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Game Designer- On the Job

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Anonymous

My name is Eric T. Elder, and I was just hired at MGA Entertainment, a major toy company, to design games. I have decided to start a blog here
to provide information to other aspiring game designers and also as a written record of my experiences for myself. The one thing that concerns me a little about doing this is that due to confidentiality agreements I will have to be extremely careful with what I post here, but hope that I can write things in such a general way that it will still be informative without devulging "trade secrets".

So here it goes:

My first day at MGA was very busy and exciting. I started with orientation at 8:30am. It was just your typical paperwork stuff. I was able to submit a list of all games I created before starting my position to retain ownership of those intellectual properties. I then watched a corporate video showcasing how the Bratz dolls have dominated the girl’s fashion doll market. MGA is now the 3rd largest toy company in the US. Barbie sales are down %13 total worldwide and %26 domestically. In 2004 two Bratz products were rated in the top 10 at #3 and #4.
After that I had a brief meeting with my boss the General Manager of Games, who gave me a brief status report on where we are with the Fall 06 line.
He explained to me that he saw my role being the gameplay and mechanics expert and that I should look to give feedback on all the current games in development from that standpoint. I agree this is my strong suit and how I can most serve the team.
He told me to meet with another new designer who started about a week ago and who has been assigned a major animation license to develop a board game and a card game. I read through the board game doc and thought it was a good start. I had a few suggestions that I think would improve the design. I am anxious to build a paper prototype and start playtesting it right away.
He also told me to meet with another gentleman who heads a trio of guys working on new technology games. I read most of a doc for what they are working on, but spent more time with the them talking and playing a game. I found them playing the Donald Trump game which seemed pretty awful. They were about to play Carcassone when I told them there was a great game that shared the same theme of building skyscrapers that involved bidding called 5th Avenue (one of my current favorite euro games). So I taught it to them and we had a really fun game.
I was also assigned to do some research on Neopets and Tamagotchi.
The GM also asked me to come up with a graph or chart to help classify different types of games and identify weaknesses in the market.
I also attended my first Creative Meeting where I met the people that handle rules, and packaging.

Anonymous
Game Designer- On the Job

this is exciting... keep it coming...

and congratulations on your job btw... saw the earlier thread about it..

doho123
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Joined: 07/21/2008
Game Designer- On the Job

Pretty fascinating stuff. ALways wondered what a game design group was like at a major toy company.

SteelShark
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game Designer- On the Job

So you're saying you went to meetings and played games. What a life!

Anonymous
Game Designer- On the Job

I was here so late last night I had to post this, this morning. Enjoy.

Wednesday 9/7/05

I started the day with getting one of our Bratz BotsVirtual Buddiez to start playing with. I read the instructions and started playing. Then I went on to Neopets to start exploring the site and trying to figure out the goals, objectives and rules of the game. I found you could earn points by performing well on various Flash games. The first one I played was volley ball. The first thing I noticed was that the character icon I played on screen was not the one I chose when I created my character. I’m sure the expense of creating new animation for every possible character type you could choose for each game would be prohibitive, but I did miss the element of personalization or playing with my own character. Besides hitting the ball over the net you could try to hit the ball into a little bird which gave you special powers like speed, super growth , and a super jump. The other game I played was Word Poker, which is a pretty well designed little word game. The scoring mechanic is of course based on poker, while you try to create as many words as you can from a scramble of letters.
I also found a good page on Tamagotchi with press releases. Neopets now has over 70 million users. Neopets is a free site online. Tamagotchi Plus has sold over 10 million units by the end of July 05 in about a year. The original phenomenon happened in 1996 and sold over 40 million units world wide.
I started a game of Scene It ! with the New Tech guys. The game seems somewhat broken to me, but I do like movie trivia. The game got interrupted by our next meeting.
In the afternoon we had a line review meeting of the games we are working on for Fall 06. This includes puzzles which I’m told is a good product to start on, to learn how to take a game product from concept to store shelves. In the meeting we tried to get a tighter lock on what we are actually doing, and where the responsibility lies on each product.
After lunch I sat with Product Manager #1 to go through all 12 Bratz board games we have produced so far. My first impression when I started looking at these games weeks ago, were that they were probably not very strong games, but maybe appealing to young girls. But when I had a chance to go through each one chronologically, play them a little, and learn the time frame and amount of resources it took to create them, not to mention they all came in at a $9.99 price point (except Mall Crawl at $14.99), I have to say I was pretty impressed. I was also fascinated to learn that a few of these games continue to sell approximately 800-1000 units per week.
Finally I had my first video teleconference meeting with our overseas manufacturing team. It was quite interesting. We reviewed where we are with the stuff about to ship for this season which is of course based on orders, and then talked about what info we need to get them to prepare for next season and scheduling and time tables for everything. There were a lot of acronyms thrown around that I will have to learn as time goes on. Another packed day and we have a big deadline for Friday. So far it seems like this will be a lot of fun, but believe me folks there is a lot of work involved also.

stark1261
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Joined: 09/08/2008
Game Designer- On the Job

Congrats! Very interesting stuff. Just out of curiousity what was your background to get your current job? How long have you been in the business? Keep the great posts coming.

Anonymous
Game Designer- On the Job

My background is in traditional animation. I've always been passionate about games. My last job was the Academic Director of Game Art & Design at The Art Institute of California-Los Angeles. That position gave me an oppourtunity a few years ago to really start a serious study of game design. I created a course called Game Design and Gameplay where the students final is to create and playtest a strategy board game.

Thursday 9/8/05

As I was doing classic games research I came across this great article in Business Week online called “Hasbro Has Kids Hopping”. It says board games totaled just $920 million last year, while video games made $7.3 billion. School age boys are averaging 13 hours per week playing video games, while girls spend only 5.

I wrote my first on the job concept for a board game.

After lunch the General Manager of Games, the Product Manager #1, and my fellow Game Designer and I played a brief game of Mall Crawl. I reviewed the rules this morning. We were only able to play for about 25-30 minutes and the game hadn’t really got going yet. The gameplay was very same as at this point. We each brought about 4 or 5 stores and were trading money back and forth. From the rules it seems the game really gets moving when players start negotiating for stores. My initial changes would be to have some kind of set up so that each player starts with a few stores. If you could control what is in the stores your offers could become more enticing. Also you probably shouldn’t have to wait to land on your store or a Mix & Match to buy store items, which in turn upgrade your stores. I might also increase the types of items or at least the colors, so that different combinations increase value of store spaces. This would need to be developed but could really enhance the gameplay. You probably start off with too much money (this needs to be playtested for balance). This could also be a good game for a bidding mechanic, but I have no idea if that type of gameplay would be appealing to girls 6 & up. It may be a good idea to be a bit more precise about the end game conditions as well. I’m going to need to play a full game to see more.

Susan had the idea of the girls being able to wear the clothes. Everyone thought the board should be bigger.

After the play session I set up Mall Madness. It’s a really beautiful physical design, the art and the architecture. They designed it so there are two levels to the mall. It was fun to put together. I see this as one of my roles, to set up the games and learn them so I can teach the rest of the team.

I got my request for my business card in.

PM #1 gave me the style guide for the animation lisence.

Finally we had another conference call with Hong Kong about a new product. We got the demo of the game, and it seems very cool. I think if we can get it out, it will be a huge hit. The inventor is over there right now and the main issue seems to be pricing. At this stage you need to make your product as inexpensive as possible. Pennies per unit could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Product Manager #1 handed me the game doc for a new game product and told me to review it.

Anonymous
Game Designer- On the Job

Friday 9/9/05

We had our first major deadline today so I got in about 7:15 or so. I
had some cereal and then began working on the stuff I'm responsible before.

I had to contact an artist for a freelance job collect all the files and negotiate pricing with him. It took me most of the day but we need the work early next week so it had to be done over the weekend.
I sent out an email with my Mall Crawl feedback.
One thing I would like to do is find ways to get kids excited about the board game isle again.

We played Mall Madness in the afternoon. It’s a pretty good game. Nice and simple, seems pretty balanced, and some neat mechanics with the voice device.

Late in the afternoon I went to retrieve a CD with some of the art files on it. I went through several departments and I met a lot of folks in toys and packaging.
Each department definitely had their own distinct personality.

PM #1 wants to start a Friday game session at 4:30 PM on Friday’s when we can.

I got most of the work done and checked off. There were a few small things for me to add. I don’t mind coming in early and staying late especially for the first few weeks. I have been leaving absolutely exhausted though so I need to be careful.
I finally left at 8:30 PM.

Qundar
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Game Designer- On the Job

Hi,

Hey, this is pretty interesting. Sounds like you got a great job: getting payed to play and invent board games. Ah, what couldbe better?

Live long and prosper, Qundar out.

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