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Champions Online News - Breaking the Wall
Posted by Keith Cross on Apr 21, 2008 | 4 comments in our forums
Cryptic Studios recently posted an article on the Champions Online official site which details how a talented and driven individual can break into the exciting world of game design. Today we're pleased to reproduce the article the article on this site.
This is the first of a two-part series about the field of game design. This first article talks about how to break the wall and get into game design. The second part will detail a bit about how design works from the inside.
At one point or another, most people who play games have probably at least entertained the thought of getting into game design professionally. Game design isn't like law or medicine though – there's no bar or exam to pass, so how exactly does one break into the field?
The most important thing to realize about breaking into game design is that it is very much subject to the laws of supply and demand. There are very few game design jobs of any sort available, and there are a whole lot of people who want to be designers. And many of the people applying for the few open game design positions are not strangers to the industry, either. In addition to people in areas like QA or CSR, it is not uncommon to see programmers or artists want to switch fields.
Different developers will have different biases and be looking for different things, but there are ways you can better position yourself to dramatically improve your chances of breaking in to the industry.
Read more here.
I really feel that the industry is going to get so specialized, with so many companies concentrating on so many specific aspects of game making, that creating games, and MMO's, will be more like stepping up to a buffet (I will use productX for my game world and productZ for my character design, and productY for my collision detection, ect.)... and that is when I will give it a go.
I am not exactly a successfull game designer myself. But, my opinion would be to specialised yourself, as a game designer. (Of course, Flash games designing required to be a jack-of-all trade designer and would constitute a counter example, the absolutely exception to the rule I just spoke, as you lonely must single-handle possible dozens of design in a year LOL, now that would be time to be a generalist and not specialised yourself at all)
See, there are MANY peoples who want to design. Find your strongpoints and specialised into it. Even Smed or Stateman can do the comon sense job, cutting stuff into place.
You can just start from a simple exercise as a DM. Did you try a RPG club? What types of players did you attract in your games? I know for 1, I was attracting extremely different peoples, some very popular, and some extremely outcast in the "RPG community", I was seen as a cruel, yet lawfull DM, where every player has a chance, an opportunity. Now, you have to decode that, from a "Game designing" perspective. See, in these RPGs clubs, usually the peoples are forming small groups and move together, as groups. Me, the unique thing was, that these group "usually" break to join my games. Now, that doesn't mean that much, yet it does pinpoint to a few particularities I have.
Just as in everything in life, find what make you unique, good, wanted. See, other peoples will put labels on you, willingly or not, you will be task with precise tasks (never those you really want). At least, make sure that peoples see your strong points, so at least you are likely to be task with stuff you enjoy in a way, or another.
Almost everyone is creative in this field, so if this is all you can find about yourself, or other can find about yourself, you may as well just give up. Find your credo and use it!
I agree 100%.
With all these new engines for this, or that, or 'the players want this feature that requires a full-blown team to create and will now be a staple of games' and what not, not to mention that there are now specialized degrees popping up everywhere, things are going to get a lot more specialized, and a lot more competitive.
The video game world is still a baby in most aspects, and as with everything, will grow and evolve. If you look at any company model, it always changes, jobs come and go, morph and expand, whatever.
So yeah, I agree. Things are going to change a lot, and keep changing. The key is knowing what you like. What really drives you. What makes you want to be in this field.
If you can find all that, and get your head planted somewhere, then get your foot in the door, good luck to you.
LoL, I've got over twenty years experiance DM'ing just about every PnP game under the sun, up till about 7 years ago ( no one wanted me as a player for some reason ). Even today I just cannot look at any game with taking a DM point of view. Yes, you might not like something, but why is it there? What function does it server? It's probably a good part of the reason why I advocate slow leveling, harsh death penalties, and meaningful factions. I always found campaigns lasted longer and ran more smoothly when I slowed the groups leveling speed and made characters consider the consequence of their actions instead of just hack and slash.