Daniel Clark blogged recently on Lostgarden about a proposed “Declaration of Game Designer Independence.”
Go read it. It’s short. And the rest of this post won’t make much sense unless you do.
You’re back? Good. Have a cookie.
Overall, I think the Declaration is a good thing, and following it will lead to better games. I’m a bit dubious about the “…of Independence” part (independent from what? the employers who keep my family fed and pay for my insurance? No thanks.) but I think a certain amount of defensive hyperbole is to be expected from a group of video game designers who’ve seen their work mangled, ignored, rejected, and robbed of all meaning over the past 20 years.
There are eight items in the Declaration.
Three of them are a bold call to action, a demand to raise your game through (3) dedication to mastering design, (4) learning the languages of our related disciplines, and (5) proclaiming your vision for the game to keep it on track. Reading these points makes me want to stand up straight, jut my chin, and swear allegiance to the Grand Nation of Game Designers while the music swells dramatically in the background.
Four of the items are beyond the control of most salaried game designers. Yes, it’s great to believe that (1) game design is the core of every game, and (2) designers are games’ prime movers… but if you’ve been handed a mandate to create a clone of the latest “VilleVille” clicker game for Facebook by next Friday, making certain to include each of the 200 features dictated by the marketing executives… It might be time to put what you believe on the shelf and just get to work. Likewise, you might want to try (6) some new markets or (7) crazy innovative new mechanics, but if it’s not in the budget for this fiscal quarter… Learn to live with disappointment.
Which brings us to the last point of the Declaration, which I’ll quote right here:
(8) We have a choice: Create with our own voices or sell our talents into servitude.
I’d like to think there’s a third choice: Create with our own voices while selling our talents into servitude. Maybe the original vision came from the CEO’s clueless nephew, but once it’s ours, we can still drive it (hopefully away from the cliffs of failure). Maybe we can’t convince management to move into this week’s hot new game space — but we can keep pointing out opportunities for future growth. And maybe there aren’t enough resources for true experimentation, but that shouldn’t keep us from trying to make our own processes efficient enough that we have room to stumble towards breakthroughs.
Even if we aren’t in a position to declare all the declarations, we can still embrace them, and use them to focus our own efforts in the areas we do control.
