Wow, this is not my experience at all. To begin with, there are lots of different kinds and categories of designers and most folks start in one corner or another of the field–level design, content design, system design. Of course there are Richard Garriotts out there who were around at the time when all of those were one person (who was also the programmer and artist). I don’t know that I agree that there are a lot of designers out there, but there definitely aren’t if you start to look at different disciplines in the field. Multiply that times the number of different game genres, with their own particular hurdles, and there are a lot of definitions for the title “designer,” many of which even Richard Garriott would suck at. So I don’t see many designers starting out with hubris–they start how anyone starts anything they’re excited about, which is desperately happy to be doing anything like this, very aware of all the ways they don’t know what they’re doing, and with an overestimation of how much everyone else knows about making a good game.
What Garriott touches on (between insults toward his colleagues) about education and game design is generally true. You learn on the job because there’s still no better place to learn this stuff (game design programs simply give you about a year of “working” on a student project before you head out into the real world). So, yes, you suck when you start. At least you suck in whatever small corner of the game you’re assigned to, instead of sucking at leading a team in its efforts to piss away tens of millions of dollars on something like Tabula Rasa.
The key virtue of a game designer is humility. I believe it was in Jesse Schell’s book on game design that he said the most important skill for being a game designer is listening. You listen to your lead or your creative director, you listen to your co-designers and the team that works under you. You listen to the lead programmer. You listen to the publisher. You listen to the early focus testers or the random friend you hand your game to. And, because they might not be game designers, you don’t just do what they say. But you think about what they say tells you about your game and your vision. And then you find ways to build on what’s working and shrink, snip, or strangle what isn’t. Richard Garriott I’m sure did the same things on Ultima I, although he had fewer people to listen to (and, look, no one gets all misty-eyed about Ultima I anyway).
After what he said, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to work as a designer on one of his games. Compare his interview with any interview you can find with Warren Spector (whose career was launched by Garriott). Dig up what Warren Spector has to say about the designers he’s worked with. Spector knows far more about how a successful design team functions than Garriott does.
I’m sure Garriott’s a smart guy and all. I certainly haven’t been so successful as a game designer that I can send myself to space. But I can say for sure that in all his years in the industry (or pretending to still be in the industry) he hasn’t learned much about humility and he hasn’t learned much about what makes a good game designer.
habibi
1582
I didn’t expect the Homeworld Kickstarter would be funded. It just did with 48 hours to go. Because of this I put my pledge. I really hope they are able to bid the license from THQ.
Kickstarter explicitly forbids any kind of charity or “fund my life” campaign like this anyway. They should shut it down for that reason alone. There’s even a link at the bottom of the project page for reporting this sort of misuse. Of course, this woman is in a win-win situation. She either gets the money and a bunch of publicity, or she gets her project shut down and can create a controversy (with attendant publicity) to promote her own crowd funding site (which itself looks super shady).
Thrag
1584
For extra humor value, that is almost twice what Cleve raised in his Grimoire campaign.
When i first read the kickstarter, i admit, it was touching. I make it a rule to never kickstart anything unless it gives an actual product, but i was planning to break my rule for this one. It basically combined what i feel is a good cause (encouraging more women to go in to programing, specifically video game programming) with personal, feel good stuff (helping a little girl prove to her annoying brothers that she can make a rpg).
However, the more i read about it, the more… questionable it sounds.
I checked out the mother’s crowdfunding site very briefly and, while i hope i am wrong, it appears to be “give me money with no strings attached, then at some later date i may allow you to vote on giving some/all of the money to a business run by a woman.”
It would be one thing to help a young girl go to an rpg making camp (or whatever) if her family couldn’t afford it, but why the hell can’t her (seemingly very wealthy) mother just pay $500 to help her daughter go to this camp? I could see if she wanted her daughter to work to raise the money on her own, but i don’t consider asking for donations “earning it on you own” personally.
My heart says yes, but my head screams IT’S A TRAP!
jpinard
1586
Pull the plug dude. This woman is a user. Her last kickstarter was equally questionable. Supposed disabled Marine husband who’s going to knit superhero capes so he can sell off or trade Magic the Gathering cards? Basically funding an addition to their house… She’s a damn millionaire, and she’s asking other people to do that? Sick. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/the-cape-project?ref=users Further adding to her question-ability, she’s worried about sickos and weirdos and her daughter, but not posting a shirtless picture of her son, and the same picture of her other son with some kind of saying referring to himself as being a lesbian? Both of them are obviously minors.
Even more… her millionaire Mom won’t buy her a laptop but she “threw that in” to get more money and some vague reference to the Veronica Mars movie. She threw in Veronica Mars to get more hits on her own page as she says “she wants more money for that project” but in fact, there is no tier nor stretch goal that states the money goes there. This is so scammy it makes my blood boil. Reminds me of this research I just saw:
Why the Rich Don’t Give Like Everyone Else
rowe33
1587
If her favorite games are Borderlands 2 (???) and Dragon Age 2, why is she so intent on making a non-violent crappy JRPG? Can’t believe this thing has raised $22K for this woman.
This graphic from the KS comments is pretty telling:
Everything that is wrong with this Kickstarter
Thinking I should Kickstart a project to buy my daughter a comb. She’s 16 months old and her hair is crazy curly. I’ll have to invent some mean brothers that torment her on a daily basis. Figure I’ll set the goal at $5 but put some $5k and $10k stretch goals for the really passionate backers.
Razgon
1588
I really don’t understand why people support this - The premise is getting money to maybe get the IP? And then what? What about the next amount of money? What if they don’t get the IP? I can read its a “Money back guarentee” but thats on scouts honor only.
THeir website doesn’t really scream that they are able to make a game like Homeworld either.
habibi
1589
I know what you are saying.
I’m just hope-fool.
Oh darn straight he’s arrogant. But…yes, he’s afaik right. Most designers are not going to disagree, look at it that way.
Do 9 year old’s say ‘cool’ all the time these days? The whole thing reads like a scam to make money, and if ‘mum’ just has to produce something on RPG-maker that doesn’t sound too much work does it?
After reading more about it (not necessarily just from the above quote but everything I’ve read here and elsewhere), I took the time to politely report the project to KS as violating the spirit of the site. I made it clear to them my thoughts and that their ruling (if any) would not affect my future backing of projects. I just don’t like this one at all for many reasons already stated by folks here and elsewhere.
The Big Blue - The next generation, underwater, action/adventure game by the original Ecco the Dolphin team.
Kadath
1594
I hate the Way reddit can dog pile on people, but in this case I Pulled my pledge. Will support her real project once she gets away from user mom…
Shackleton Crater was cancelled. I guess they couldn’t find enough of the public to research their own game for them.
Good catch, appreciate the head’s up.
habibi
1597
Update to the Homeworld Kickstarter:
Licensing and Producing the Next Homeworld
As mentioned in our last update, while we’ve spent the past few months developing and demoing early alpha prototypes of our project, the most immediate step is to participate in the THQ bankruptcy auction for the Homeworld IP so we can bid on the license necessary to release our work to the public. We’re finalizing the paperwork for our opening bid which is due April 1st, and will follow-up with a second (and final) response bid due April 15th. In the meantime, we will continue to push forward with development and share our prototypes with you to solicit feedback. We greatly appreciate all of the feedback submitted so far!
As we mention in our Risks and Challenges, our ability to execute our proposed Homeworld project significantly depends on receiving the legal backing from THQ to helm the property in addition to our current development efforts. In the event we are unable to reach a licensing position, we will begin processing refunds to all donors as such a scenario will preclude our work from public, commercial release. (Hopefully, you won’t have to visit us in person to try Homeworld: Touch in private!)
Despite a lot of talk to the contrary, there is no precise method for predicting the final auction price of a property that has been inactive for nearly 10 years, especially when differing companies have a variety of creative and financial restrictions determining their bids. If the auction rules in our favor, we will immediately scale-up our efforts for long-term production. Our budgeting renders us self-sufficient under our current crowdfunding as well as other available funds and have no plans for an additional Kickstarter campaign.
Stay tuned for more to come, and thank you again for your generosity!
Canuck
1598
I just came across this title, Battle Worlds: Kronos, today on RPS. It totally looks like an updated Massive Assault game. I’m in for $20 and so should everyone else. :)
Clanan
1599
Wow, thanks for linking that. I’m in as well! KS seems to be my Steam-Kryptonite. I’ve become so damn stingy when it comes to buying games, but whenever something remotely interesting pops up on KS I can’t grab my wallet fast enough…
mok
1600
I really question the legitamacy of this KS.
The value of this property is worth more than they have raised in both projects. Then there is the unpredictability of the Judge. In the Acclaim lawsuit they took individual bids on properties for months, then 4 weeks before the end of the auction, the judge ruled the entire set of IPs needed to be bundled and sold as a unit.Really knocked out smaller fish.
If they do refund what about the 10% skimmed off the top?
