Let's Talk About Ideas

I talk about ideas and what you should do with yours.

[@nosferadu]

Designers are not primarily idea people, they're solution people. This is one of the first things my lead taught me as a junior.

[@UENShanix]

For anyone doubting Tim's point about potential legal issues with sending him (or studios/developers/etc. in general) ideas: Babylon 5 was a 90s TV Show whose creator would occasionally interact with fans on usenet. The fans there would occasionally come up with story ideas or plots, and one time a fan proposed an idea for an episode that had already been planned. So they had to get the fan to sign a legal release confirming the studio didn't steal their idea without credit, which delayed the airing of that episode by a whole season. It could've been a lot worse.

[@TorQueMoD]

People purposely send Hollywood directors ideas written out about the plot points of movies when they're already connected to a known universe like book or comic book adaptations. I heard a story where one guy spent literally months and probably thousands of dollars trying to force their script into the hands of a director by courier, just so they could prove that the director "read" their script, and then sue them. It's disgusting.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

So your evidence is "No lawsuit ever existed but a bunch of corporate lawyers got scared of imaginary potential litigation and then convinced some poor chap to sign a legal document he didnt ever need to sign."? Weird standard of evidence for an argument.

[@UENShanix]

@@nowayjosedaniel My evidence is a major production studio going "Oh crap, this will cause us problems, quick we need to solve this even if it costs us money because not solving it will cost more money!" That "poor chap" absolutely did need to sign it, because crediting workers is actually a really important thing in the film and television industry. I don't know why you're so skeptical when this literally did happen for exactly the reasons I described and is corroborated by multiple accounts. Have you considered maybe not everyone on the internet is lying to you all the time?

[@jesperburns]

@@UENShanixLiars like Carter here often think everyone else is the same as them.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

@@UENShanix Your evidence is exactly as I stated. Evidence of lawyers imagining a problem doesnt prove your argument that the problem is real. You need actual evidence of a real lawsuit to back up your claim.

[@daffodyl_n]

this just reminds me of all the Kickstarters out there who’ve got nothing but a couple sketches, stolen inspo artwork, and a guy doing a voiceover, trying to get you to financially back his revolutionary game idea

[@luth9119]

Or moddb "projects" with only one guy who is "the manager" and "very good at having ideas".

[@stuartmorley6894]

​@@---nu4edI think the "but it was Obsidian" is probably the point. It's not like the multitude of single developers on Kickstarter asking for money for a random MMORPG.

[@dna6496]

looooooooooooooooooooooooool

[@dna6496]

whos name is usually "CHAD"@@luth9119

[@nowayjosedaniel]

​@@---nu4edThat absolutely did not make them a sure shot. The majority of highly experienced kickstarter that got massive funding at the start of the crowdfunding craze were all flops who never even got as far as vaporware.

[@BlackJar72]

I've noticed there are a lot of people around wanting to be the "idea guy" -- the impression I get is that, when it comes right down to it, what they really want is for someone else to make their idea for them rather than doing the work themself, and just tell themselves their doing you the favor with the great idea. They seem to ignore or fail to understand that people who actually make things have plenty of idea of their own, and don't have time to work on theirs for free.

[@TheSocratesofAthens]

It depends. It's not all about delegating someone else all the "hard" work. I think of George Lucas in making the Empire Strikes Back vs. making the Prequels. In the former case, Lucas had ideas but did not work as directly in making the film: the execution was better since he had someone to discuss and filter ideas with rather than try to do everything himself. The Prequels suffered in quality thanks to much of the work falling onto Lucas i.e. writing, directing, as well as thinking of ideas. So, really, being an "idea" guy doesn't really mean a one-way channel from thinker to worker, but rather a dialogue between, let's say, producer and director or the like. Someone can be less directly involved in execution, while being there to refine ideas through dialogue with someone else.

[@DanielFerreira-ez8qd]

@@TheSocratesofAthens george lucas wasn't doing nothing, he was very much skilled in a lot of the things he was chipping in on. Idea guys very rarely know what to do, otherwise they wouldn't be seen as the idea guy, they'd be seen as a designer, or an artist, or a programmer, etc.

[@Mordrevious]

‘Ideas are cheap’ is a mantra they should teach in every class for first years in any college for any creative major. It’s so important for anybody doing anything creative to learn that your idea is worth *nothing* unless Y O U make steps to make it happen, even if the results aren’t so great. I don’t always follow this rule as well as I should. But even the shittiest short stories I’ve made out of my ideas are better than letting a ‘good idea’ rot away in my brain never seeing the light of day.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

Ideas are not cheap when you need to hire a game designer like the 3 businesses currently paying Tim Cain for his ideas. I guarantee if you asked those companies, they wouldn't be bragging how cheap he is.

[@Mordrevious]

@@nowayjosedanielTim also has literal decades of experience as a game designer and programmer. I'm going to guess that the 3 companies he's contracting for don't have him on just to spin ideas.

[@sean3542]

@@nowayjosedanielyou missed the point. Cain doesn't just provide ideas he details his systems and implements them, and iterates upon them. That is the job of a game designer not being an idea fountain

[@neetfreek9921]

I would believe this mantra more if every creative industry wasn’t a bunch of derivative meta chasers. Ideas seem to be both expensive and risky. At least to the eyes of modern producers. It’s much safer and easier to just copy another persons idea and tweak it a little. People nowadays want formulas not ideas.

[@vast634]

I would call it more like: 99.9% of your ideas are going to be run of the mill stuff, that are not any better than what others have. In this sense they are cheap. And the implementation of them the actual cost.

[@theidiotchildren]

I have a brother-in-law who keeps telling me his mostly terrible ideas and acting like I should be spending all my time developing them. It doesn't matter how much I explain why I'm not interested, he can't hear me. Honestly, it's become a running gag in my life and I almost look forward to the sales pitch every time I see him.

[@stevedowning3892]

Share this video with him, chief! Mind you, that would rob you of a running joke...

[@hata5966]

Exactly this! I wanted to become game designer at 30s and I knew writing design documents and 100 game ideas won't get me anywhere. Instead, I spent 3 months to learn C++ and C# and built a VR sign language game prototype in unity and got hired instantly as game developer.

[@RakastanPorkkanakakkua]

2:54 Damn, that really confirmed something I've been noticing for years: when we think, our minds fill in the blanks to make it seem complete, but when we try to put it into action, we discover all the gaps. It is up to us to give it shape and turn it into reality. By the time you're done, your original concept is just an echo of the final outcome. Because of this, I don't care much about ideas, which are like seeds for a tree you have never seen.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

I dont really understand these arguments. It's as if people dont realize that when you take a vague one sentence concept and elaborate on it with an entire design document, it's still literally just an idea... The irony is the entire argument seems to boil down to "When does an idea become tangible" which is highly subjective (one could argue it is when it has more formal subsystems for gameplay, others when it has a fully realized GDD, others not until it has a tangible gameplay component in a game engine). But it's ironic bc that argument is utterly pointless, bc this is already a long past solved discussion. Good ideas are worth a lot. Theyre extremely valuable and should be protected. Bad ideas are not always worthwhile, but sometimes even they are (a bad idea at the right time can actually generate a lot of success). The biggest irony though is the people who say "Ideas are a dime a dozen. Let me see a demo." May very well get the individual to make a personal demo, then go silent as the demo allowed them to realize their idea was far more valuable than they initially thought. People do this all the time, and sit on inventions until after theyve left a company or until they are able to secure it themselves. Sometimes they sell the idea to a competitor, or even sell the very thing theyve done for a company to another one (even if illegal, ppl get away with stealing ideas all the time.) Go lookup big cases of Corporate Espionage or Espionage in general. Ideas are the foundation for ALL human creativity and science. Without ideas, you have nothing. They are LITERALLY the most important thing. Always. And elaborated game design is just a more fleshed out idea. Good ideas are a very big deal. Always have been. Always will be. Just bc bad ideas or shallow meaningless ideas exist alongside them doesnt make the good ideas any less valuable. It just means the listener isnt always able to tell which are which immediately. Good ideas can range from sentences as short as "Lego's, but a 3D video game." (Minecraft) or as complex as "Here is my 3000 page GDD proving my MMORPG magnum opus, citing 40 university professors across 32 fields of expertise and several documented experiments proving the new technology."

[@user-cb1rh4wl1w]

​@@nowayjosedaniel, yeah yeah whatever idea guy.😂 Keep hoarding your precious ideas so the world will never see them. Maybe someday you'll find a fool who is willing to do heavy lifting for you. 😂😂😂

[@MicahDS]

​@@nowayjosedaniel I believe the takeaway is that a proven idea (i.e. a prototype) is worth far more than an unproven one. In explaining, with a prototype, you figure out if / how your idea works. Before that, you don't really know if it'll be good or if it'll even work out at all, unless you're doing something that's already been proven out, of course. So it's the unproven or unrealized ideas that are almost worthless and very quick and easy to come by. I don't think anyone is saying ideas are unimportant though. As Tim says in the constructive part around 8:04, "Figure out a way of expressing your idea as a realized feature." Basically, prove it actually works.

[@darksunDS]

@@nowayjosedaniel This is such a naïve view and understanding of the topic. idea's are worthless because they're untested and unexplored suppositions and thoughts. If you have an idea, that's cute, but you have to explore it further. Make a mock-up. Do the statistics, write a design document, etc. Turn it into a concept. Coming up with an idea is about as easy as breathing or thinking about lunch. It doesn't take any effort to just spitball the first thing that comes to mind and hope it sticks. Not to mention ideas lack any substance, meaning at least a couple hundred people already had that same idea before you and will have it after you. If you, the person that comes up with the idea are unable or unwilling to put in the effort to explore it to the next stage, that speaks volumes for your idea. If it's so valuable, then you should be the first person to be motivated into action. If you can't even do that, it's most likely worthless and a waste of the other person's time. And that is the key word here. "worthless". A well fleshed out idea has, hands-down, more worth than a random one-liner without any supporting information, evidence or explanation. At that point it's no longer simply an "idea" it's a honest to god test/mock-up/pilot/script/piece/etc. The idea is merely the spark, the catalyst. Without an engine or something to ignite/interact with, that spark is useless/meaningless/worthless, any other -less word you want to add here.

[@harshamohite1289]

@@nowayjosedanielIt seems youre arguing less about ideas and more about prototypes that prove to be promising. Ideas are still extremely cheap but a prototype is an actual artifact and can be really valuable.

[@Lee.Moriya]

It's reassuring to see this has always been the case, it's particularly common in modding communities, tons of people typing up their long-winded ideas they're super proud of. You point them in the direction of resources/tutorials to get started on it, but they're not interested, they don't want to put the effort in to make their idea a reality, they want YOU to do it for them, and most of the time, they still expect all the credit.

[@user-cb1rh4wl1w]

Ikr. Jeez some people. I made mods for Fallout New Vegas the amount of tools for that game is astounding. Heck you have world edit with game in one package - it can't get any easier. Changing stats, adding stuff, removing stuff - all takes a day at most. Yet there's people who don't want to do even that. 😒

[@nowayjosedaniel]

Who are these people? Can you name and link a single one so I dont have to assume they are entirely imaginary strawmen or hyperbole?

[@nowayjosedaniel]

​​@@user-cb1rh4wl1w...What? You think it is a problem that some gamers dont want to spend lengthy amounts of their own time to make a mod? O....kay? Weird. No one is entitled to the labor of others, obviously, but some layman gamer making a request to a modder is sensible in a reasonable society. What is so wrong with gamers not wanting to do work? They're gamers. They just want to play games, not make them. If you dont want to do the work to fulfill their request, then dont do it. No reason to cry like a little bitch that some gamer made some request.

[@user-cb1rh4wl1w]

​@@nowayjosedanielwdym link? Like dox them or something? 😂 "Okay so there's one guy on Nexus his name is Lasey Fuchs and also there's... " Like that? 😂 Just because you haven't deal with these people doesn't mean that they don't exist. They're minority sure but they do exist. Look it up yourself. Any game modding community any forum there's people who just make suggestions and nothing else. Ok let's use my example - Fallout New Vegas, Nexus Mods. There's entire forum section that is dedicated to mod suggestions so that people would stop annoy mod devs in PM and in mod comments section. The topics counter is as big as in Mod Troubleshooting section. People having trouble with mods as often as they are making suggestions😂. There's even pinned topic that explains to idea guys why no one want to do heavy lifting for them! 😂😂😂 And in that group there are people that will PM you with their "awesome" ideas like some quest series with their OC companion that is also Courier love interest and all that jazz. And there would be some cool convoluted quest that will give you FIVE different follower perks depending on your actions throughout the game. And you should give them credit ofc for that awesome idea.😂 I always assume best and think that they're just kids who think that they are Chris Avellone or something. Now I have a different question for you. Why would modders and game devs made up these claims? Like really, what's the main reason?

[@DanielFerreira-ez8qd]

@@nowayjosedaniel get out of this comment section and go into any community forums about game development. Be it a discord server for fan projects, some old forums about game development, etc. The burden of proof isn't in the person stating a very solid, very relatable statement at this point - you're in a game developer's channel and you have seemingly 0 experience with other game developer forums? That's on you for living under a rock.

[@rusty_from_earth9577]

“Idea guys” are difficult in amateur game dev. Often they don’t bring any technical contributions but want to assemble a team of people and then act like a game director while contributing nothing but vague concepts

[@nowayjosedaniel]

How is this difficult? If they dont bring anything of value, you dont work with them. If they do, you might. It's a pretty simple reality. Who are these people who find these people, accept them on the team, then find them to be difficult to work with? Why would you just randomly join forces with some stranger with no skills and who contributes nothing, but also isnt a charity case?

[@anywhere_but_here]

@@nowayjosedanielI think the point is that it’s not a formal studio hiring the idea person, it’s an idea person with money who manages to rope in a bunch of actual devs to make their idea a reality. My first reaction was you see this a lot with KZbinrs/streamers and go fund me campaigns. At least that’s how I interpreted his comment.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

@@anywhere_but_here But if theyre paying people to do the work, what is the problem???

[@LaurieCheers]

Because typically they have lots of opinions about the mistakes everyone's making, but nothing concrete to contribute themselves and no sense of what's feasible. Maddening people to work with...

[@nowayjosedaniel]

@@LaurieCheers So you three are whining because someone with a lot of money hired you for a job and isnt the most professionally skilled and talented game designer? You do realize the alternative is you dont have employment...right? And it is up to you of you take the job. You people sound insane and/or entitled, complaining about imaginary things or people who you dont have to work with. In what world are they the problem when it's 100% your fault you chose to work with someone who doesnt provide any value other than financing and ownership of your labor? THAT WAS YOUR CHOICE TO TAKE THE JOB.

[@jorava8768]

This is weirdly common. I've had plenty of people tell me "Oh I've got a great idea for a game" when they find out I'm a game dev. It happens on other creative industries, too. The writer of "Time Traveler's Wife" said someone told her an idea for a sequel called "Time Traveler's Daughter" and they could split the revenue 50-50. And the idea was just the title of the book, nothing else.

[@666j1]

They’ll provide you the idea and all you have to do is all the hard work. Great idea

[@bluemooninthedaylight8073]

People and their weird, inflated sense of worth. An idea is a seed, not the tree.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

​​​​@@bluemooninthedaylight8073This. The problem has absolutely nothing to do with the value of ideas and whether or not they are worthless or as valuable as rare treasure. The problem seems to reside exclusively in delusions of grandeur and entitlement that some people have, where they think they are such amazing gifts to humanity that their mere breathing words towards others qualifies them as worthy of a share in the fruits of others' labor. Most people just call those types scam artists or predators. Others call them leeches or capitalists.

[@kotzpenner]

„Wouldn’t it be cool to carry all this flour from the mill to the bakery? Now you do it! But don’t worry, we can split the profits because it was my idea!“

[@ewanfawns547]

I remember once when I was in university studying game design, for a module I decided to make a procedurally generated stealth prototype. I learned very quickly that despite the simplicity of what I was planning on implementing on their own, the real difficulty is getting the systems working together and I had to fix many bugs to get the pathfinding on the guards working with the procedurally generated level and from that point on i became skeptical of new ideas introduced later in projects because sometimes it's not just as simple as putting in a new script that does a new thing, because that could break something else. I find that many fellow designers who don't really understand too much about coding have this problem of not understanding that.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

The vast majority of modern software in 2023 is incredibly fragile boiled spaghetti on a foundation of melting jello, so even the tiniest change will collapse parts of the structure that should never have even be connected (the architectural equivalent of flushing the toilet causing the lights to flicker). I remember talking with a Unity Engineer at Unity Technologies, and him explaining to me how changing a simple image file in a splash screen to a different image file, in Unity, would take 3-6 months of work and extensive testing across every platform due to how it could easily break unrelated things like the actual game engine itself. Mind boggling levels of incompetence.

[@swalkstudios]

Ah yes, ideas.. Two friends approached me to make a game together, they wanted to be the idea guys and me doing everything else. (ie. 99.9% of the work) I told them the reality of the workload but they were adamant that their ideas were half the work. They really had no clue. So I ended up just doing something by myself. Some people think their ideas are soo valuable. They are like opinions, everyone's got them. What's important is following a specific vision to create something coherent.

[@PigDogBay]

Totally agree. I’m an app dev, so people approach me with their great idea for an app (it never is) and that I should be grateful for hearing them out and maybe I can get 10% of the revenue 😂. I always say, 1 do market research, you will find dozens of similar apps. 2 get a pencil and paper and mock up screen shots, how does the app flow, annotate your drawings, what’s the logic? I Never hear back from them.

[@Rentash]

Last night me and my significant other started learning Godot because I had heard you say this about ideas so frequently. I'm super grateful for your videos, in the past I've commented inane questions about where to start when in reality I just needed to start! I hope one day to make a game you enjoy Mr.Cain thank you for all the wisdom!

[@Marandal]

I started with Godot last month. I have almost no programming experience soo it's definitely a challenge. I'm hoping to find some people to make a game with using Godot.

[@Rentash]

@Marandal I'm in the same boat when it comes to lack of experience. It seems like the learning the language will be the biggest hurdle, with that said though it seems pretty simple once you pick up on the vernacular (or shorthand not sure what the correct term would be)

[@nowayjosedaniel]

@@Rentash the term you're looking for is Syntax.

[@Void-Knull]

I've tried to learn it, but my INT isn't high enough to comprehend the basics

[@schitzoflink8612]

::furiously scratches flying lazer zombies off idea list::

[@gargamellenoir8460]

The thing about game ideas is that for most of us the one we have floating is our head is the absolute best game possible... For us. Assuming it's possible. So it takes a bit of self reflection to understand why game devs aren't tearfully thanking us for sharing this once in a lifetime opportunity.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

The irony is you are correct, but the sad part is about

[@CAPSLOCKING]

As someone who works in games, the amount of times people will toss an idea out about a game is incredibly high. It's also very common to see someone put out an idea on social media about a game you work on, and get tons of support and followups like 'Hire this person!' -- when the idea is something the team had already thought up at some point and decided against for any number of reasons. In the same way that it's hard to let a coworker down who's just not getting it as a manager, it's near-impossible to be candid in situations like this it comes to unsolicited ideas without sounding like a complete jerk. Because the reality is that, yeah, the idea is worthless - and there's probably even a better one down the line with iteration. But trying to explain why will almost certainly make it "fight" between dev and gaming community. I think a lot of gamers see the 'rockstar' developers or CEOs like Kojima or Todd Howard, and they assume that those devs don't do much of the actual work - as if they're just a person who comes in and makes unilateral decisions about every little decision. When the reality is they've got giant teams around them collaborating toward a goal. A creative director might have final ultimate say on a design, but a good one is going to go through a crazy amount of ideas from the team, as well as trust their team's judgment on many aspects.

[@GeomancerHT]

The amount of people I know that don't want to tell ideas because "they will stole it" and I always tell them, if somebody steals one of my ideas, I will consider myself lucky, you know how much would cost to make the ideas happen? you will probably never see 99.9% of your ideas materialized, let the world know them, pretty sure somebody else already thought about the same already.

[@michaelvicente5365]

a picture is worth a thousand words! In this case, make, don't tell!

[@darthjesus7959]

This hurt. A lot. But I needed to hear it. And now I have my notebook open for the first time in months, and the first page is already full of things I've needed to elaborate and work on for years. Thanks Tim.

[@gourdbox]

One reason I use notebooks is to just get the damn idea out of my head so I can move on. If you want to revisit it you can but by going through the act of noting it, you can allow yourself to be free of it.

[@eponymous3784]

I once knew a guy in high school who wanted to go to school for game design and he had this whole "game" laid out in his head ... He spent hours poring over ten page character sheets, throwing out random concept after concept ... Instead of just learning to code and putting together a prototype. The punchline is that his idea genuinely didn't think at all about gameplay, or even what genre or style of game it would be. He just assumed other people would take his pages upon pages of irrelevant details about his omnipotent self insert and somehow make a game out of it.

[@ThatZenoGuy]

>People making ideas are LE BAD Amazing.

[@kotzpenner]

@@ThatZenoGuywhat

[@yaginku]

I'm going to push back a bit, even though I realize the bit about "ideas are worthless" is mainly targeted at people who are just starting and believe their idea == "design". However, I've seen projects - and worked on a few - where ideas weren't really respected. The kind of "we'll think about it when we get there" attitude, refusal to fill in obvious gaps in the design for the sake of pushing forward. That is obviously not the same as "hey, lets make a game where a 1000 players fight 10.000 enemies", but there is a kind of tendency, especially in big conglomerates, to fill pitches with monetization details, moodboards and other fluff and nothing that can actually be described as the "idea" for the game.

[@warhawk7128]

Bingo. Things are trending to a point where it's no longer about arrogant upstarts and more about the fact that new/better/creative ideas aren't welcome at all, even though the profession is supposedly about creativity. Bait and switch. As a business, it was always this way, but it strikes me as worse now than ever.

[@JosephHeck]

Never feel bad asserting that raw ideas are worthless. They are - as you mentioned, it's execution that is the value. US/Culturally has been indoctrinated with light bulbs and other nonsense to reflect that it's not persistence, failure, recovery - and effort in general - that results in the fun, useful, or effective things.

[@shockmethodx]

This is something I've understood for years, but having it expanded upon aloud by a trusted voice really does hammer the message home. Thinking is important, but doing makes the difference.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

Doing without thinking is the worst thing you could do. There are literally thousands of games that deservingly end up in the garbage because they couldnt even be bothered to produce a good idea at the beginning before completing their generic asset flip unity platformer. I read these sad (but deservingly failed) stories all the time. Dev put 10,000+ hours into their game. Their game was D.O.A. the first day they started work on it bc they didnt understand the value of ideas. "WHY DID MY GAME FAIL???" --> "Well kid...for starters, you thought it was a good idea to make a Platformer in 2020." This is literally THOUSANDS of stories. You know who doesnt fail thousands of times? Developers who make games with good ideas. Ryan Clark has an entire youtube video on this, titled "Consistently Making Profitable Games"

[@kotzpenner]

@@nowayjosedaniel „failing for making a platformer in 2020“ Yeah Nintendo really in the dumps right now with their latest Mario releases.

[@sofaking1627]

As a creative myself. I can fully agree. Ideas are a dime a dozen. And that's "at best"

[@donaldcrankshaw1627]

Amen. I'm a writer and publisher, and I can say with some authority that no writer I know has a shortage of ideas. What they have a shortage of is the time to write all the stories and novels where those ideas can find a home.

[@ClockworkArchon]

Follow up questions: When you have lots of good ideas, how do you determine which ones are worth investing the time into prototyping? Assuming you're a solo dev for the sake of argument, how would you go about soliciting feedback on a prototype if you can't ask others in the industry?

[@CainOnGames]

I can answer in two words: "rapid prototyping". Don't think of prototyping as the time to make perfect code and schedules and unit testing and pair programming. It's where ideas go to be tested and many will fail. You throw something together fast to see if the ideas work and are fun to play. Rapid prototyping is rarely used these days. R&D is often seen as a waste of developer time.

[@grey8_]

@@CainOnGamesI think the term that is used nowadays for what you're describing is called MVP. That said, it wouldn't be the first time that an MVP goes into and is, unchanged, used as the finished project or feature. Eventually, it's not maintainable anymore and/or full of bugs and a huge headache. Or, the other way around, the goal is to do an MVP, but what ends up happening is that it's not just a prototype, but rather just a regularly implemented project or feature, but the excuse "it's an MVP" is used to ship subpar code by e.g. skipping tests or leaving out core parts. Of course, that part never gets touched again and is causing issues down the line. 😅 Maybe that is what you mean with "it isn't done anymore today"? In my experience, when done wrong, it was a mix of the worst of both worlds. Also, a constructive critique for this video: You can hear someone snoring in the background. 😁 I use audiophile studio headphones, so maybe it's just me, but it's very audible and once I heard it, I couldn't unhear it and it was distracting. It starts right at the beginning. To avoid re-recording all the footage, I'd recommend trying an ML-based noise cancelation algorithm - they're very, very good nowadays and can even filter out really loud noises - snoring will not be a big deal! In general, your audio is a little bit noisy, which, AFAIK, can easily be cleaned up by trimming off all noise below a very low threshold. That could maybe take care of the snoring, too. And, at last: I do enjoy the content in your videos, great job!

[@Elrog3]

@@grey8_ I think a lot of times you will get an indication of whether an idea is good or not before it is developed enough to be viable in the market.

[@gourdbox]

I was in a lecture where Bruce Shelley got a question about Ideas and he spent a lot of time saying the same things, and it boils down to ideas are easy, implementation is hard. Lucky for me the lecture was early in my career. Love your channel, easily one of my favorites I stumbled upon in the last few months.

[@gharju]

the sound of the dog snoring in background of this video was actually very soothing to me haha

[@Balyrion]

I have had German Shepherds my whole life, that is a pretty common trait of the breed. They get super focused and won't break out of it, but if you scold them they feel terrible that they did something wrong. I adore them so so much.

[@greboge]

Your channel is just a gem! All this knowledge and histories are so good. Thanks for everything, Tim

[@warhawk7128]

Well, Tim, let's be honest: In an industry that cranks out repetitive, soul-sucking, corporate-driven garbage, can you blame them for being even more keen to focus on ideas? How often do developers ever get to create what they 'want' to create? In a line of work that's supposed to be "creative," it seems less creative than ever these days. Having choices between extremely minor and inconsequential components within someone's tiny specialty role doesn't really cut it when pretty much everybody wants to be the designer, on some level. No argument whatsoever about the "get offended" types, though. Spot on there. I'm just very empathetic with the strangling of creative thought in general.

[@Postaldude2003]

The best video you have made yet. 100%. I'm sending this to all my filmmaker buddies!

[@caseyhuber1630]

This times very well with a project I've been working on recently where I had to ask myself "Am I willing to make this?" The sentiment of making a demo (or equivalent) is so important and valuable, and it especially makes me realize just how vulnerable intellectual property is. Thanks for saying what I was thinking, Tim!

[@sebastianacevedo9444]

Good points about ideas. I'll be aure to work them into something workable first

[@breeze4144]

i remember my teacher for programming and design said "nobody is gonna make your game for you" which is pretty much the truth.

[@doppelkammertoaster]

Itäs a good reminder. But one thing I also find so interesting with game design. How to put ideas into a title, whatever media that is. How to adapt the idea into rules that fit into the whole.

[@TheSocratesofAthens]

I don't think ideas are "cheap" in general. Bad ideas are cheap. Ignorant ideas are cheap. Good ideas are priceless. But thinking of good ideas is the hard part: good ideas come from many years of learning and interacting with the world.

[@ConfusedDesigner2171]

I love when idea guys find out I'm a game dev, they always want to create a gigantic MMO, that according to their plan it won't take longer than 6 months to develop, they never have funds but worry not, the idea is so great we'll become millionaires, and they always, ALWAYS start with "Did you ever play Runescape?", it's hilarious.

[@shoc2177]

The "i have to be brutal to ppl who dont hear what im saying" then "they are mad at me because i was brutal"... i know this feeling.... but from a different source. As a wow guild officer :D I think ppl are just ppl.. Those kind of ppl are soooo annoying, and i can feel it, talking about it.

[@juanmartin6904]

This reminds me of the people that go to Reddit or video game development forums, and are looking for people to create a game based on a vague idea of theirs (which most of the time is a copy of something that already exists) and act like having the idea was the hard part and they are going to just sit back and see how the game is developed. We all have a million ideas. Developing them is the hard part.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

As weird as it sounds, there are a shocking number of peoople on these gamedev forums / subreddits who genuinely cant come up with even a single idea. Not even a bad one or a clone copy one. They're blank. Game Designers (real ones), as Richard Bartle points out in his lecture on innovation in game design, find not only ideas and designs easy, but are visibly noticeable by the fact they have endless notebooks stacked around their house filled sith game ideas. Innovation is easy for them. But the VAST majority of game developers are not game designers, so ideas are hard to come by for many and innovation is impossible for most. Most developer's most innovative ideas are absolute garbage, incredibly vague and shallow, or consist of literally copying some other game that came out 5 years ago that is worse than the game it copied that came out 20 years ago.

[@psfarg]

Ideas live in the realm of Desire. They are, by definition, ideal, they work perfectly. Once you are forced to make a prototype, you are forced to challenge and ground the idea. Very few ideas survive the prototyping process.

[@thatiafilatia]

They heard you they just choose to ignore you since they have the abiltiy to override their fear of rejection. Not always a good thing. I have also worked with a lot of artists and engineers like this througout my career in the industry and I have to say its one of the facets that makes being a director the most difficult job there is sometimes.

[@tedbendixson]

I love your channel. I get this sort of polite conversation from friends all the time, and I think you take a great stance on it. It complicates friendships when people want to start a company with you and be the "idea guy." Whenever I hear that sort of thing, I immediately know the person I'm talking to has never done a serious creative project. If they did, they wouldn't value ideas quite so much.

[@nowayjosedaniel]

Good ideas are to be highly valued. Any creative person understands this simple concept. It seems your problems reside in not realizing it has nothing to do with ideas, but with who you choose to work with. LPT: Never start a business with your friends or family, unless youre okay losing the relationship.

[@kotzpenner]

@@nowayjosedanielnever ever start a business with someone whose sole job is to make ideas. It’s a recipe for disaster.

[@VieneLea]

David Mullich, a gamedev veteran who now teaches gamedev, mentioned on a blog that he starts his semester-long classes that the first excercise is that he divides people in small groups and gives them several hours to just walk around and come up with ONE HUNDRED game ideas over the time alotted (with a caveat that each has to seem possible to finish over the course of the semester). He's been doing this for years and not a single team failed that assingment.

[@fishtrekgames]

bless this channel, what a gift

[@DemonizedAlucard]

Love your content! I look forward to each new video

[@richardgrayson432]

I appreciate your videos and your honesty. And at the time of this writing congrats on your 60k subscribers.

[@Massiznassiz]

Hi Tim. You seem very passionate about RPGs, but have you ever been (professionally) interested in working on games in a different genre, like a real-time strategy, horror or something like that? This could be either because you've wanted to tackle different kinds of design/narrative challenges, or because you've wanted to program a game with wholly different technical needs. Or, for example, maybe you've wanted to use an existing setting to make a game in a different genre, like how Blizzard used the Warcraft setting (and a lot of its assets) to make World of Warcraft. If so, I'd be curious to hear if you have any thoughts, opinions or notes to share regarding games in other genres, either as a developer or as a player.

[@jonfers]

Ideas are worthless in the marketplace. But ideas are worth gold to the individual to whom they belong. They hold great value and potential for the person with the idea. Ideas can even outweigh profitable opportunities when they take hold, they can drive you forward when even the pull of money or the push of brutal honesty can't. But to make use of that value, to benefit from it and make it valuable to others, one has to bring their idea to fruition in some way.

[@nenirouvelliv]

Everyone applying into the game industry should go through these videos. Some gold nuggets here that will rein in the ego of young game designers and artists.

[@ListerTunes]

When I first moved from QA to dev, I wrote down 7 or 8 ideas I had for projects. After 10 years I'd gotten to implement maybe 3 of those things. Not because they were bad ideas, they just weren't more important to do than the other things I did during that time. So when I tell people what my job is, and they say "I have a great idea for a game," I have to tell them "My dude, I can't even get time to put all of my own ideas in the game I work on. We've got ideas, what we don't have is time and money."

[@aprilmeowmeow]

your videos orbit around the game industry, but apply so well to life in general. thank you for teaching others what you've experienced in such an understandable way. 😊

[@ShinyFood]

a notebook to write ideas sounds fun so far i have post it notes around the room with random projects and ideas, but that sounds more tidy lol

[@gryzman]

love the globe on your shelf , the one that animates , nice stuff!

[@32768hertz]

you got the point to ppl who already know this. Those people who dont heard you 99 times before, wont hear you now or anyone else ever 🙉

[@thedude7319]

02:17 as someone that have been a consultant to many people and orgs. this is a weird notion, I think it is something that happens when you haven't done this a lot like being a soundboard for someone or just the idea man. the mentality is better to be a johny appleseed than a lumberjack. there is an harsh truth about ideas, sometimes you aren't able to make that idea a reality might as well let someone make it a reality

[@neonneon892]

Thanks for this video! I keep a folder of text files containing all these ideas I keep having, but I think this video really underlined how important it would be to actually make prototypes of some of them. Even if won't show them to anyone, I get the feeling that they'll show interesting aspects of the ideas I hadn't thought about. (Context: just a hobbyist game dev for now, I'm still in university.)

[@7hroomy]

Huge video thanks for this. I really appreciate you being honest and giving constructive feedback on how to present ideas properly and professionally 💪💪💪

[@brookrichardson1373]

This is one of your best videos.

[@nullreference3699]

Writing my own game from scratch has been a very humbling experience. I'm hoping that after I've gotten enough of the basic reusable code down the process will go faster, but holy crap is the idea absolutely worth nothing at all. Once you build it to the point where it's shippable, that's when its POTENTIALLY valuable, if it sells. I haven't gotten to that point yet, and the mountain of work to do between idea and finished product is humbling.

[@krakulandia]

"I have a great idea! This village would really benefit from a local shop. Why don't you build the shop on your own with your own time and money, and run the shop, and we can split the income 50/50?" I have no doubt it's a great idea "for YOU", but not for me.

[@blahxdx]

This relates to all companies and all positions. I was a GM of a retail game store. I had employees who were so in love ideas and did the same thing. No matter how I explained why we couldn't do it, they wouldn't listen. When we could I told them the same thing, show me. If they couldn't execute a demo, I wouldn't care. Not that it may not be a great idea that I cannot do everything. Not saying they would have to do it solo. I would support ideas with additional hours and man power.

[@alexeygofman6719]

Tim, PLEASE write a BOOK! I will buy it right away! All your videos are amazing and its vault of knowledge and experience that could help other devs :)

[@Sedgendary]

He's already said he tried but found he wasn't good at writing in that form and that is why he started this channel as that is more suited to him

[@renaigh]

we all have our own medium to communicate our message to the world, these videos are Tim's he doesn't need to write a book.

[@estogaza5827]

The book is already written but won’t be released lol.

[@djetinjstvo_u_boji]

Maybe try watching his videos first. You will learn about book too.

[@paulgarcia6259]

You're just like the idea people he's talking about in this video. Lol.

[@OpiatedBliss]

This is very good in the sciences, too. So many aspiring scientists think their idea will be publishable but they haven't even taken the time to do a literature review or design an experiment.

[@Blues_Light]

"Make a demo" has definitely resonated with me and I'll always remember it now, thanks to Tim.

[@Marandal]

Over time i've grown out of needing a Brutal reply and don't know how. Now when someone speaks to me in a gentle way i can see and understand. Now the roles are reversed and i am the one telling a person gently & they don't hear me. lol 😄 As far as Ideas go... I Honestly thought mine were worth more than they truly are. I really do appreciate your introspective on it & this has helped me grow as a person, thank you for teaching me.

[@bradwallace1863]

Really appreciate all your tips and expertise. Your content is helping our team create an even better experience for our future users. Keep up the great work

[@MaChanceSevapore]

This is music to my ears 🎶

[@SloppyPastrami]

Great talk and a view I have held for a long time, Ideas are cheap, execution is what matters.

[@proydoha8730]

I totally agree Some years ago I wanted a feature in a mod for a videogame so I wrote to its developer:"Hey! I have a feature request, here's what I think would be great: " And he replied:"Great! Go ahead, submit a pull request!" But then he realized that I've said that I have a "feature request" and not "pull request" and was like:" : ( okay, I'll implement it " He implemented it but this made me feel so bad that I've learned how to use git before I've asked again for a feature. And as a bonus that knowledge actually turned out to be very useful in life.

[@denkkab1366]

Tbf, that's a common answer to any feature request in an open source project. "Great idea, but it's not in our roadmap and we don't have the capacity to do that in any foreseeable future. But if you want to contribute, make a pull request and we can see how it could work." And that's totally fine! If you have a great idea, it's only the first step of many more to come before it can see the light of day

[@stabor90]

I love these insightful videos.

[@KayleighBourquin]

Humans are idea machines. We seemingly exist solely to generate ideas, especially the storytellers among us.

[@DanielFerreira-ez8qd]

don't say it don't say it don't say it

[@nicholasallen9035]

Awesome video. I often don’t like talking about being a game dev around ‘regular’ people because of this. Execution > Idea

[@nowayjosedaniel]

You dont like talking to people about your field of work because a layman might get excited and share an idea they had? I never realized so many game devs were so anti-social that they meltdown whenever talking to a layman who is likely just trying to hold a conversation. Makes me wonder just how many game devs take themselves waaaaay too seriously.

[@nicholasallen9035]

No, that's not the case at all. Sorry you interpreted it that way. I do like talking to people who get excited about their ideas absolutely and do frequently. I don't like talking to people who think they have the best idea to make millions of dollars and only want me to make it for them.@@nowayjosedaniel

[@DanielFerreira-ez8qd]

@@nowayjosedaniel YES. do you know how many people will treat you like you're an asshole because you, a creative person who is going into a creative career, might already have your own aspirations? Of course not, because here you are replying to everyone talking about this issue as if THEY were the asshole.

[@ZeroStas]

Idea < Making The Idea into actual thing

[@Joepopa12]

This hit hard. Good talk.

[@koalabrownie]

When I was in the modding scene there was some guys who were only idea guys. They had zero time or ability (they claimed) to do anything themselves, not create models, not create missions with fan-made editors, nothing. My one interaction with such a person was to do my own thing, while pretty much ignoring whatever he said. When I put him to the task he just repeated he wasn't in a position to do anything.

[@CaptmagiKono]

I'm in a similar position, and within these communities it seems extremely common to have "idea guys" spewing their ideas around, but having every excuse under the sun of why they can't just do it themselves if they are such incredible ideas. Not sure which game you were specifically referring to, but even in this relatively small community that I make mods in, these people still pop-up surprisingly frequently, lol.

[@koalabrownie]

@@CaptmagiKonoThis was the Freespace 2 community. I don't know if there were a lot of idea guys, instead there were mostly a lot a projects which aimed high and never released anything- a few that did, and a few rare guys who solo-created long campaigns all by the themselves. And honestly it was usually that last category that had the biggest impact.

[@CaptmagiKono]

@@koalabrownie I atleast give credit to people that tried to make their idea a reality. The ones that get me the most are the ones who have every excuse under the sun as to why they can't do the actually difficult part, and why somebody else should do it for them, lol. It is atleast pretty easy to shut somebody up that acts like this by just saying, "Alright, you should get to work on that, I'll be here if you need help."

[@koalabrownie]

​@@CaptmagiKonoYeah I give anyone credit who makes a model or a mission or anything much more than someone who just talks on the forum.

[@dr_ubo]

Just know that the "ideas guy" is completely worthless in any endeavor of life. Be it gamedev or any job in any field. Don't ever be the "Ideas Guy", be the "Over Deliver" guy instead.

[@anotherks7297]

A good example of this happened in Path of Exile not too long ago. A KZbinr who has a decent amount of influence suggested a game mechanic that was similar in scope to something that was released not long after. Forgot what happened after, but some of the community didn't take it well if I remember correctly.

[@raenarr]

First off I'd like to say thank you Mr. Cain for the goldmine of knowledge that are these youtube videos! I'm trying to find a topic related to "Publisher vs Self-Publishing" as a game dev company, if you read this, could you or anyone in the community guide me to one such video? Or perhaps if you haven't could you make a video on it? I would be thrilled :)

[@thinkinmonkey]

Thank you for this insight, especially about how much an idea is worthing, if compared to do the "real thing". In my city we have this saying (translated in english by its meaning): With a "no", you put an end quickly; with a "yes", you put yourself in trouble!. If I may, as I discovered your channel in the last days, I would love to know more how to develop a videogame idea, of course, in theoritical way. If possible. P.S. Never mind, just found some of your videos that, I think, they could answer me.

[@pauldaulby260]

I was casually contributing to a friends game, and 90% of my ideas got no's (he had a very strong vision what he wanted) if i was really sure about my idea, i'd just implement or prototype it and demo it. that got me up to about 70% rejected. which is still a better batting average 😅

[@maxkline8985]

I had an idea for a game, made a confluence page and started actually speccing it out like he mentioned at 8:30 and it really is significantly more work to put in actual numbers. It took me maybe two weeks to come up with a fairly significant amount of abilities/stats/skills/e.t.c. But its taking at least twice that amount of time to actually stat it all out in a way that programmer might actually be able to use it, and it doesn't even guarantee that what im writing down is balanced or won't need to be massively tweaked to actually be fun. I think the idea behind sueing someone for taking your idea to be a little ridiculous because anyone can claim to have an idea, but american society at large has become way too litigious.

[@BMoore335]

Part of the problem with ideas is that without raw experience and exposure you’ll never be able to realize them, and there is not an insignificant temptation to pride when you are fully committed to exploring your own ideas. I guess I am less inclined to agree that somebody could force somebody else to be unkind. A big problem in our society is leadership failure when leadership is gigantically over valued, and the preference for product over people. Everything is forgiven, but there never was a need to blame people below you for failure, do I disagree with Tim there.

[@IceFerretStudio]

I didn't realize not looking at other people's games was a thing in the industry, but it makes sense. that explains a lot :p

[@CommieApe]

Heya Tim thanks for the newest video! It would be sweet to get your input on video game companies, their hiring process and how it’s changed over time.

[@vast634]

Still there are sometimes ideas that are really small changes to a formula, or very uncommon novel twists, that can make a game suddenly a lot better. Often that can be noticed in sequels that suddenly do a mechanic in a much more enjoyable way, or have a really engaging meta mechanic, or just hit the right balancing for a system. Or a small narrative point that becomes a meme and boosts the popularity of the game franchise. And while 99.9% of ideas are not that, it would have a high value to detect those ideas in the mass of idea spam.

[@Anubis1101]

I hate that people can't openly discuss ideas. I understand why it has to be that way, but I still hate it. We can learn so much from each other, build on each other's successes and learn from mistakes, but we aren't allowed to, and I think creative industries are lesser for it.

[@thegrimm54321]

The reason people get butthurt about being told ideas are a dime a dozen is because they tie their identity to whatever random thought pops into their head and take everything personally.

[@kevinlloyd4090]

Production companies look at scripts all the time. There are people who's role it is to read scripts.

[@kevinlloyd4090]

But a script is more than an idea in the context of what is being discussed here

[@l.veronese2336]

Had a similar thing with a short film I worked on. Other guy was completely adamant about some ideas that were completely out of our range. Got to a point where I didn't want to say "no" anymore because I didn't want to be seen as uncooperative.

[@lodepublishing]

Ugh, I can be such an idea person :p But I fully agree. Some idea persons are kinaesthetic learners who only learn that their idea is bad (or good!) when they (have to) demo it. That's what I eventually did. And yeah, implementation is the hard part :D

[@K_E_Robin]

This is extremly important. For me who are aspiring tabletop designer: ideas are only good to their relevance in a project. Been working with mechanics for over decade and I'm feeling more comfident producing something substantial, now when I got all these hours writing rpg systems and calculated probabilities for dice resolution mechanics.

[@elroma7712]

Same I have written on paper for a while and I want to make *something* that's playable

[@Elrog3]

Personally, I don't think ideas should be the hard part but looking at the industry makes me question it. Somehow the core ideas in games are still so screwed up so often that its sad. We have games that are glorified ads and games that are gambling simulators aimed at children. I want a good mmorpg to play but there just isn't any well designed mmorpg in the market right now.

[@DarkBloodbane]

I agree with making ideas into real game. Aside of what Tim mentioned above, the story doesn't end there. Balancing is needed to ensure player would get best experience of the idea. And there's idea expansion which require development and balancing time.

[@BlueSquareInWhiteCircle]

Really depends on what level of innovation were talking, on what depth and what problems that they solve. But until realize they’re more like hypothesis or a sketched innacurate roadmap. It’s better than no map but it’s not the real world and so ideas are not close to the realized thing

[@BlueSquareInWhiteCircle]

Good advice on fleshing out the idea with properties in releation to its parts and prototyping to see if it floats, also if viable a paper prototype can save some time

[@RazielIgor]

I had game ideas that has been done by other people before me, because I thought as a solo dev I couldn't do it and I would need a team and I shelved the idea. I'm not saying that they stole my ideas by the way, as I never told about them to anyone anyway. I believe now that when it's time for an idea, it will happen, if not by you, by someone else. So if you have an idea, you should do it as soon as possible when you can, before anyone else does it before you.

[@PeaneutzTV]

Hello Tim, Really enjoying your videos as of late. I would have two questions you might find interesting to give your insight about. The first one would be how do you do productive peer/pair programming ? Either to teach something to someone or just to debug a complicate matter and two (or more brains) are required? My second question would be what is your approach to teach to entry level programmers? Where do you start? You know that they know computer science but nothing more and you need to make them overall better programmers up to your own standards. How do you approach such a daunting yet amazing task of teaching ?

[@xyhmo]

I think many on here misunderstand what Tim is saying. He's mostly talking about the marginal value of ideas being close to zero, not that the ideas are terrible. Or to put it this way: the idea may well be great, but it's still nearly worthless because there are so many great ideas already (the bottleneck lies elsewhere), plus it's likely just a bare bones idea and not a fully developed one.