Cuppy poses a question on her blog:
It seems like a decent amount of people who design games for a living want to blog and share that knowledge with others.
My question is: Do they know what they’re talking about? Are they even good designers?
This has stirred up several responding blog posts already, as well as some discussion in comments.
I can’t answer this question directly, for a couple of reasons. I wouldn’t call myself a professional game designer, though I think everyone in the development loop DOES wear the design hat at times. But even assuming that I’m qualified to call myself a “professional game designer / blogger,” I am of course deeply invested in both game work AND blogging. The question feels masturbatory to me. How could a direct response be anything but “Duhhhh… I rawk, and I know what I’m talking about, so game design blogs rule!” And yet, now that I’ve whored trackbacks at THREE blogs, I feel honor-bound to try to contribute some value to the discussion. Blast!
WONTFIX - WORKSFORME
Tuebit and I started this blog years before either of us worked in the game industry. And yet, even our armchair quarterbacking inarguably had SOME value. Maybe it’s because the blog was public discussion of our attempts to write games. (For those who didn’t follow those dark days, we sure learned a lot about game development. Mostly by failing repeatedly!)
Did our blog advance the sainted art of game design? Probably not. Did someone, somewhere share or see an idea or two that might have inspired something good? It’s possible, and maybe even likely. And did it benefit US — the blog authors? That would be an affirmative.
Yes. Sometimes.
Stuff like Shamus Young’s series on a procedurally generated cityscape is fascinating, and I learned things from it. It’s got tricks, tips, and it’s just plain interesting.
The design challenges and prototyping art from Lost Garden are awesome. OK, so I’ve never taken the design challenges further than paper, but I’ve sure put Planet Cute tiles to work for me before!
Everything I Know About Game Design I Learned From Stephen King
I cried when I read parts of The Dark Tower. This is despite the fact that what I read wasn’t really a surprise. I mean, Stephen King broke the fourth wall, wrote a note in the story text as the author and TOLD me a character was going to die, and yet it still kicked me in the nuts when it happened.
In essence, that’s what I feel is a great bit of game design. Meaningful moments of play, without resorting to tricks and surprises every time. The day I can TELL you that something amazing is going to happen — and yet, when it happens, you’re still amazed — then I’ll have a game design I like. But how do I get there (and even better, bring you with me)?
I can talk about fiero and atoms and graph theory and projection of force and feedback loops all I want. That’s awesome and empowering, and will help me talk within the community of “game designers who’ve done the academic legwork and can apply it to their work.” But Stephen King succeeded as a novelist because he was a great storyteller. He managed to tell stories — many that, from a perspective of scope, are quite comparable with “literature” — and succeeded by learning how to tell his stories to “us plain folks.”
In conclusion
I lied; I’m going to answer the questions directly.
Do they know what they’re talking about? Do even the great designers generate hits consistently? Game design is a creative art. Designers blogging about it know as much as composers who blog who know as much as writers who blog. So the answer is no… and yes.
Are they even good designers? I don’t even know if that matters. I learn as much from reading design ideas that get torn apart as from great ideas. And I learned even more from writing dozens of terrible ideas here. So the answer is… More importantly, are YOU learning design from them?
Duhhhh… I rawk, and I know what I’m talking about, so game design blogs rule!
When I was in Las Vegas last year, I got this tattoo. I also learned something important from my friendly tattoo artist. You see, a UPC code sure LOOKS simple — it’s all straight lines and circles! But it turns out that it’s REALLY difficult to execute. You see, your arm isn’t actually flat, so these symettrical, simple shapes can easily distort.
Hey man, there’s a recession on.
