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On 1.2.2018 at 7:10 PM, Gian-Reto said:

Well, if anyone REALLY wants to discuss the importance of vision and direction in game development

I'd actually like that, and I think it could be valuable/interesting. Maybe start a spin-off topic in Game Design so we can discuss it without all the baggage of Kavik's martyrdom?

So as proposed by @jbadams, here I am "Forking" a Thread opened in the Lounge into a Thread here in Game Design... because that Thread got bogged down and closed.

Basically @Kavik Kang opened a very interesting Thread, with a misleading OP, stating that the common Thread amongst a lot of the most successfull games of all times was that they had a very strong, unified Vision behind them.

Well, he didn't word it quite like that, amongst the vagueness of his text and including a Youtube Video of Queens "One Vision" for comedic effect, his exact statement wasn't so clear. This is my wellmeaning interpretation of what he wanted to discuss... before the thread ended how so many Kavik Kang threads end.

But this was the first one I was really sad to see going down the rabbit hole so quickly. So here I am, trying to actually have the discussion I was hoping to find when I read the OP in Kavik Kangs thread.

So, to make my own statement, I kinda agree with what I THINK Kavik Kang wanted to say, before he went down the same road again of his already well known narratives.

Games, like movies, while being Teamwork, need a very strong, very clear vision behind them. Someone needs to set a clear goal, and then the team needs to execute it without straying to far off the course. If the plan was flawed, and a course correction is needed, somebody needs to sit down, take all that feedback into account, and chart a new course, lest everyone on the team runs off in different directions like headless chickens.

We all have seen the games that seemed just a mess of ideas executed poorly, or where a strong vision clearly was diluted by different interests pulling in different directions, or people misinterpreting the vision. We all have seen games that lacked that all important vision from the start, and were just built based off existing trends or prior successes without anything added to the formula that would make for a great game.

Now, given that Kavik Kang was talking about some of the greatest games of all times, we are not talking about "profitable" games. We all know a game successfull in sales doesn't mean its a great game in mechanics, story, or anything else. We, or I at least, are/am also not questioning if "decent" or "good", hell even "bad" games have a reason to exist. That is besides the point here.

What I THINK Kavik Kang was talking about, and what I would certainly like to talk about are games that will become classics.... either cult classics that only a small niche of gamers get, but will love like nothing that comes out in the next decade. Or that real mainstream classic that can spawn massive online nerd fights even 20 years after it was released just because some dislike a classic getting a remake that changes the mechanics or story.

1) Now, we all know by now that Kavik Kang thinks a good game is made by a VERY hierarchical Team... while I do not fully agree here, lets also widen the discussion to that topic. Can you have a very focussed vision without a strict hierarchy, and what tools exist out there to a) get a team of people onboard with the vision, and b) keep them focussed on that vision? Or is it like Kavik Kang actually believes and you do need a Tyrant Designer telling everyone what to do? Is there a hybrid approach were the "genius" of a really good and expierienced designer can be combined with the added input of a more open and less hierarchical approach?

2) Can a comitee of people come up with a unified vision... or is the idea to spawn a focussed creative vision from a group of people with no hierarchy deciding the "pecking order" a pipe dream? If we need a hierarchy, which department should make the shots (lead positions of these departments obviously): Game Design, art, tech (I know that its usually the business, but remember we are not talking about making the game profitable)?

I think there is a lot of merit in giving battle proven designers and leads a lot of power over the development of a certain game. Yet I do think giving them too much power limits the game in the end, and can lead to bad actors actually ruining games and even studios (some of Peter Molyneux' latest games come to mind.... probably needed some oversight there). So I think there is a delicate balance between a team of people with no real vision or the vision of the suits producing something lacking that elusive "greatness" factor, and a tyrant being able to run a games development into the ground with bad decisions because he cannot see his own flaws anymore.

Please keep the discussion civil, and don't go offtopic (too much... ;))... if someone wants to talk about a system that might be dubbed Rube, please do it in another Thread.

My opinion in short: A universe is too big for one person to create, when we make games we are indeed making new universes.

Long:

The whole reason artist are even willing to work on someone else's game, instead of there own, is because there is no way to prevent them from establishing there own vision into the game.

True the developer probably knows what material there spaceships are made from, maybe some magical new sci-fi metal, however do they know how light reflects from it? Did they consider how the structure of the metal would impact color and texture? Did they consider all those facts for every material in the game?

Because if they did not and you don't allow the artist and graphics programmer to decide on it, then the universe will end up very dull.

Not only that, people see the same thing from different perspectives. After the concept artist modelers, actors animation artists and voice actors is done with a character; it is no surprise if they end up with a completely new personality.

It's like that Telephone Telephone game.

Some people didn't hear correctly and others change it on purpose; it's quite a surprise when you end up with the original word. 

A single developer can't think of everything and can't control everything, yet it all will effect how the game plays. For this reason developers who can accept changes to there original idea and align it to there own goal often makes the best developers.

10 hours ago, jbadams said:

I think I agree with swiftcoder that this isn't necessarily accurate to what happens with a great game; unless the game is very simple, it's likely the final product will deviate from the original idea.

Now, I would guess Kavik Kang would disagree with me here, but to me that doesn't mean the process didn't follow a strong vision.

In my book having a strong vision from the start doesn't mean "I already know how this thing need to be developed, and EXACTLY what will be the result".... it just means SOMEONE, ideally the whole team, have agreed on goals and targets, some cornerstones of what will become the new game. And then TRY to develop along those lines.

I also think a vision can shift over time. That does not mean, in my mind at least, that the vision has been abandoned. As long as the team communicates those shifts well, and the team is always united again under the altered vision, I think the unified vision is still there.

So my point is less "if a design is great from the start, and the game deviates from it, the team has lost its vision, and the development of the game is doomed".... my point is that "if the team has no vision from the start, the vision is weak, or the team is not onboard with a great vision, the game will probably not become a classic"...

And I am sure we will find exceptions. There are always exceptions ... and sure, maybe I am going out on a limb here with the "...no vision from the start". There is certainly a good point that many visions only develop over time in pre-production. So probably, I should clarify that to ".... has no vision at the start of production"...

7 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

The whole reason artist are even willing to work on someone else's game, instead of there own, is because there is no way to prevent them from establishing there own vision into the game.

And that is fine. But I think, at some point those different visions have to be synced up. SOMEBODY needs to bring everybody to the table, and discuss all the visions of people in the room. Somebody needs to moderate, and maybe decide amongst clashing ideas.

A good lead, be it a designer, artist or programmer, probably knows to listen to his team, and how to integrate all those visions into a bigger vision.

I think this is the most important piece Kavik Kang is missing: the biggest asset of having a team is not the additional workforce to create more content faster... its all the additional creative minds that can pick apart the existing vision, or add to it.

7 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Not only that, people see the same thing from different perspectives. After the concept artist modelers, actors animation artists and voice actors is done with a character; it is no surprise if they end up with a completely new personality.

That is not necessarily a whole different vision.

If the original vision already describes how every atom in this universe reflects light, somebody at the top has a big micromanagement issue. If every character is layed out in a fashion that does no longer allow interpretation, you probably get very stiff and dull characters... given how the writing, modelling, animation, AND voice acting bring a character to life, either the "vision tyrant" can pick the people who fit his vision EXACTLY, or he will get a subpar result because a voice actor cannot give it his all, an animator has to work in ways that do not suit his style, a modeller has no freedom to add more details where the model would benefit from it.

Game design is simple but difficult and it requires taking into account as many perspectives as possible, especially including those of the development team. Designing meaningful progress is a nebulous concept because everybody has an idea of what "meaningful" really is. Not to mention the ideas have to account for the way it will actually be made, requiring knowledge of every aspect of the development process. Why would a good designer not consult with the experts in their fields and how it relates to the design?

As for a unified vision throughout, I disagree strongly. The only thing that needs to be regulated throughout is the scope but the design can and should be changed based on any superior ideas that come along in the course of development.

A bit drunk right now, but two points:

1)Yes, Kavik's posting style seems to indicate he learned forum-etiquette on 4Chan, just like me, except he didn't realize different forums have differerent etiquettes and thus he pretty much played the troll.

2)

I think that design, in general(tnot exclusively games) are very much helped by meaningfull input from multiple (caring)persons, not just "the designer", and hence, it is very important to have an equal reward-system between valuable (~artistic/creative-input-) people.

It is also very important there is at least one (caring)person with a vision over the whole process, this person should understand the investors(if people are investing their own time then this person should recognize that) and what they expect/hope for as a result of the process(of designing/creating the game) and understand the process itself plus the, umm, desired result(be it money or just an awesome game to play)

In the end, this thread is about specialists vs full-visionaries, while none could do their work without the other, while forgetting that the designer is nothing more but the right person to put the bigger pieces together, while those bigger pieces are made up of smaller pieces, that are bundled by a co-designer from smaller pieces,

In smaller, independent, teams often roles of designer and manager are combined, a designer designs the final game, the manager motivates others to do their work, these are both leader-roles.

the bigger a team gets, the more specialists are in the team, and this also goes for leading the team, be it design-wise or otherwise, the person talking to the investors could also be a leader in a team, while for profit-driven projects somebody who knows the market might be of greater value then somebody who knows how to combine game-mechanics, and should also get the or a lead-role.

(I dunno if i answered any questions or just added more, but i 'll make a sober post later if needed.)

To me it feels a lot like a unified vision is missing from most recent games, mostly larger AAA titles. In movies it's easy - the director has almost every scene under control, but for games with so many people involved and working in parallel... no wonder exceptions are rare.

Another problem is the unified vision of the gamers themselves - on one hand they miss innovation, on the other they want the same controls and mechanics they are used to in every game.

But by far the worst problem to me, allthough maybe unrelated to the thread, is how many games handle characters as stereotypes and cliches, thinking of Witcher or Wolfensteins heroes for example - unfailable, always right, extra masculine voice acting... This is worse than any B-movie from the 80's. It's very boring but mainly embrassing. I hope this is no more unified vision for long now... games need to grow up.

Indie games do better in all those areas. Too bad they often can only afford to use text and voice for characters. Otherwise i would say make smaller studios and smaller games as well.