getting started in game design dr. lewis pulsipher copyright 2007 lewis pulsipher
TRANSCRIPT
April 19, 2023
Who am I Designed my own games while a teenager Began playing commercial wargames in 1963 Played the original Atari 2600 and have played
some PC games heavily, but rarely play any video games these days; never owned a game console
Designer of six commercially-published board wargames (most recently February ‘06)
Active designer of board and card games (playtesters solicited!)
My main job is teaching networking, Web development in college
April 19, 2023
Reality Check Almost no one makes a living designing
games Most who do work for a game company,
not freelance You could spend the same time as
profitably by picking up bottles and cans for deposits and recycling!
Most publishers don’t make a lot, either—and it’s risky
Many publishers exist largely to self-publish their own games
April 19, 2023
Reality Check 2 So if you design games, do it because
you like to, or because you must, not because you want to make money– Alan R. Moon, two German “Games of the
Year”, would have had to get part-time job if not for Ticket to Ride winning
Recognize that your “great idea” is probably not that great, not that original, and not that interesting to other people
Finally, it’s extra-hard to get into video game design
April 19, 2023
OK, How much do you make? In my experience, royalties are a
percentage of the publisher’s actual revenue– 5% is most common
Publisher sells to distributor at 40% of list price or less; distributor sells to retailer for 10% more
Internet sales are becoming significant—then publisher makes 100%
Shipping costs may be subtracted from revenue
April 19, 2023
Royalty example $40 list game, 5% of $16 = 80 cents Per 1,000 copies, $800 $20 game, $400 per thousand Wargame typical printrun is a few
thousand “Euro” games might go up to 10,000 Most games sell poorly after first six
months, most are not reprinted German “Game of the Year” might sell
250,000 or more, after award
April 19, 2023
What about the biggies? In general, the really big companies
have staff to design their games Many will not even accept outside
submissions Virtually all will require you sign a
statement relieving them of all liabilities At least one only works through agents In USA, Hasbro owns all the traditional
boardgame publishers such as Parker Brothers, Avalon Hill
April 19, 2023
Do I need an agent? Whatever for? Yet, I did for my first game back in the
70s, in England– Unfamiliarity– I could meet and talk with him locally
(London) Shady “agents” and “evaluators”
abound– Don’t ever get an agent who wants a fee
“up front”
April 19, 2023
Practice and get others to evaluate Diplomacy variants and D&D material in
my case Post such things on your or other Web sites Analogy:
– Jerry Pournelle (SF writer) says be willing to throw away your first million words on the road to becoming successful SF writer
– Similarly, be willing to make lots of games/mods that don’t make any money on the way to making (some) money as a game designer
April 19, 2023
Intellectual Property Rights Ideas are not important, and not
valued!– Ideas are a dime a dozen: execution is what
counts Copyright now inherent
– Forget that “mail to myself” idea– Registered copyright makes suits much
easier to pursue and more remunerative Ideas cannot be protected, only
expression of an idea
April 19, 2023
The idea is not the game Novices tend to think the idea is the
important thing– Ideas are “a dime a dozen”. It’s the execution,
the creation of a playable game, that’s important The “pyramid” of game design:
– Lots of people get ideas– Fewer try to go from general idea to a specific
game idea– Fewer yet try to produce a prototype– Fewer yet produce a decently playable prototype– Very few produce a complete game– And very, very few produce a good complete
game
April 19, 2023
Licensed Properties
Tie-ins with movies, comics, books, etc.?
Much too expensive Not even worth the IP owner’s time
to do the processing for a boardgame—there’s not enough money in it
April 19, 2023
Boardgame Developers
You don’t control your own game!– My experiences –see
http://www.pulsipher.net/gamedesign/developers.htm
– See also http://www.pulsipher.net/gamedesign/designingvsdevelopment.htm
– Some publishers are different (e.g. GMT)
April 19, 2023
Submitting Games Read the publisher’s requirements
– Some require you to sign a form and seal it in an envelope
– Some won’t accept unsolicited proposals at all—this is common
Expect it to take a long time Expect to get rejected
– May have nothing to do with how good your game is
– Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings rejected many times
April 19, 2023
Two forms of game design
Video games and non-video games Scale is different
– “big time” video games are produced by dozens of people, cost millions of dollars
– “big time” non-video games produced by a few people with budgets in the thousands• Yet a few sell more than a million copies
April 19, 2023
Prototypes—”testing is sovereign” To best improve a game, you must have a playable
prototype – Firaxis’ Sid Meier-Civilization series, Pirates– The sooner Firaxis got a playable version of Civ 4, the
more they could learn– A playable prototype includes “artwork” or physical
components, and rules or programming The rules for a non-video game are the equivalent of the
programming of a video game– Programming must be precise and is very time consuming
(game engines may help in the future)– A playable set of rules can be much less precise, relying on
the mind(s) of the designer(s), and notes It’s also much easier to change the non-video prototype
to test different approaches It’s much easier to produce the physical prototype,
than to create the artwork for a video game
April 19, 2023
Learning to design
So we can have a playable, testable non-video game much more quickly than a computer game of similar scope or subject
Consequently, it’s much easier to learn game design with physical games than with video games!– Kevin O’Gorman’s concurrence
April 19, 2023
Art vs. Science As in many other creative endeavors,
there are two ways of approach – These are often called Romantic and
Classical, or Dionysian and Apollonian Or: art and science
– Some people design games “from the gut”– Others like to use system, organization, and
(when possible) calculation Mine is the “scientific” approach; and
that is more likely to help new designers– Game design is 10% art and 90% science
April 19, 2023
Who is the audience? A game must have an audience
– What are the game-playing preferences of that audience
– Short or long?– Chance or little chance?– Lots of story or little story?– “Ruthless” or “nice”?– Simple or complex?
There is no “perfect” game
April 19, 2023
Genre
Video games are more limited by genre than non-video games
Most video games and many others fall into a clear genre category
Each genre has characteristics that come to be “expected” by the consumer
Much easier to market a video game with a clear genre
April 19, 2023
How to design games
Limits lead to a conclusion:– Characteristics of the audience
(target market)• “People don’t do math any more”
– Genre limitations– Production-imposed limitations
• “Board cannot be larger than X by Y”
– Self-imposed limitations• “I want a one-hour trading game”
April 19, 2023
Publisher-imposed limits
Some are publisher preference, some are market-dictated
For example: many publishers want nothing that requires written records in a game
Another example: consumers strongly prefer strong graphics, whether in a video or a non-video game
April 19, 2023
Self-imposed limits You have your own preferences
– Don’t design a game you don’t like to play yourself
– If you don’t like it, why should anyone else? Limits/constraints improve and focus the
creative process– Great art and music is much more commonly
produced in eras of constraints, rather than eras without constraints
Example of a limit: I want to produce a two-player game that lasts no more than 30 minutes
April 19, 2023
Do it!
Too many people like to think about designing so much, they never actually do it
Until you have a playable prototype, you have nothing– (Which is what makes video game
design so difficult)– It doesn’t have to be beautiful, just
usable
April 19, 2023
Design vs. “development”
“Development” has two meanings– In video games, it means writing the
program– In non-video, development (often by a
person other than the designer) sets the finishing touches on a game, but may include significant changes
– Development takes longer than design, in either case
April 19, 2023
The designer’s game vs. the game that’s published Video games are often overseen
by the publisher, who is paying the bills; so it is modified to suit as it is developed
Non-video games are often unseen by the publisher until “done”; some publishers then modify them, often heavily
April 19, 2023
Self Publishing Do you want to design, or do you want
to be a businessperson? But often it’s the only way your game
will be published Most self-publishers will lose money
NOT counting the time they spend Virtually all lose money if you count the
time they put into the business See http://www.costik.com/selfpub.html
April 19, 2023
Brief “What’s Important” on the business side of game design Most people in the business are
honest and try to do good– It’s too small a business to get tricky,
word gets around It really is a small business, and
mistakes are common Barring long apprenticeship and
great good luck, you won’t make a living at it
April 19, 2023
Resources about the business Game Inventor’s Guidebook by
Brian Tinsman “All about publishing” thread on
ConsimWorld Lots of books about video game
publishing
Come to my seminar on Saturday at 2 about process of game design