What is your goal as a game designer?

[matthijs]

There seem to be all these different definitions of success floating around (compiled from several threads):

- Total amount of sales from company to distributors
- Total amount of sales to actual buyers
- How much the game is actually being played at a certain point in time
- How much the game is being/has been played in total since it was published
- How much the game is being enjoyed by its players "on average", however many/few of those players there are
- How much the game is being praised by game designers for innovation/coherency/other criteria
- How much players are tinkering with the rules (for some, this is a measure of bad design; for others, an indication that players are taking an active part in the game)

Some of these can't be measured in numbers; others could, in theory, but nobody has actually done it, or they're not telling. Some of these are held as goals by game designers, others by publishers, others by players, etc. Different game designers will also have different goals, and disagree on what kind of success is most important.

What are your goals as a game designer? And are they in any way related to the different definitions of "success" given above?

[Valamir]

I think the difference between a true game designer and a game hobbiest is money.  

My goals as a game designer are:
1) control costs so that I can recoup those costs on a modest number of sales.
2) Get enough sales beyond that break even point so that I can afford to send additional checks to freelancers who worked obscenely cheaply on the project when we didn't know whether or not it would sell.
3) Get enough sales beyond that so that my next project can be paid for entirely out of the profits of the earlier ones without needing any additional subsidies from me.

My goals as a game hobbiest are:
1) Gain recognition for doing something in a way that hadn't been done before.
2) Create games that are actually playable and solidly functional, not just clever experiments.


I think both types of goals need to be present and work together in order to define "success".

[Jack Spencer Jr]

"change everything"

[Daniel Solis]

I'll be honest and say that game design is mostly a hobby for me, though one that combines several elements that I find very interesting. I'm not in it for the money, but a paycheck would be more than welcome. Anything I create will find its way to the web eventually. I suppose I just like coming up with new settings and occasionally throwing out some "clever experiments" when I get a wild hair up my ass. Usually, those experiments end up in the form of board games or dice games rather than RPG systems, also published on the web in some form.

[Lxndr]

I think that Valamir's "Goals as a Game Designer" really seems to make more sense labeled as "Goals as a Game Publisher/Seller."  Not all designers are sellers, and not all sellers are designers, and I'm not sure that the only "true" designers are the ones who want to sell their games.

Honestly, my goals as a game designer are very simple: to create games that I can be satisfied with, and that can bring enjoyment to other people, and to harness the bizarre little creative engine that loves chugging along inside my head.  In other words, using what Trevis once called the Lxndr Idea Pipeline (and as an aside, I enjoy monkeywrenching around with other games, some of which has actually made it into games-in-design).

Like gobi, I'm not in it for the money, though I'm not above trying to sell a few of my products (though I agree with Matt Snyder's "If You Love Your Game, Set it Free" philosophy - and am taking a page both from that thread, and from games like Sorcerer, SOAP, tRoS, by planning to keep a scaled down free/apprentice/quickstart version of my for-sale games available after the final version is put up).

Anyway, my definition of success has nothing to do with sales, no matter how big of an ego-boost sales might be.  My definition of success also has very little to do with how many people are playing the game - I've long since learned that the points of intersection between "Lxndr" and "other people" are few, so trying to judge myself based on the actions of others is fruitless.  Quality over quantity, in other words - even just a few people who like a game is all I really need in terms of outside validation.

[Fade Manley]

I'd agree somewhat with Lxndr about the difference between "game designer" and "game seller/publisher". My goal is to create games I'm satisfied with; the approval of others would suggest that I'm satisfied with something that's actually a good product, but that others like the game, much less wish to pay money for it, is pretty far down on the list of motivations for me.

Honestly, I have little interest in the actual publishing side of the game-making process; I would be just as happy to hand over something I made and let someone else do the actual publishing, so long as it was the game I had made. And while money that would come to me would be nice, and money that might come to some theoretical publisher willing to publish my game would be handy to encourage said publisher to put out more games I made, I just...don't really care much about the money as such. Not the right hobby for that, after all.

I'm currently working on two major projects, of which I expect one to be at least mildly popular and the other to be completely ignored by pretty much everyone. And I fully expect to spend far more money on publishing the second, because it's more complex and larger would require a great deal higher production cost to be worth doing. But I still focus on the second one, because it's going to be more satisfying as a game to me when I'm done with it. And that's the reason I bother at all.

...hrm. That does sound rather self-centered, doesn't it? "If I like it I don't care what anyone else thinks." But it is reasonably true. I'd like other people to like what I design, but it's far, far down the list in my reasons for designing games.

[matthijs]

Right now, I guess my goal as a game designer is to take responsibility for my game.

One responsibility is to make the game as whole as I can, for lack of a better word; coherent (in what style of play it supports), complete (wrt background and system), well-crafted (to the best of my ability).

The other responsibility is to make sure it ends up in the hands of as many people as possible who will play it the way I envisioned, and who will enjoy doing so.

The money I make from it is a by-product, but also a sort of payoff: Getting money means your stuff is worth paying money for.

Which kind of adds one more definition of success:

- The joy of knowing you've made a really good product in every way you know

[Daniel Solis]

...hrm. That does sound rather self-centered, doesn't it? "If I like it I don't care what anyone else thinks." But it is reasonably true. I'd like other people to like what I design, but it's far, far down the list in my reasons for designing games.

There's an artist, damned if I can remember her name, who said, "The more personal it is, the more universal it is." Actually, she may have been a writer. Well, anyway, the point still stands. Research, brand theory, focus groups and all that other marketting stuff may yield a commercially viable product, but it's probably not something near and dear to your heart. If you make something very personal, with a highly focused taste, namely your own, you're more likely to find an audience, however small, that has been looking for a game just like yours. I guess that's kind of obvious, but I know I find myself falling into the "no one's going to play this" anxiety sometimes. Maybe others do too, who knows?

[Andrew Martin]

What are your goals as a game designer?

For me, my goals as a game designer is to have more and better fun at each gaming session as a player and as a GM to reduce my workload by distributing GM power back to players as much as possible (I'm lazy...) :).

[M. J. Young]

I want to design games that work well for a broad array of people, and that provide them the tools to solve any questions that arise during play, one way or another.

I hope I've done that so far.

--M. J. Young

[MPOSullivan]

oooh, good question.  

a gane designer is so many things, i think.  a rules maker, a writer, an artist.  so, alright, as a game designer, i really try to make games that are fun for all players involved, a goal that i think should be at the center of any gaming creation.  Just like Ron Edwards i think that system is central to any game.  i think of a system as the most obvious and glaring window into the ideas that you want to express in your game, so i tend to create metamechanics that evoke the setting, themes or mood that i am trying to deliver.  i, personally, don't care for overly wrought systems, so i tend to make more stripped-down and basic systems.  all of these concepts and parameters are used to temper my creation, in an attempt to keep the games from becoming too idiosynchratic.  

your question seems to revolve around the goals of being a game publisher though.  i guess i could say that, in honesty, my main goal is to have people enjoy my games.  most of the games that i have created i have freely given away, whether it be something like the one i had created for 24HourRPG (the only one that i currently have online), or the ones that i have created and given to my local gaming communities.  In turn, i think that i would consider myself succesful by the amount of people that were able to take something from one of my designs and use it.

as for my current gaming creation, it's for a setting that i have had in my head  since i was a teenager.  it's probably the most personal game that i could ever create and, i hope, one that is playaable and enjoyable by others.

okies, bed time.

laters,

   -m

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

My goal is to see and experience things in a deeper way that I have never seen or experienced before.  When I began designing, I was reading hte letters of CS Lewis nad JRR Tolkien.  Specifically, those that related to thier works of fiction.  You could just sense the love they had for their creations.  I devoured thier methodologies and admired their attention to the most minute detail of how the trees looked and the animals walked.  And loved how language (especially for Tolkien) played a major role in history and geography.

I design games to liberate my mind and to love my creation.  Monetary success, while nice, is secondary to me.  Designing is a personal expression for me now.  It's not a job and not a main source of income.  Like several others it is just a hobby for me and is there for me (and those who are brave enough to play my game) to love and enjoy.

Peace,

-Troy

[AdAstraGames]

My goals are pretty nicely summed up by Ralph Mazza as a publisher.  My design modus operendi looks like this:


I usually start with a "I've always wanted to see a product covering X", then writing something that fills the niche for X, then finding it grossly complicated, and then distilling it down.  Then usually a fan will suggest something, I'll try and integrate it, and it'll get complex again until I boil it down again.

I usually /don't/ write RPGs because I don't enjoy GMing RPGs.  I prefer board/war games because nobody's stuck with the job of GMing.

In terms of my design hooks, I'm pretty solidly Simulationist/Gamist.  When I play in RPGs other people run, I vastly prefer Narrativist games, with "die roll in the middle", which I first saw in Feng Shui.

I'm trying to find the split between Narrativism and Simulationism that Riddle of Steel did, for a campaign theme best described as "Kipling In Spaaace" and am (so far) failing.

The way it's breaking (and that I'm failing) are over in Actual Play.  

In terms of financial success, I'm still trying to penetrate the three/four tier system.  Fortunately for me, I have a product that manages to deliver on a promise that was made 30 years ago, and have had good market timing (space combat games have been dead on the market since the glut of 2000, the market is shifting towards board/wargames for the moment, and everyone's tired of d20 fantasy in the chain.)

In terms of play success, I'd love for there to be ENOUGH people to play my games that they can find one another, rather than buy it, admire it, and put it on the shelf to gather dust.  It's only from active play communities that I'll get long term financial success for a product as complex as mine.

Ken Burnside

[Comte]

Alright I currently have three games under a slow plodding development pattern.  I have two very diffrent reasons for making them.

One of them is a heart-breaker:   I grew up with shadow run not AD&D so it is a shadowrun heartbreaker.  I love this game to death.  Lovingly I summon up my game world from some creative nether region and craft my world in the fervent hope that someday this game will become a reality.  I expect to sell 5 maybe 6 copies of the game, and it will prolly never be played but the joy here is in the writting.  I will not end up on this forum.  This game is my baby none of you can touch it.  I know you just want to help but its mine.

The other two:  These are directly forge inspired games that I think are fresh and exciting.  They just might have the potential to go somewhere and I will maybe even get to read actual play reports here on the forge.  These games will end up on this forum.  I want them shreadded apart and built back up again untill they are either judged good, or crap.  Then I will get some cheap art from some freinds of mine stick it in a .pdf and sell it for 5 bucks a peice.  These games are written specificly for the Forge, I am writting them because I think by doing so I am building a better game.  So for respect.  I don't really expect to make money, but it would be nice if I got 5 bucks here or there.  Thats a few extra cans of soup which are very important in school.  

These are little dreams but at least it keeps the desighn process fun and exciting.

[steelcaress]

I've created many game systems that will never see the light of day.  Most of them were based upon my interests in simulating reality at the time, or just a fun idea I had about a way a game should work.  

The driving force behind my game design nowadays is to address the problems I see inherent in systems ranging from GURPS to d20 -- crunch, and the lack of fun.  

I see rules as a transparent framework, that should fit the flavor of the genre you're trying to simulate.  Star Wars d20 was primarily designed for people who have no frame of reference for rules, thus, 1,000+ tables on everything from Force Powers to Droid design were needed.  

Risus, on the other hand, is able to do Star Wars in 6 pages, plus a couple pages of supplemental material online -- and not for $40, but for free.  It doesn't quite do the job, but the idea of "scribble something down and that's your character" is a sound enough one.

Over the Edge and Unknown Armies are another couple systems that almost do what I need 'em to.

So my quest right now (such as it is) is to design a system that allows for freeform character design, while at the same time allowing quick judgements for the range of possibilities.  No long spell lists, no long lists of modifiers for combat, just looking for a system that aids in narrative play.

And, of course, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.