forever will be' but that doesn't make them 'not hardcore'.

OP,

I thought of the same thing years ago.  Someone shared me this link

http://www.sloperama.com/advice/idea.htm (kinda out of date but still a good start).

You'll have to be extremely lucky to even get someone in the game industry to look at your stuff when they already have THEIR OWN people who they pay to come up with ideas or decide which one of their already decided ideas will come up as their next project.

You think you have the coolest idea for a game? People working in the game industry have more experience of what stuff works and what does not.  Try to imagine how many dream games they have ready just waiting for that green light.

IMHO, make a small game about your big game.  Upload it in the internet and get people to play it.

EDIT:

If you can't even make a game as small and as popular as Tetris, Pacman, all those simple but highly addictive games, etc.,

forget about it.

You might want to try and do a community project, but your ideas probably would be challenged by the other people interested in developing it. Some ideas might sound good on the paper, but will be hard to implement or do not work very well in the game environment.

You also have to consider how huge undertaking MMOs are. I would suggest doing something smaller first.

What is a real gamer?

As many others have said, game design is a lot harder than just getting a good idea, if I got one dollar for every "promising" game idea I came up with, I would be a lot richer.

The thing about this every gamer has a different idea for what the perfect mmo would be, and what you might see as the ultimate mmo others would see as... boring. When arenanet developed Guild Wars 2, that was probably their idea of the ultimate mmorpg, but going by the backlash that game recieved that was clearly not the ultimate mmo idea even for themepark fans. Then there are issues of getting stuff to work together well and implementing stuff well, just tacking on stuff without bothering with execution results in unbalanced gameplay and a mess. Most (if not all) game developers are real gamers, and I am sure by working in the actual gaming industry, you have a much better idea of game design than someone that doesnt.

Then there is the part where a game must be possible physically to work, and by that I mean you have to take the tech, monetary and manpower limitations into mind. I have an idea for a game, but I honestly believe I couldnt get it to work because I am not sure I would have the tech and manpower to get the game to work properly, and dont  get me started on execution. Maybe in the future I can start developing it, but for now, I am gonna leave it in the dark.

Both me and a friend are passionate gamers, yet when it comes to designing the perfect mmo, we cant help but to argue with eachother.

Also this thread reminds me of this youtube video,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGar7KC6Wiw

^

I read an article about this same thing written by someone who is known in the industry. I don't know who they are, and I can't remember their. The gist of the article was that ideas are worthless. Find anyone in the industry who develops games, and ask them about their 'folder'. The 'folder' is the 100 or so game ideas they have that may or may not get developed someday. The industry doesn't need concepts...they have more of those than they know what to do with (literally).

It has been said in this thread, but I'll say it again.

You will not get funding with concepts alone, no matter how well they are presented.

What you need is something to show, other than a powerpoint. If you don't know how to code, get a friend who can and get him interested in your concept (you will also notice at this point that your friend will have ideas of his own). Make a tech demo. If you can, get an artist to create some graphics for your demo. If he/she can bring out a distinctive style that looks cool, all the better.

Then slap your concept and demo to Kickstarter and hope for the best.

With a powerpoint you will never get a single cent. Trust me.

Can't help but think this was a ploy to get people to sub to a Youtube channel...

Oh well back to conceptually designing my hoverboard, I've put ten years into that thing! This is the real deal, yo! PLEASE CARE!

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by gordiflu

I have been working for the gaming industry, and my own experience is not that "many" people working on the industry are "real gamers".

I'm sorry to hear that was your experience. Other than maybe the receptionist at one of our offices, I can't think of anyone in our company (500+) that isn't an avid gamer. The same with the studios I visited when I worked as a journalist. Everyone I met from CEOs to GMs to Programmers was a gaming freak. I was interviewing Jeff Anderson back when he was CEO of Turbine and something like Freelancer or Elite came up in conversation. The dude completely lit up and just went on for 10 minutes about old school gaming.

Remember Lok, we're defining 'avid gamers' as "REAL gamers'.

REAL gamers, as this construction uses it, consists of "guys that agree with me".  Which, in the case of some fringe ideas, can be an incredible small slice of the gamer pie.

All of your company could be playing games 24/7, without being "REAL" gamers for the op's purposes.

Since we're not prepared to carry around the OP on our shoulders in support of his terrific ideas without seeing them first, very likely not many 'real' gamers in this thread at all.