When it comes to creating games, there is a wide variety of positions spanning the entire development pipeline – the three main ones being game developers, game artists and game designers.
Even though simple games can be created by a single person without a dedicated game designer (and sometimes even complex ones, such as Minecraft), game development teams around the world often opt to have one in their team for a good reason: their creativity and understanding of the game’s target audience is important to boost the chances of making a successful game.
However, spotting the good game designers among your applicants is usually an arduous task.
This is why we’re bringing you this post: we want to give you some tips to help you recruit the best game designers at your disposal, which we will do by talking about desirable traits they should have.
But do you know what role game designers play in the game development process?
What do game designers really do?
First things first: we will have to clarify a misconception about game designing. In most development cycles, game ideas/topics are decided and approved by high-level executives in the company with little to no input from game designers. However, it’s once the idea/topic is set in stone that game designers, who have the task of turning the idea into a fun and successful game – steal the spotlights.
In short, a game designer outlines the game’s concept and experience, brings ideas to the table, imagines and builds prototypes for game mechanics, creates an immersive and/or interactive world and plot (which usually includes writing dialogues), design its user interface, selects the art style that will best fit the game, balances it and works out the best monetization methods to use within the game, which is all consolidated into a single document – the infamous Game Design Document (GDD).
Sometimes, depending on the company’s size, their functions might overlap with other areas within the game industry, such as conducting a market research to understand your target audience’s likes and dislikes better, helping create game assets and design game levels, working closely with developers to build more complete prototypes, and training quality assurance (QA) personnel to test the game as fully as possible.
All in all, game design is a very broad area that requires skills in multiple areas of game development. They don’t need to be a master of all, of course, but having a basic understanding of the game creation pipeline does wonders, because they will be the ones communicating with different teams to gather feedback, polish existing ideas and direct the making of a game.
The 6 traits to look for when hiring game designers
When it comes to hiring game designers, there are a few traits to which you will have to give special attention.
1. The ability to write well
It might be surprising, but game design is a role that requires the professional to write – in many cases, a lot. As such, a game designer must also be a good writer. They don’t have to be a 21st century Shakespeare, but you must be able to feel eloquence in their words. The GDD is the guiding light for all in the team, and the game designer must be able to clearly communicate the concepts within – no matter how complex they are.
Some game designers are better suited for dialogue writing or maybe in-game snippets that relate to the worldbuilding of your game, but no matter what they do writing will be one of the constants when working as a game designer.
Nonetheless, good writers are always handy to have around. Ever needed someone to write a press release, an ad copy, a funding campaign or an official web page for the game, but had no one else available? Chances are your game designer will have you covered. Their work might not be perfect, but it should be decent enough.
As such, when reviewing applications for the position of game designer, make sure to always ask for writing samples even if they aren’t related to games – if they are a good writer in any way, shape or form, they likely could take on the duties of a game designer.
2. General game knowledge
We understand that it’s impossible to play every game out there, but having some familiarity with multiple titles within their genre(s) of choice is a must. This is very important for prospective game designers as it gives them great insights on why certain titles worked so well and why others have failed miserably (and how to fix them), allowing designers to avoid pitfalls that cost other companies a lot of time and/or money.
Furthermore, it’s important for game designers to understand the audience of the game they’re creating. Personal preferences aside, do they really know what makes their players tick? What they want out of the game? How to best attract new players and keep existing ones? What do players really love (or really hate) about a certain game?
That said, if your company works on multiple games at the same time, then game designers might get assigned to a game in a genre which they’re not familiar with, so being flexible in this aspect is another thing to keep in mind when interviewing candidates for this position.
3. Being able to work as a team
If you are looking to hire a game designer, then chances are you have a sizable team. As professionals who must often work closely with game artists, developers and many other professionals, game designers need to have great teamwork.
This includes being able to give feedback when needed in a way that is not harsh, accepting feedback, listening to the ideas of other people, being able to collaborate with others and, in the case of a lead designer, the ability to lead a team.
4. Technical knowledge of current technology
While this is not a must, it’s important for game designers to at least have a grasp on them. Without it, it will be hard for your game designer to pinpoint which tasks will be easy, which ones will be hard and what might be impossible given our current technology.
Furthermore, having some technical knowledge will allow your game designer to communicate better with your game artists and developers, and allows them to estimate timeframes and coordinate team members better.
5. The ability to turn a basic idea into a much better one
Even if the original game idea (the ones that executives decided on) is unoriginal and kind of lame, good game designers are able to polish it into a gem both interesting and unique. They often accomplish this by adding features and mechanics that worked well for other games and by downplaying or even removing the nonsense, which could be a major pain point for players or just something that feels unnecessary.
That said, there are many talented game designers who feel no obligation to be unique and original, instead finding success by recycling ideas that have worked well in the past while adding their own touch to it.
Venturing too far out and trying to bring novelty at all costs is a gamble that usually doesn’t work well, and good game designers, having internalized the importance of reusing great game ideas, understand that.
6. Past experience
As happens with every job market out there, having past experiences make prospective employees much more desirable.
That said, game designers who tick all the boxes – with writing being the most important one – above are likely to be a great addition for your company even if they lack experience.
How to hire game designers: closing thoughts
The entire process of looking to hire game designers is often harder than inexperienced recruiters might anticipate, but by following these guidelines you are likely to select great ones to be part of your team.
However, if you’d like to avoid the frustration of looking for a great game designer, what about cutting the corners and hiring an entire game development studio to develop your game for you? It’s common sense that working alongside qualified professionals is the best way to get everything done.
At Main Leaf, we create fantastic games on demand for our clients. We have 70+ talented employees that cover the entire game design, asset creation and development processes to ensure you will have a cohesive, high-quality project in your hands.
If you are interested in working with us, request a game quote right now by moving to the top of this page. Don’t worry, we answer our messages within 24 hours!
