Really ideas are a dime a dozen. Get a good bit demo code done. Shop it around to some venture capitalists and see what happens. As to protection. NDAs are about it but if you are not prepared to sue then they are just paper. The old saying is "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door" Have an idea about better mousetrap well that is nice.
Game ideas are ten a penny. When I worked at a game company we got three of four "ideas" sent to us every day of the week. We threw all of them in the bin, fancy artwork and all.
If you want to design games you need to start applying for jobs as a game tester. If your feedback/ideas are good you'll work your way up.
Beware though... if there's one thing which outnumbers game ideas it's people who want to be game testers. There's millions of people who think getting paid for playing video games would be the c
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday August 08, 2008 @01:24AM (#24521215)
You do NOT need to work your way up from game tester to game designer. Forget the "game industry" and the folklore about career paths in that mythology.
If you think you have a good idea, find a programmer to be an early partner, and develop a prototype.
Ideally, don't deal with any established companies, and try to publish the game yourself. People buy games online now, and the concept of a publisher is laughable. Marketing and advance money are the only possible benefits of dealing with a publisher, but if you believe in your game idea, and you are confident that you can implement the game well, then do it yourself.
If you enter the game industry, you're likely to become a mere employee, and you won't get any financial benefit from your innovative ideas. Moreover, your ideas are likely to be modified or distorted by many different pressures within the management of your employer's company or by pressures imposed by the publishers.
Now maybe the advice that some people are giving here applies to most people, because most people might start with more ambition than talent, and most people might not have a good enough view of the overall picture to realize all of the elements that go in to making a successful game. But I think that people with talent should reject the "paying dues" concept. If a game company won't hire you as an entry game designer, and you think you are already a game designer, then say "no" to the "game industry", and figure out some other path to getting your game created.
If you can't find a programmer who likes your game idea enough to join you, as a partner with equity in the project, then your idea isn't any good. You need to develop a prototype, and determine if it is as fun as you both think it will be.
Bottom line: Do whatever you can to avoid the "game industry". The "game industry" is largely a cult of managers, where imagination dies and talent is unrewarded. Really all you want is money to finance development and marketing -- and I think you should probably just work at a non-gaming job to pay your bills while you continue developing your game. It's an unconventional path, but what you create will be your property and under your full creative control, and you will benefit fully from the success of the game. If you fail, you failed while doing exactly what you wanted, and you can learn from the experience. If you can't tolerate the uncertainty or the possibility of failure, then, yeah, maybe the "paying your dues" idea is the safe path...
I worked on a few commercial video games, and I learned a lot about all aspects of developing video games. It can be a fun profession. However, if you divide your salary by the number of hours worked each week, you might determine that you're making money at the same hourly rate as someone working a normal work week at 60% of the salary! That's a big premium for the "privilege" of working in the "video game industry". Also, a video game of any scale is subjected to the creative input of lots of managers -- who think only of maximizing profit. Managers will set parameters on the game according to what *they believe* will maximize profit, but, in fact, their imposed parameters and constraints will, more likely than not, *reduce* the perceived value of the game in the market. I'm sure, as a consumer of video games, you will agree that most video games are the products of the risk-averse instinct to copy the success of others. How many games in the store aren't based on franchises (movies, cartoon characters, professional sporting leagues, television shows, popular books, popular music, etc)? Any innovative game that becomes successful becomes a franchise of its own, like "Tomb Raider", "Duke Nukem", "Half-Life", "Quake", "Doom", "GTA", "*Craft", "Sims", "Civilization", etc. Some of those game franchises have turned out well -- not lazily exploiting customer loyalty to continue making money on each successive release, but actually offering new value. But, the fact is, most franchise games make game developers feel like they're just working on an assembly line; the creativity is so constrained, because they're just continuing an established pattern, that there's no passion in it at all. If you enter the games industry, your passion for games will be killed, because few game companies work on innovative games. If you want to create something new, you need to start your own company.
This guy is right. If you want to make video games, you can either work for someone else and make their video games, (boring!) or you can make your own. Problem is, it's not easy to go out and make your own game and try to make money from it. In fact, it's very hard. I would know; I'm doing it right now. When I say it's very hard, this is really an understatement, because there's no way to accurately verbalize how hard it really is. The above post makes it sound straightforward, but it's not. So, when readi
Mathematics deals exclusively with the relations of concepts
to each other without consideration of their relation to experience.
-- Albert Einstein
Ideas are cheap. (Score:5, Informative)
Really ideas are a dime a dozen. Get a good bit demo code done. Shop it around to some venture capitalists and see what happens.
As to protection. NDAs are about it but if you are not prepared to sue then they are just paper.
The old saying is "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door"
Have an idea about better mousetrap well that is nice.
Mod parent up (Score:5, Interesting)
Game ideas are ten a penny. When I worked at a game company we got three of four "ideas" sent to us every day of the week. We threw all of them in the bin, fancy artwork and all.
If you want to design games you need to start applying for jobs as a game tester. If your feedback/ideas are good you'll work your way up.
Beware though ... if there's one thing which outnumbers game ideas it's people who want to be game testers. There's millions of people who think getting paid for playing video games would be the c
NO! Advice given above is WRONG! (Score:5, Insightful)
You do NOT need to work your way up from game tester to game designer. Forget the "game industry" and the folklore about career paths in that mythology.
If you think you have a good idea, find a programmer to be an early partner, and develop a prototype.
Ideally, don't deal with any established companies, and try to publish the game yourself. People buy games online now, and the concept of a publisher is laughable. Marketing and advance money are the only possible benefits of dealing with a publisher, but if you believe in your game idea, and you are confident that you can implement the game well, then do it yourself.
If you enter the game industry, you're likely to become a mere employee, and you won't get any financial benefit from your innovative ideas. Moreover, your ideas are likely to be modified or distorted by many different pressures within the management of your employer's company or by pressures imposed by the publishers.
Now maybe the advice that some people are giving here applies to most people, because most people might start with more ambition than talent, and most people might not have a good enough view of the overall picture to realize all of the elements that go in to making a successful game. But I think that people with talent should reject the "paying dues" concept. If a game company won't hire you as an entry game designer, and you think you are already a game designer, then say "no" to the "game industry", and figure out some other path to getting your game created.
If you can't find a programmer who likes your game idea enough to join you, as a partner with equity in the project, then your idea isn't any good. You need to develop a prototype, and determine if it is as fun as you both think it will be.
Bottom line: Do whatever you can to avoid the "game industry". The "game industry" is largely a cult of managers, where imagination dies and talent is unrewarded. Really all you want is money to finance development and marketing -- and I think you should probably just work at a non-gaming job to pay your bills while you continue developing your game. It's an unconventional path, but what you create will be your property and under your full creative control, and you will benefit fully from the success of the game. If you fail, you failed while doing exactly what you wanted, and you can learn from the experience. If you can't tolerate the uncertainty or the possibility of failure, then, yeah, maybe the "paying your dues" idea is the safe path...
I worked on a few commercial video games, and I learned a lot about all aspects of developing video games. It can be a fun profession. However, if you divide your salary by the number of hours worked each week, you might determine that you're making money at the same hourly rate as someone working a normal work week at 60% of the salary! That's a big premium for the "privilege" of working in the "video game industry". Also, a video game of any scale is subjected to the creative input of lots of managers -- who think only of maximizing profit. Managers will set parameters on the game according to what *they believe* will maximize profit, but, in fact, their imposed parameters and constraints will, more likely than not, *reduce* the perceived value of the game in the market. I'm sure, as a consumer of video games, you will agree that most video games are the products of the risk-averse instinct to copy the success of others. How many games in the store aren't based on franchises (movies, cartoon characters, professional sporting leagues, television shows, popular books, popular music, etc)? Any innovative game that becomes successful becomes a franchise of its own, like "Tomb Raider", "Duke Nukem", "Half-Life", "Quake", "Doom", "GTA", "*Craft", "Sims", "Civilization", etc. Some of those game franchises have turned out well -- not lazily exploiting customer loyalty to continue making money on each successive release, but actually offering new value. But, the fact is, most franchise games make game developers feel like they're just working on an assembly line; the creativity is so constrained, because they're just continuing an established pattern, that there's no passion in it at all. If you enter the games industry, your passion for games will be killed, because few game companies work on innovative games. If you want to create something new, you need to start your own company.
Sorry for rambling...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)