If you're already a game designer, you probably don't need to read this post. If you're looking for a moral boost about why you're a game designer, this might do an alright job at giving you that lift. If you're thinking of becoming a game designer, this may be an interesting read.
Being a Game Designer is one of the most abstract roles to explain to someone. Programmers make things work, artists make things look like something, and designers basically communicate how something works. The issue in describing game design, is what the "something" is, and how far do you need to describe it.
In reality, mostly everybody has been a game designer of some sort. To quote various parts of Jesse Schell's Book of Lenses, game design is about problem solving. As humans, we constantly solve problems and their solutions compound on each other to make into a concrete experience. Humans needed shelter from six directions, so we built walls into a room. We needed to enter and exit this shelter so we built doors, and needed to see beyond so we built windows. The result of this is the basis of modern living, a technology that has scaled over thousands of years. By asking the right questions, we can solve problems with lasting solutions. Do this by not thinking of things as a problem. To quote myself in the past:
"There are no problems. Problems without solutions are merely factors, and you can deal with it."
To the original point of this post, we become game designers because we love video games, and we love describing how they should work.
I loved video games for a long time, but I didn't become a game designer until a little later. And I didn't even realize. The problem I was trying to solve at the time, was "How do I do my homework, and play video games at the same time?". The question could have easily had an idiotic foundation. My adoration for virtual worlds was consuming time I didn't want to spare writing about things I considered easy. My thinking was, I spend 5 days a week learning this stuff. If I need to do it at home, the school isn't good enough. But I would have gotten nowhere if I ridiculed my own idea before I tried it.
I spent over 200 hours playing games like Skyrim, Fallout 3, Minecraft, and Dark Souls. As part of my English class essays, I wrote in-depth studies of the audience's experience of some of these 'medias'. This came to me super-naturally, describing the themes of their writing, to how gameplay features incite behavior from players. What they do to make the journey important.
After doing this, I realized that thinking about the effects of games on people was thrilling. At long last, some form of mastery over the English language could serve me a fulfilling purpose. It came naturally for me to want to become a Game Designer. Giving feedback on mechanics, balance, and player experience came so easy.
Eventually I had a chance to put it into practice. And I played a role in designing video games in college, then my work, and eventually into my own company.
So, why be a Game Designer? Because it's fucking fun. You solve problems between features, people, balance, and player experience to create a super responsive world.
Be a Game Designer, because you'll literally be smarter for it. Your mind will work like no one else's, you'll hear someone's idea and think of a thousand reasons why and why not, and even have multiple alternatives lined up in your head before they tell you it's Souls-like.
Be a Game Designer, because you're designing games. Transforming creativity, imagination and emotion into logic and damn near tangible coherence.
In the rest of this Game Design Blog, we're gonna explore creative learning from damn near everything I see around me. Drawing some inspiration from my younger self, in finding yet another excuse to spend my time talking about video games.