Okay so why cover this topic? Well quite simple, many people don't know the difference. People who play games and discuss games say they understand what the difference is, but in all reality they more than likely don't, and that's just fact. I will admit it is a thin line and can be very hard to distinguish without looking closely. But together were going to get to the bottom of it.
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| We all have our own skewed view of things. |
Okay so Developers and Designers often get used as interchangeable words, but they're not, they are two completely separate entities what work in separate departments of a game company. A good way to look at it is by looking at the words: designers create the rules, sculpt the setting, and see to it that players have the emotional experience they are supposed to. While on the other hand a developer is in charge of the system that allows a designer to do this, from building the code to maintaining the database. That doesn't really justify it though, so lets take a bit of a closer look.
Were going to start off with Designers since it does happen to be the more commonly used of the terms and also has the biggest variety. Now a designer, like I said earlier, is the person that sits down and applies creativity to the game. Designers design the game. They are in charge of the rules, what the game does when a player performs an action, and the way the game looks and feels. They are the artistic minds behind the game. It is a designers sole responsibility to make sure that every creative aspect of a game is complete and concise, and to make sure that the game is well balanced and fair to all players. Designers do everything from art, writing, rules, and even plot out the emotional journeys.
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| Spore lets the players do some designing. |
On the flip side a Developer, like I said, is someone who sits down and actually works on the systems of the game. These are your Computer Programmers, the Systems Engineers, and Engines Developers. These are people who are constantly looking at code and taking what the designers make and translating that to a working and moving executable. The Developers are the ones who are constantly staring at a computer screen, and are often the ones who will also be required to stay in late nights to meet deadlines. All of the interactive physics, AI, hit detection, online communications, and even the scripting are responsibilities of the developers.
These are very easy to confuse and it honestly isn't hard to understand why. A lot of people think that everyone in the game industry can do anything they want but that can't be any further from the truth. I've had countless conversations with people where they say that the developers should change rule x, or the designers should have counted wind into the physics engine. It just doesn't work that way, in order to do even a minor change to a basic element when the project is pretty far down the pipeline is very tough to implement a major change, but that gets down into software development which we wont discuss here.
One final thing that I would like to point out is that all good games are built in a specific way and not just in a manner of "I have an idea so lets run with it". Usually the designers get to work on the games rules and systems while the developers do their setup processes so once the design documents and specifications are outlines all of the base coding, i.e. objects, data structures, system layout, are all done so the development team can dive head first into the game when the time comes. Ideally you have your developers working on a project while the designers are polishing the final stages of story, levels, and endgame upgrades/abilities and when the designers finish they start working on the next project so the developers have something to do after they launch their current project. But things don't always work out this way. The image below should clarify some of this, the red is designers and blue is developers.
This is just a very brief overview of a few aspects of the game industry, and by no means is it a complete accurate telling of how everything works, mainly because it varies from company to company. But hopefully now you under stand how these things are done and things are put together in a better light. Peace out guys.
