Is there an average age of the tipical designer on here?
age
Tue, 05/11/2004 - 21:33
Tue, 05/11/2004 - 21:40
#1
age
Yes.
Tue, 05/11/2004 - 23:02
#2
age
jwarrend wrote:
Yes.
:lol:
Welcome to the bgdf komichido!
I would guess the average is 30. I'm 20 myself but I know a lot of folks here are older and wiser. There's a couple of younger teen designers too.
Wed, 05/12/2004 - 05:20
#4
age
Well I'm not quite twice as old as Tyler but I sure feel more than that today :)
Fortunately, age isn't really an issue in games designing; certainly experience helps but it's more about persistence and the ability to accept when things aren't working, which is far, far more often than you'd like.
-- David
"If at first you don't succeed, it was too hard." Homer Simpson
Wed, 05/12/2004 - 08:36
#5
age
Sorry for my one word response, just kidding around. I'll echo Scurra's thoughts, that in my estimation, being a game designer requires maturity and exposure to gaming, and while those can be helped by being a little older, there's no reason a young designer couldn't have both of those in hand.
I think exposure to gaming grounds you in reality. I think it's not all that uncommon for younger folks to come onto the board and say something like "yo, I've designed the best game in the world, it's called 'super awesome battle of the big bad muthas'" and they proceed to describe a game that is a monstrosity of complexity and is a direct rip off of either Axis and Allies or some RPG a la D&D or some such.
The point is not to denigrate "super awesome battle of the big bad muthas" so much as to say that being a designer means having a finger the pulse of the game world, to have a sense for what your game contributes that other games have left wanting. It also means having an internal sense for what makes a game good, and what makes a game bad; for learning how to strike a good balance between simulation and playability. And for these, the only recipe is to play as many games as you can. And to design a lot of games, many of which will be clunkers...
As far as maturity goes, I think Scurra addressed that commendably; it's about how you respond to criticism, how to identify when a design is not going in the right direction, how to relate at a professional level to members of the design and publishing community, etc.
I see no reason why a 13 year old who possessed these qualities couldn't be a great designer; I see no way that a 40 year old who lacked them could.
Good luck, and have fun!
-Jeff
Wed, 05/12/2004 - 11:07
#7
age
MikeDew wrote:
Reminds me a little of a coworker who wrote on his whiteboard "Half the people who work here are below the company average" and folks were giving him grief over it. :?
Of course he was probably wrong, though it's guaranteed that half the people that work there were at or below the median.
It is true that if you have 10 fingers then you have greater than the average number for a human, but the same as the median.
Gotta love statistics.
-- Matthew
Wed, 05/12/2004 - 11:59
#9
age
Like Tyler, I'm 19 going on 20, making an effort to publish one of my games and hoping a publisher will get back to me with an offer sometime before I die. :? I guess it's a good thing that they've taken so long, and not rejected me on the spot, but it's agonizing! Probably they're just torn between two great games: mine, and Tyler's. Which to publish? I dunno, all this thinking is making my head hurt, can't we wait another week to decide?
Wed, 05/12/2004 - 12:40
#10
age
MikeDew wrote:
Fair enough, but those challenging his statement weren't challenging it for that reason. (And, I can't discount the possibility that my memory got it wrong...)
Being pedantic is a core part of my raison d'être. :twisted:
Wed, 05/12/2004 - 14:11
#11
age
FastLearner wrote:
Being pedantic is a core part of my raison d'être. :twisted:
Surely the point of the original observation was also pedantry? It's a development of George Carlin, who said "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
This is, of course, wrong in all important respects except one: that it's a good joke.
Wed, 05/12/2004 - 16:35
#12
age
Scurra wrote:
FastLearner wrote:
Being pedantic is a core part of my raison d'être. :twisted:
Surely the point of the original observation was also pedantry? It's a development of George Carlin, who said "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
This is, of course, wrong in all important respects except one: that it's a good joke.
In addition to it being a good joke, it is technically wrong as you say. However it's not so horribly wrong as to not be fairly true (hence the reason it's a good joke). Maybe it depends on the definition of the word "average"- which has a specific definition, but might also be interchangable with 'median' to a particular group of people (likely people who aren't familiar with the term 'median')
That doesn't make it less wrong though. Scurra- this isn't too dissimilar to your discussion of the use of 'their' instead of 'his' in English language.
P.S. So as to stay on topic, I'm 29 years old.
Wed, 05/12/2004 - 22:31
#15
age award
nope, got you beat. pushing 41 this august. hope to have what it takes for many many years to come.
Thu, 05/13/2004 - 09:31
#18
age
I'm 47, but my average age is considerably less.
Steve
Thu, 05/13/2004 - 10:32
#19
?!?!?
jwarrend wrote:
I see no reason why a 13 year old who possessed these qualities couldn't be a great designer; I see no way that a 40 year old who lacked them could.
-Jeff
Whoops... I think I'm in big trouble then.. :D
-Darke
Fri, 05/14/2004 - 11:51
#21
age
I'm 35 currently. Reminds me of the time I started an IM to darkehorse with the phrase, "How's it going, old man?" ... and he quickly replied with something like "Just how old do you think I am?!"
I figured I had him by a year or three anyway ... but don't actually remember what he told me now.
Did remember having the impression that he was even "too old to be an online gamer" back in his ARC days. ;) :D (But then again, why was I playing that game then? ;))
-Bryk
Fri, 05/14/2004 - 12:10
#23
age -> time for research
I'm 30, although my Dad still thinks I'm 18, my co-workers think I'm 40+, and my girlfriend thinks I'm whatever age her mood is in :)
Regardless of age, it should help to spend time researching game mechanics and reading the 'what makes a game good' articles....along with interests in game applicable themes from the subjects of History, Geography, and Sociology/Culture, etc. (surely 'Puerto Rico' and 'Princes of the Renaissance' had healthy doses of historical research applied to them ;) )
Best wishes,
Dave W.
Fri, 05/14/2004 - 13:42
#24
Re: age -> time for research
DavemanUK wrote:
and my girlfriend thinks I'm whatever age her mood is in :)
And that will always keep you young. :D
-Bryk
Fri, 05/14/2004 - 13:48
#25
Re: age -> time for research
MikeDew wrote:
"I'm 37, I'm not old."
"Well I can't just call you 'man'."
Sorry...it's one of those lines that cracks me up every time, and since we were on the subject of age, it's actually on-topic!
Good old Monty Python, they have a quote for everything. How I love them. I am almost 26, act anywhere between ages 3 to 70 and most of the time feel like I'm 100.
I’m a young blood
19
Well I guess I’m not that young. I just hope I sign some publishing papers before I’m 20 (only got a few more moths before that happens 8O )
Unrealistic goals you say? Yah, maybe because of how long it takes for publishers to get back to you. But I understand it’s a big deal when your picking new games, I certainly would not want to make a mistake if I were in there position.