Interview Richard Garriott: Game designers suck (except me and a couple of my buddies)

[Diablo169]

It'll certainly bring in more mainstream support for him short term, long term I think he may have burned some bridges with the more ardent supporters of the other kickstarter campaigns and the big community's like Bioware's.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah no idea on what started that spike up. We shall see how it continues in the next couple of days.

 

[Zed]

rob pardo tweeted something like "apparently I'm a bad designer, and lazy" and linked to the pcg article. he kind of is, but it's funny garriot is causing such butthurt.

 

[Diablo169]

All we need now is for Hervé Caen to come out of the woodwork and call every game developer and publisher in the universe utterly shit. The amount of negative press it will generate will allow him to bankroll his criminal operations for the next decade or so.

 

[Stabwound]

Haha this is funny. Garriott is probably getting a kick out of all the attention, too. At least this crappy game is giving us some entertainment.

 

[Infinitron]

rob pardo tweeted something like "apparently I'm a bad designer, and lazy" and linked to the pcg article. he kind of is, but it's funny garriot is causing such butthurt.

https://twitter.com/Rob_Pardo/status/314495926884519936

 

[Zed]

that's it. last fucking time he gets to spam my twitter with retweets from 2 days ago. fucking richard garriot. he retweeted like 10 messages from the 18th about the KS being successful -- today. fucking ass.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah I just noticed that too.

 

[Stabwound]

I only read the early Dragonlance novels, but they came across more like young adult fantasy novels than anything serious or grimdark. I've heard Deathgate Cycle is a lot more serious and grimdark but I've never heard any of it, or any of the dragonlance books past the first few.

 

[dab]

Yeah no idea on what started that spike up. We shall see how it continues in the next couple of days.

Baron 2
6x 3500
Lords of the Manor
2x 10000

42000 spike distributed for 18 and 19 March (which are about 20k over normal 20+25k level)
Plus approaching 1m / target goal usually generates more interest.

 

[xemous]

Jake Solomon, XCOM lead designer: https://twitter.com/SolomonJake/status/314442586515447808

Go home Lord British, you're drunk.

the new xcom was not as good as original imo

 

[Black]

I think Solomon was the one trying to fight the good fight, but alas, there's no winning with retarded higher-ups.

 

[Maelflux]

Well, at least most of the fans on the KS comments page are just as arrogant, and face-punch-worthy; So in that way it's a match made in heaven.

I just wish they'd make a list of the people spending stupid amounts of cash on houses. Then it would actually be worth it to get the came and cook their pets, and PK camp the shit out of them. "Got enough fun out of your 10K yet??? *STAB!*"

 

[MicoSelva]

Richard (...) you may have been a good designer once. But are you still one?

This.

 

[Infinitron]

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/1888...igners_really_just_suck__Richard_Garriott.php

Gamasutra,
Thanks (NOT!) for the sensational headline! While I appreciate those of you who read the whole thing, to see better the whole context, even still, this article is skewed to make a sensationalist slant. My point was, that game design is the hardest, but also the most valuable skill to build in the industry. That every company lives and dies based on the talent of its game design team, and that as an industry we are not doing so well creating the talent we need in this industry, because educational systems have not caught up in this area as well as programming and art. I was not trying to toot my own horn, rather state that game design is hard. Ah well.

I got nuthin'

 

[Wizfall]

I agree with him about the state of game design in the video games industry.
It's quite amazing the kind of game which is possible to make on the technical/graphics side.The progress has been huge.
But the design ?
Even with FPS people complain about boring/simplistic level design and i'm not convinced it is something done to sell more.
They could add some depth and still please "popamole" players IMHO.
And hardcore cRPG : shitty combat system of Arcanum and PST.
I do not think creating an interesting RTwP or TB/PB combat system is easy but it should be doable when you are able to make otherwise what can be considered complex games.
Also look at ToEE, the only good thing design wise is the combat mechanics, something which has not be designed but implemented.
Almost every else design wise is weak (awful town for example and combat "level design").
And diablo 3 (i didn 't play it but from what i understood) is another example of failure design wise.

 

[himmy]

Yeah no idea on what started that spike up. We shall see how it continues in the next couple of days.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/inxile/torment-tides-of-numenera/#chart-daily

The last two days also saw Torment having a mini-spike, being the only time in the campaign when one day had more money than the previous one. Other projects also had better levels of pledging in the last two days. It's kind of interesting and might be a surge in popularity of Kickstarter itself, rather than any individual project.

 

[Infinitron]

Garriott has written an apology of sorts...in PDF format, for some reason: http://www.portalarium.com/images/docs/Words Taken Out of Context.pdf

 

[Ogg]

Yeah no idea on what started that spike up. We shall see how it continues in the next couple of days.

One word, "Pets!"

Seriously, who's getting surprised that a guy who calls himself "lord british", puts himself as the good king in nearly every game he's created and spends his millions on a travel to space also happens to be an immature, egotist and arrogant asshole?

 

[Ogg]

Garriott has written an apology of sorts...in PDF format, for some reason: http://www.portalarium.com/images/docs/Words Taken Out of Context.pdf

That's a "statement". Nest step is a press conference. That's how the head of a state do, even if it's an imaginary state in an imaginary world.

 

[Kz3r0]

Garriott has written an apology of sorts...in PDF format, for some reason: http://www.portalarium.com/images/docs/Words Taken Out of Context.pdf

That's a "statement". Nest step is a press conference. That's how the head of a state do, even if it's an imaginary state in an imaginary world.

"I have been misunderstood!"

 

[J1M]

The problem today is worse than you guys are portraying it.

It isn't an issue of designers ignoring their jobs or just copying each other.

Today an actively sought goal of modern game design is the polishing of the difficulty curve to the point that it contains no speedbumps, no peaks, no valleys, no moments of interest. All content is so expensive to create that all players must see it. We are so close to "games" being amusement park rides that Bioshock Infinite had a believable rumor that there would be no control over the player's movement. Just 6 hours of shooting on rails.

It is a goal of modern designers that a player should not need to think about how to combine abilities or when they should time them. Even the concept of loading a previous save has vanished as autosave takes its place and any failed challenge can be instantly retried. Find a second method to beat that boss? Don't worry, they will patch it out before your ban expires.

And after comitting some of the worst design atorcities possible, they are celebrated by their peers.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

One word, "Pets!"

Seriously, who's getting surprised that a guy who calls himself "lord british", puts himself as the good king in nearly every game he's created and spends his millions on a travel to space also happens to be an immature, egotist and arrogant asshole?

Why immature and egoist?

 

[Zeriel]

I only read the early Dragonlance novels, but they came across more like young adult fantasy novels than anything serious or grimdark. I've heard Deathgate Cycle is a lot more serious and grimdark but I've never heard any of it, or any of the dragonlance books past the first few.

Deathgate Cycle was legitimately good. Unfortunately, after they wrote that they basically said, "Nope, never doing this again, HERE COME MORE DRAGONLANCE NOVELS."

Admittedly, "here's a self-contained setting and series we will never ruin with irrelevant, un-needed filler sequels" ain't bad.

 

[EG]

Garriott has written an apology of sorts...in PDF format, for some reason: http://www.portalarium.com/images/docs/Words Taken Out of Context.pdf

Wow did I strike a nerve! In the midst of a much longer more contextual conversation, PC Gamer noted “Wow, you just gave me my headline!” At that moment, I knew to brace for an out of context backlash. Without the broader
real time discussion, as often happens, much can be made out of partial thoughts used as headlines of comments meant as quipping simplification of complex issues, as was the recent case for me. The variations of headlines where I either disparage others, or glorify myself are inaccurate representations of the intent of my full commentary.

Still, I have received numerous comments of support and numerous complaints about my recent words about the challenges of finding great game designers. But, please let me clarify! By no means did I intend to disparage others who have led the many great games of each era in gaming history. I was trying to say, and show why finding or growing NEW great game designers is hard!

Behind the inaccurate inflammatory headlines extracted from a longer dialog, I really do see a major challenge to our art form, specifically in the area of design. The design of a game is simultaneously 1) the most valuable aspect when it comes to the potential of success of a game, 2) the hardest part of game development to improve over previous efforts because of competition, and 3) the skill set with the least formal and informal training available to game developers.

Let me examine the history of design from where I watched it unfold.

Once upon a time, only one person made a game. By necessity that person was the programmer, artist and designer (as well as holding many other roles). I can honestly say that the first artist I ever hired was FAR better than I ever was. I was, and could still be, a passable programmer. Some programmers who my companies have hired have been better than me, some worse, as I would expect. And there are designers whose work in many areas is far better than mine. But I also think some of the work I have done as a designer remains a top contribution for its time.

However, while ALL artists in the industry are better than I ever was, and while I can easily hire a programmer who is better than I ever was, it is far more difficult to hire a designer who is clearly capable of leading a top 10 game. For any company, growth only comes when the company finds another leader who can make a top 10 game. Origin only grew when we found people like Chris Roberts and Warren Spector. Most other attempts at creating new game lines failed when we gave the reigns to junior people looking to advance. I want emphasize that this was not always the case, but it happened more times than not. As a business it’s important to understand why.

At Origin, after we successfully added art teams and programming teams, we realized we had huge worlds
to build that did not demand the same drawing skills as an artist. We also had NPC scripting needs that did not demand a top programmer. Thus we invented the Technical Design Assistant, often someone from QA (still a traditional source of designers) to build maps and script NPCs. These people did this to GREAT success!

But, as the industry evolved, we began to lean more heavily on new “designers” to develop the actual plans for the game itself and to describe the game we planned to build. They were also tasked with making design calls on how much of the computer’s limited resources should be spent on the competing fields of art, sound and interaction. This difficult trade-off is generally best handled by someone who knows the difficulties of coding and art creation issues, and that is more often someone who has programmed and drawn art than it is someone who has not.

Sadly for people who really are passionate about designing the next great game, “game design” remains a hard skill to learn. A lot of indie developers right now who are “triple threats” of artist, programmer and designer, will likely rise to the occasion. They will have a good understanding of ALL the issues. Designers, who never coded and never drew art, have a far harder path ahead of them. After all, we are making “computer games,” and a deep knowledge of the computer is mighty helpful.

Artists can take classes and create portfolios of their work and an employer knows they can do the work. A programmer can take classes and produce code samples to prove the same. For designers, there are now at least a few good schools like the Guildhall at SMU, that turn out quality designers. Yet these quality designers remain a rare breed. Sadly, I really do think that most people who get into design roles on a team have no more skills at design than the programmers and artists. They may not be worse, but they rarely have better training than the others to tackle the hardest job of all, determining what game is going to be built.

Perhaps my statement that has been quoted so often in recent days could have been presented in a more eloquent fashion. But I stand by the point I was making, that game design is the hardest profession in our business to understand and to learn.

And I certainly am not trying to put my own career on some sort of game design high ground. While I have hit occasional home runs, I have made plenty of unforced errors. I was not attempting to prop myself up with these comments, but rather lament my need...our industry’s need for proper training in the most important skill required to make a good game. I never had any formal training either; I have just had more time to learn from my mistakes than most. If what comes from all this is a frank discussion and lively debate on how to best address this issue, then hopefully I’ve accomplished something.

Fuck you, PDF.