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Why Won’t Developers Listen to Your Game Idea?

39 pointsby codebunglover 13 years ago

8 comments

jonnathansonover 13 years ago
This is good information, but there's something else that probably needs to be said: nobody wants to get sued.<p>I've worked only tangentially in the games industry, but I worked for many years in TV development. And people often asked why we (NBC or FOX, in my case) wouldn't accept unsolicited submissions of show ideas. The primary reason we didn't is that it was a legal minefield. If you read someone's submission, and you rejected it, and years later you developed a show with even the slightest <i>hint</i> of an element from that concept, the person who submitted it could sue you. And, even if he wouldn't prevail 9 times out of 10, he'd still eat up a lot of time and work and money in the process.<p>The problem is that there's really nothing new under the sun. Every basic plot imaginable has been conceived. Every core concept shy of the truly insane or inane has already been pitched (and even those have been pitched, trust me). The chances that your unsolicited submission will bear more than passing similarities to a concept already pitched, or already in development, are quite high.<p>Aggravating this problem is the fact that people have sued over the most facepalmingly generic bits of supposed intellectual property: character names(!), broad-stroke concepts (i.e., "I sent NBC an idea about superheroes; NBC made a show about superheroes!!!11!1"), and so forth.<p>At the end of the day, opening an unsolicited envelope is more hassle than it's worth. I can't say if this is a motivating factor for game developers or publishers, but I imagine it would be.
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SimHackerover 13 years ago
Ideas for games are not at all scarse. They are not at all hard to come up with. They are not at all unique. In fact, ideas for games are much more trouble than they are worth. Game developers don't need any more ideas. The only way to ship a game on time is to brutally throw away as many ideas as you can, until you have the smallest design that will actually work and be fun, and then EXECUTE on that.<p>Execution is what matters, not ideas. Everybody wants to be the "idea guy," because they think that's the easy part, and the glorious part, where they just sit there and tell other people what to do, and get all the credit. But there are very few positions in the industry for "idea guy", and the only people who get them have a proven track record.<p>I work for Will Wright, who is an idea guy. It's my job to execute on his ideas, come up with prototypes that let him play around with the ideas, and then throw them away and start from scratch when he gets different ideas, or rewrite, iterate and polish the good ones until they're production quality. The designs he gives me are high level enough that there's lots of room for creativity, filling in the gaps between the design and the implementation. But the only reason I get the privilege to exercise any creativity is because I'm also executing on the hard part: implementing the code.<p>If you don't want to actually do the heavy lifting and grunt work of writing code, and if you aren't willing to throw it all away and start from scratch when the designers decide they want something else, or work on the complex, tedious plumbing that nobody will notice, then it's going to be very hard for you to find a job in the games industry.<p>The best thing to do is to write your own game, all by yourself. Then you will have something to show. But nobody in the industry wants to hear your idea, if you don't have something to show that works and is fun, because it's just a distraction from executing on their own ideas.<p>But now days it's entirely possible for one person or a small team to actually execute on their own idea and produce a good game, like Minecraft for example, as long as they're willing to do the hard work, and not just into it just because they think it will be an easy, glorious job to be the "idea guy" who tells other people what to do and takes all the credit.<p>And for god's sake, if you have no intention of doing any programming or other hard work, and you are just looking for a programmer to do all the "easy" work for you for equity instead of salary, now that you've done the "hard part" of coming up with the idea for the world's greatest game or iPhone app, then please fuck off and die. There are already enough narcissists polluting the games industry, thank you: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Games" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Games</a>
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jwcaccesover 13 years ago
Because everyone has ideas.<p>Your ideas aren't worth anything. Execution is worth something. Game designers are doing the execution themselves, so you're not worth listening to.
wccrawfordover 13 years ago
I think the reasons depend on the company, too. Large companies have different reasons than indie devs and amateurs.<p>As an amateur game programmer, I have a -ton- of ideas. I don't need anyone else's because I've got too many of my own.<p>As an indie dev, I imagine that the above applies, plus they already have a game or 2 released in a certain genre, and changing genres can be problematic with the fans.<p>As a major developer, you can break the 1-genre rule, but you become a target for lawsuits, as jonnathanson noted in another comment here.
5hoomover 13 years ago
The people making the decisions probably spent a long time wanting to realise their ideas too. If an idea isn't good enough to convince you to work on it day &#38; night, it will be a hard to convince someone else to do so.<p>The authors advice is right: <i>"If you want to get your game made, make it yourself"</i>. If your idea is good &#38; you can show it in action you have a much better chance of getting noticed than if you just post a wish-list on a forum.<p>[Edit: Is it just me timing out? Google cache: <a href="http://goo.gl/ez5e4" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/ez5e4</a>]
bitwizeover 13 years ago
About ten years ago there was a kid named Imari Stevenson. He had a gigantic site dedicated to his game ideas which he hoped he would sell to Sega, Nintendo, and Square. I won't get into the content in much detail. It suffices to say that flaming breast milk was usable as a weapon in one of the game proposals.<p>I told him the same thing that was written here, though I'm nowhere near a pro game developer. I said, if you're so dedicated to these game ideas you will probably have to write them yourself, and oh by the way, it isn't all that hard to do. He basically ignored me and insisted that his skill was in concept generation, not programming or art.<p>Some people just don't want to download GCC or the JDK and get cracking. They have a GREAT idea, they want it NOW, and they think it's up to a triple-A studio to make it happen. Yeah, only if you have brain cancer and can cajole the Make-A-Wish foundation into helping.<p>These days the name "Imari" can still elicit fits of giggles from some of my friends in the game industry. He's an "indie filmmaker" of sorts now, creating low-budget CG films about women who can shoot flaming breast milk or something.
johnnyjusticeover 13 years ago
I agree with this author completely. To his point George R.R. Martin thinks that fan-fiction is a bad exercise that doesn't force you enough out of your element.<p>People write your own games and change them enough not get sued(hey, at least you get to be creative)
signalsignalover 13 years ago
Idea guys are great when they bring lots of money.