When I talk to aspiring game designers, I often notice some strange behavior. They’re evasive about their ideas, almost coy, as if they’ve stumbled across a secret gold mine. They stamp obtrusive watermarks all over their concept drawings, and ask me to sign NDAs. Otherwise, they believe, someone would certainly steal their idea and unfairly profit from it. They usually want to be the ‘idea man’ for a team, and find some artists and programmers willing to implement their ideas for a percentage of the profits.
The only explanation for this behavior is the belief that game ideas are extremely valuable in the game industry. This may be true in a limited sense, but nobody is going to steal your idea (or do all the work to implement it) — they have their own ideas! Most game developers started off as gamers who dreamed of new games that nobody had made yet. They are all full of their own ideas, and would rather implement those than try and steal someone else’s. Personally, I have lists of thousands of eclectic game ideas — far more than I could implement in my lifetime.
Turning Ideas Into Games
The quality of a game is 10% idea, and 90% execution. Let’s look at two major games that are both about a time-traveler with a magical sword: Daikatana, and The Legend of Zelda. One of these games was a career-shattering flop, and the other spawned one of the most successful game franchises in history. The game idea and theme are really just spice for the core mechanics. Okami is an excellent game with a totally different idea: the player is the sun goddess Amaterasu incarnated as a wolf, restoring color to the world. However, at its core, it’s almost the same game as The Legend of Zelda.
If you want to turn your ideas into games, you need to prove that you can execute them well! You have to learn at least basic programming and artistic skills, and keep making games until they’re good. Once others see that you’re serious about making games, and have useful skills, they will join your team. Then, finally, you can do justice to your ideas!
Want to read the rest of the post? Visit:
http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/08/the-value-of-game-ideas/
to read it.