Top 8 Game Designers
Probably my biggest hobby, and what I spend the most time on outside of work and school, is gaming. As a kid, one of my favorite things to get for my birthday was a new board game. I'm nearly always willing to play almost any game, and could play games all day. I love games.
A common next step, after playing so many games for so long, is to try one's hand at designing games. Maybe it's tweaking the rules to a current favorite, or thinking up a translation of a game from one medium to another. My first serious attempt at game design that I remember was when I was in middle school. My school had a Gifted & Talented program which to enter one had to complete some sort of creative or intellectual project. I made a pretty basic dungeon-cralwer in the vein of Dragon Strike using my brother's Monster in my Pocket toys. It was a blast.
Obviously, computers have completely revolutionized gaming, so much so that the very term "gaming" is now strongly associated with video games. As a result, I often have to qualify myself as "more of a hobby gamer" or "tabletop gamer", although I certainly enjoy many video games, too. One of the first things that drew me to computer programming was, like so many other people, the desire to create my own video games. A complete lack of interest and relative ability in anything computer graphics related kept me from directly pursuing that path, but it hasn't stopped me from kicking around a few design ideas from time to time.
The gaming "industry" is notoriously hard to "break into", and (especially in the video game industry) notoriously unforgiving (see for instance the case of the EA Spouse). Still, a large number of people have found much success in it, which I greatly admire. So, in the tradition of the Top 8 in Magic: the Gathering tournaments, and continuing my current trend of Top X Lists, here is my Top 8 Favorite Game Designers.
As with the movie lists, some commentary on how I chose these: These aren't necessarily the best game designers. For a list like that, see IGN's list for some good ones. Instead, the emphasis is on my favorite game designers. These are designers who either through their games, or even some other medium, have had a great effect on how I view games and game design. Given that, on with the list!
8. Klaus Teuber
Even among my game-savvy friends, probably not a name you can immediately place. At least, I wouldn't have when I first sat down to make this list. So how can someone go from being unknown to me to being one of my favorite game designers? Because Klaus Teuber designed The Settlers of Catan, a board game that when I encountered just six or seven years ago it completely redefined everything I ever thought about board games. I was transformed from a mere enjoyer of board games into a true Board Game Geek overnight. That's a pretty massive effect to have on a gamer.
Now I know: players can compete over territory or resources without eliminating others from play! There are games you can't win without actual "help" from your opponents, and they're usually happy to help (because they you're helping them to win)! It's absolutely masterful, and something I never would have ever conceived of before playing.
I've never played another game of Klaus Teuber's outside of The Settlers series, but that's enough impact alone to make it to my list of favorite game designers.
7. Brian Reynolds
Sid Meier gets all the credit for the Civilization series (he even gets his name slapped on every incarnation of it), but Brian Reynolds is the one that designed its massively popular followup, Civilization II. Lauded as one of the best turn based strategy video game of all time, it's also the first one I cut my teeth on and I've been hooked on the genre ever since. Then, instead of resting on his laurels, he went and designed the mis-attributed "Sid Meier's" Alpha Centauri for the fledgling game company Firaxis right up the highway in Hunt Valley, Maryland.
SMAC (as it is affectionately called among fans) was a spiritual successor to Civ2 while Firaxis was trying to secure the rights to continue the Civilization series. Its isometric graphics looked outdated even at the time, and have NOT held up well, but it's gameplay was revolutionary. The different factions had different strengths, weaknesses, and personalities when playing so that you could tailor it to fit your playstyle, and playing against the computer felt like playing against realistic people. The best part though, in my opinion, was the addition of an actual storyline to a turn based strategy game spanning centuries. With each faction led by a nigh-immortal leader, the characters evolved through quotes given in incredible flavor text littered throughout the game. This hurt replayability a tiny bit, because you already knew some of the "revelations" about the game world, but thanks to the Civilization-style random maps no two games ever truly felt the same.
Brian is currently the chief designer at Zynga (of FarmVille fame), so obviously still doing pretty well for himself. I'm not sure how I feel about the current "social media game" craze -- I haven't really tried any out myself -- but I can't argue that it's currently an extremely lucrative place to be in.
6. Brenda Brathwaite
One thing is obvious about most gamers AND game designers: they are overwhelmingly male. This is a sometimes hotly discussed, sometimes studiously ignored, phenomenon with no clear reason or resolution.
Brenda Brathwaite doesn't care. She just tries to make good games.
Embarrassingly, I may not actually have ever played any of her games (unless she worked on the version of Wizardry that prototaph had for NES). How then can she be on my list of favorite game designers if I've never played her games?
For one, she has a very interesting and enlightening game design blog and corresponding Twitter feed, both of which I follow voraciously. Anyone who writes well about the game design process is a plus for me, being on the outside looking in. Second, she takes a much more academic view of game design than somebody not seriously into games might not understand. She was the Chair of the Savannah College of Art and Design's Interactive Design and Game Development department, a very prestigious position. As someone of academic bent myself, this also rates her highly in my book. But her most impactful effect on me was her series "The Mechanic is the Message", which showed how game design can make serious commentary on the world around us.
Somewhat recently, esteemed movie critic Roger Ebert (in)famously declared that (video) games cannot be art, as compared to films. He later somewhat retracted that statement, not by saying that they could be, but by saying he didn't know enough to say anything about it. I doubt he's ever heard of Brenda's "The Mechanic is the Message" series. Tell me that this isn't art.
5. Soren Johnson
The second Civilization series alumnus on my list, Soren Johnson got his start programming as the lead Artificial Intelligence programmer for Civilization III (depending on your opinion of the Civ3 AI, that may be a good thing or a bad thing). Then, he went and blew everyone away with Civilization IV, arguably the best in the series (though a good argument could be made for Reynolds's Civ2 to hold this title, but that's a fight for another day).
I've probably spent more hours on Civilization IV, and especially its expansion Beyond the Sword, than all other video and computer games that I've played put together. It's design is (in my opinion) nearly perfect. The visuals still I think hold up to this day. Its sequel, Civilizaiton V, is a failure only in so much that it would be nearly impossible to have a Civilization sequel both blaze its own trail but also live up to how great Civ4 was.
Like Brenda, Soren also has a very enlightening blog and Twitter feed.
Soren also worked on Will Wright's ultimately-too-ambitious game Spore, but was brought in too late to really make much of a difference. Most recently, he also turned to the "dark side" of social media games, developing the Dragon Age Legends game for Facebook.
4. Richard Garfield
Even after all the gushing for Civilization IV, and somewhat for Settlers of Catan, my favorite game of all time is still Magic: the Gathering, and for that I have to thank this certain Math professor from Pennsylvania, Dr. Richard Garfield.
"Magic" actually isn't all that elegant a game, especially during its beginnings. What it is, is very detailed, challenging, and fun. It's also insanely flexible, able to be almost anything to anyone. Want a competitive experience that's more flavorful than poker? Play in the Pro Tour (yes, there are professional Magic: the Gathering players). Want a wacky social game played with a large group of friends? Play Commander aka "Elder Dragon Highlander". Both formats use the exact same "playing pieces" (Magic cards) in widely different ways that result in almost entirely different games. This wide appeal is largely why Magic has been so successful and is approaching its twentieth anniversary going strong.
With a Ph.D. in Mathematics, Richard Garfield is already somebody I can admire, but inventing an entire game genre puts him over the top. The biggest question would be why is he only number four?! Part of that is the quality of the competition. It's also partly because he's not as active in public like Brenda Brathwaite or Soren Johson promoting game design, nor is he actively involved in the design of Magic anymore (though he does comes in from time to time on an independent contract basis, and any expansion set involving Richard Garfield is always far and away a big hit). Still, he has to be near the top of anyone's game design list, and here is for me.
3. Sid Meier
The third (and yes, final) Civilization alumnus is fittingly the founding father of the entire series and spiritual leader of all turn based strategy computer games. I spent a lot of time above explaining how it was actually other people who designed the games in the "Sid Meier's" Civilization series, but of course they wouldn't have gotten anywhere close if it weren't for the original fittingly named "Sid Meier's Civilization".
Where Sid Meier excels is that he truly "gets" games, what they're about, and why people play them. Put succinctly, he says that "A good game is a series of interesting choices." The Civilization series is of course a superb example of that. From "Where do I found my first city" to "What cities do I build my space ship parts in", the series of choices presented to the player are many, varied, and above all, interesting. Designers may get caught up in clever narrative, graphics, or mechanics, but in the end, all the players want is a series of interesting decisions to make that they will be rewarded for. Sid Meier gets that, and that's why he too is one of the greatest game designers of all time.
2. Mark Rosewater
A potentially controversial choice, seeing as I ranked Sid Meier above his two proteges, whereas here I ranked Mark Rosewater ahead of the master of Magic: the Gathering, Richard Garfield. In my defense, this is a ranking of my favorite designers, not necessarily ranked by their ability (though Mark is obviously an extremely talented designer). Where Mark beats most other designers is in the sheer volume of his writings on the process of game design in his weekly column, Making Magic. He's written one every week except for holidays for almost TEN years.
I've gained the most insight into what makes games both fun AND successful by reading Mark's writings. True, he is a bit full of himself and comes off as a bit abrasive, but largely he's earned it with his exceptionally keen insights into player mentality and motivations. He has steered Magic into the successful monstrosity that it is today, and guided us through that process very openly every step of the way.
1. Will Wright
The problem I feel with most games is that they end. It's always a little sad when they do, and is why I most enjoy games with a lot of replayability like Settlers, Civilization, and Magic. When they end, I can always start a new session. Still, they end because somebody won. Sure, I like winning, but I like playing more than winning. Winning can give games a feeling of purpose, but it also involves somebody losing, and I often feel bad for the person who lost.
Enter Will Wright and his "Sim" series of games. There's no "end state", so players can play for as long as they want. There's no "winning" or "losing", just "playing". Will's conception of "software toys" perfectly embodies what I like most about his games. They are experiments in exploration, seeing what happens when you do X, without worrying about it ending the game in your loss. SimCity was the first and perhaps best example of this. The Sims was obviously another massive hit. I greatly enjoyed both.
I (along with nearly everyone else it seems) was extremely psyched when he announced Spore, a "Sim" style game that went through almost everything. Ultimately, it turned out to be more ambitious than possible, and was a complete disappointment. Rumors abounded that EA executives stuck their dirty hands into development and muddied everything up to appeal to the mass "kiddie" market, but that's hard to tell. Regardless, Will's Midas reputation of being able to turn anything into gold, already slightly sullied after the weak Sims Online, was hurt pretty badly. He left Electronic Arts and what he's been up to since has been kept quiet.
I'm still hoping for a collaboration between him and Sid Meier. "SimCivilization" would be SWEET
Now we just have to put them into brackets and have them fight it out to see who will be the CHAMPION. Oh, wait, I've been reading too many tournament reports for Magic: the Gathering...
Until next time, game on!
A common next step, after playing so many games for so long, is to try one's hand at designing games. Maybe it's tweaking the rules to a current favorite, or thinking up a translation of a game from one medium to another. My first serious attempt at game design that I remember was when I was in middle school. My school had a Gifted & Talented program which to enter one had to complete some sort of creative or intellectual project. I made a pretty basic dungeon-cralwer in the vein of Dragon Strike using my brother's Monster in my Pocket toys. It was a blast.
Obviously, computers have completely revolutionized gaming, so much so that the very term "gaming" is now strongly associated with video games. As a result, I often have to qualify myself as "more of a hobby gamer" or "tabletop gamer", although I certainly enjoy many video games, too. One of the first things that drew me to computer programming was, like so many other people, the desire to create my own video games. A complete lack of interest and relative ability in anything computer graphics related kept me from directly pursuing that path, but it hasn't stopped me from kicking around a few design ideas from time to time.
The gaming "industry" is notoriously hard to "break into", and (especially in the video game industry) notoriously unforgiving (see for instance the case of the EA Spouse). Still, a large number of people have found much success in it, which I greatly admire. So, in the tradition of the Top 8 in Magic: the Gathering tournaments, and continuing my current trend of Top X Lists, here is my Top 8 Favorite Game Designers.
As with the movie lists, some commentary on how I chose these: These aren't necessarily the best game designers. For a list like that, see IGN's list for some good ones. Instead, the emphasis is on my favorite game designers. These are designers who either through their games, or even some other medium, have had a great effect on how I view games and game design. Given that, on with the list!
8. Klaus Teuber
Even among my game-savvy friends, probably not a name you can immediately place. At least, I wouldn't have when I first sat down to make this list. So how can someone go from being unknown to me to being one of my favorite game designers? Because Klaus Teuber designed The Settlers of Catan, a board game that when I encountered just six or seven years ago it completely redefined everything I ever thought about board games. I was transformed from a mere enjoyer of board games into a true Board Game Geek overnight. That's a pretty massive effect to have on a gamer.
Now I know: players can compete over territory or resources without eliminating others from play! There are games you can't win without actual "help" from your opponents, and they're usually happy to help (because they you're helping them to win)! It's absolutely masterful, and something I never would have ever conceived of before playing.
I've never played another game of Klaus Teuber's outside of The Settlers series, but that's enough impact alone to make it to my list of favorite game designers.
7. Brian Reynolds
Sid Meier gets all the credit for the Civilization series (he even gets his name slapped on every incarnation of it), but Brian Reynolds is the one that designed its massively popular followup, Civilization II. Lauded as one of the best turn based strategy video game of all time, it's also the first one I cut my teeth on and I've been hooked on the genre ever since. Then, instead of resting on his laurels, he went and designed the mis-attributed "Sid Meier's" Alpha Centauri for the fledgling game company Firaxis right up the highway in Hunt Valley, Maryland.
SMAC (as it is affectionately called among fans) was a spiritual successor to Civ2 while Firaxis was trying to secure the rights to continue the Civilization series. Its isometric graphics looked outdated even at the time, and have NOT held up well, but it's gameplay was revolutionary. The different factions had different strengths, weaknesses, and personalities when playing so that you could tailor it to fit your playstyle, and playing against the computer felt like playing against realistic people. The best part though, in my opinion, was the addition of an actual storyline to a turn based strategy game spanning centuries. With each faction led by a nigh-immortal leader, the characters evolved through quotes given in incredible flavor text littered throughout the game. This hurt replayability a tiny bit, because you already knew some of the "revelations" about the game world, but thanks to the Civilization-style random maps no two games ever truly felt the same.
Brian is currently the chief designer at Zynga (of FarmVille fame), so obviously still doing pretty well for himself. I'm not sure how I feel about the current "social media game" craze -- I haven't really tried any out myself -- but I can't argue that it's currently an extremely lucrative place to be in.
6. Brenda Brathwaite
One thing is obvious about most gamers AND game designers: they are overwhelmingly male. This is a sometimes hotly discussed, sometimes studiously ignored, phenomenon with no clear reason or resolution.
Brenda Brathwaite doesn't care. She just tries to make good games.
Embarrassingly, I may not actually have ever played any of her games (unless she worked on the version of Wizardry that prototaph had for NES). How then can she be on my list of favorite game designers if I've never played her games?
For one, she has a very interesting and enlightening game design blog and corresponding Twitter feed, both of which I follow voraciously. Anyone who writes well about the game design process is a plus for me, being on the outside looking in. Second, she takes a much more academic view of game design than somebody not seriously into games might not understand. She was the Chair of the Savannah College of Art and Design's Interactive Design and Game Development department, a very prestigious position. As someone of academic bent myself, this also rates her highly in my book. But her most impactful effect on me was her series "The Mechanic is the Message", which showed how game design can make serious commentary on the world around us.
Somewhat recently, esteemed movie critic Roger Ebert (in)famously declared that (video) games cannot be art, as compared to films. He later somewhat retracted that statement, not by saying that they could be, but by saying he didn't know enough to say anything about it. I doubt he's ever heard of Brenda's "The Mechanic is the Message" series. Tell me that this isn't art.
5. Soren Johnson
The second Civilization series alumnus on my list, Soren Johnson got his start programming as the lead Artificial Intelligence programmer for Civilization III (depending on your opinion of the Civ3 AI, that may be a good thing or a bad thing). Then, he went and blew everyone away with Civilization IV, arguably the best in the series (though a good argument could be made for Reynolds's Civ2 to hold this title, but that's a fight for another day).
I've probably spent more hours on Civilization IV, and especially its expansion Beyond the Sword, than all other video and computer games that I've played put together. It's design is (in my opinion) nearly perfect. The visuals still I think hold up to this day. Its sequel, Civilizaiton V, is a failure only in so much that it would be nearly impossible to have a Civilization sequel both blaze its own trail but also live up to how great Civ4 was.
Like Brenda, Soren also has a very enlightening blog and Twitter feed.
Soren also worked on Will Wright's ultimately-too-ambitious game Spore, but was brought in too late to really make much of a difference. Most recently, he also turned to the "dark side" of social media games, developing the Dragon Age Legends game for Facebook.
4. Richard Garfield
Even after all the gushing for Civilization IV, and somewhat for Settlers of Catan, my favorite game of all time is still Magic: the Gathering, and for that I have to thank this certain Math professor from Pennsylvania, Dr. Richard Garfield.
"Magic" actually isn't all that elegant a game, especially during its beginnings. What it is, is very detailed, challenging, and fun. It's also insanely flexible, able to be almost anything to anyone. Want a competitive experience that's more flavorful than poker? Play in the Pro Tour (yes, there are professional Magic: the Gathering players). Want a wacky social game played with a large group of friends? Play Commander aka "Elder Dragon Highlander". Both formats use the exact same "playing pieces" (Magic cards) in widely different ways that result in almost entirely different games. This wide appeal is largely why Magic has been so successful and is approaching its twentieth anniversary going strong.
With a Ph.D. in Mathematics, Richard Garfield is already somebody I can admire, but inventing an entire game genre puts him over the top. The biggest question would be why is he only number four?! Part of that is the quality of the competition. It's also partly because he's not as active in public like Brenda Brathwaite or Soren Johson promoting game design, nor is he actively involved in the design of Magic anymore (though he does comes in from time to time on an independent contract basis, and any expansion set involving Richard Garfield is always far and away a big hit). Still, he has to be near the top of anyone's game design list, and here is for me.
3. Sid Meier
The third (and yes, final) Civilization alumnus is fittingly the founding father of the entire series and spiritual leader of all turn based strategy computer games. I spent a lot of time above explaining how it was actually other people who designed the games in the "Sid Meier's" Civilization series, but of course they wouldn't have gotten anywhere close if it weren't for the original fittingly named "Sid Meier's Civilization".
Where Sid Meier excels is that he truly "gets" games, what they're about, and why people play them. Put succinctly, he says that "A good game is a series of interesting choices." The Civilization series is of course a superb example of that. From "Where do I found my first city" to "What cities do I build my space ship parts in", the series of choices presented to the player are many, varied, and above all, interesting. Designers may get caught up in clever narrative, graphics, or mechanics, but in the end, all the players want is a series of interesting decisions to make that they will be rewarded for. Sid Meier gets that, and that's why he too is one of the greatest game designers of all time.
2. Mark Rosewater
A potentially controversial choice, seeing as I ranked Sid Meier above his two proteges, whereas here I ranked Mark Rosewater ahead of the master of Magic: the Gathering, Richard Garfield. In my defense, this is a ranking of my favorite designers, not necessarily ranked by their ability (though Mark is obviously an extremely talented designer). Where Mark beats most other designers is in the sheer volume of his writings on the process of game design in his weekly column, Making Magic. He's written one every week except for holidays for almost TEN years.
I've gained the most insight into what makes games both fun AND successful by reading Mark's writings. True, he is a bit full of himself and comes off as a bit abrasive, but largely he's earned it with his exceptionally keen insights into player mentality and motivations. He has steered Magic into the successful monstrosity that it is today, and guided us through that process very openly every step of the way.
1. Will Wright
The problem I feel with most games is that they end. It's always a little sad when they do, and is why I most enjoy games with a lot of replayability like Settlers, Civilization, and Magic. When they end, I can always start a new session. Still, they end because somebody won. Sure, I like winning, but I like playing more than winning. Winning can give games a feeling of purpose, but it also involves somebody losing, and I often feel bad for the person who lost.
Enter Will Wright and his "Sim" series of games. There's no "end state", so players can play for as long as they want. There's no "winning" or "losing", just "playing". Will's conception of "software toys" perfectly embodies what I like most about his games. They are experiments in exploration, seeing what happens when you do X, without worrying about it ending the game in your loss. SimCity was the first and perhaps best example of this. The Sims was obviously another massive hit. I greatly enjoyed both.
I (along with nearly everyone else it seems) was extremely psyched when he announced Spore, a "Sim" style game that went through almost everything. Ultimately, it turned out to be more ambitious than possible, and was a complete disappointment. Rumors abounded that EA executives stuck their dirty hands into development and muddied everything up to appeal to the mass "kiddie" market, but that's hard to tell. Regardless, Will's Midas reputation of being able to turn anything into gold, already slightly sullied after the weak Sims Online, was hurt pretty badly. He left Electronic Arts and what he's been up to since has been kept quiet.
I'm still hoping for a collaboration between him and Sid Meier. "SimCivilization" would be SWEET
Now we just have to put them into brackets and have them fight it out to see who will be the CHAMPION. Oh, wait, I've been reading too many tournament reports for Magic: the Gathering...
Until next time, game on!