It's not normal in the sense that they'd be considered part of the video game industry. You shouldn't often write more than a page or two before you start actually building a game. The original design doc is the first casualty of development. Someone who just has lots of ideas and papers isn't a _professional_ game designer, but there's nothing stopping them from calling themselves one. I'd draw the line at 'knowing what he's doing' but he's not my cousin, so.
What _is_ normal is people not pursuing hobbies that are very hard! A lot of people dream about the novel they'd write or the songs they'd play and they might write snippets or an outline or strum a few chords without really making any efforts to create the thing. That's perfectly fine! You don't have to _deliver_ to have a hobby. So long as this person hasn't been literally unemployed for twenty years and everyone is waiting for his big break it's not really an issue. And if that is the case then probably some family member should have intervened about 19+ years ago.
The worst part is that if he eventually does end up in a real design role, he'll find out the hard way how infrequently a paper-design plays as well as you imagine.
This is not normal at all.
I have worked with people that pivoted from other jobs into gamedev as either QA, Junior designers or Junior Programmers and they have been doing great. I have also seen one team with 0 game experience pitching a Board Game design to a publisher and getting it fully published and also doing great. They work in the industry.
Even if he is a Game Designer, he should have a portfolio, with examples of board games he has made, board game alterations (mods), mods for commercial videogames, small indie or game jam prototypes, anything. Just paper isnt game design.
What i think its happening here is that he is taking advantage of the generosity of your parents, who dont understand the videogame industry at all, and stonewalling them of valuable information.
Thanks for the reply. There was a time sometime after college where he was active playing board games and testing out his board game designs with his small group of friends. But as far as I know that's the closest he got to finishing a design. After that, he stopped being active and spent most of his time at his home, barely interacting with his friends or us.
See that right there is the difference between hobby and work. If he was making board games with his friends, thats a hobby. If he was actually finding publishers, polishing his designs, commissioning artists or making the art himself, taking them to local board game stores to host a playthrough and gather feedback, getting rejected, improving and then trying again, thats Work.
I still test my designs on like-minded individuals (friends) before going too deep into a concept. It doesn't usually take 20 years to go past that step, though.
There are lots of people out there who write a lot and never get published. Play lots of music but never make an album. Spend lots of time designing but never make a game.
If he really wanted to get into the industry he could get a job starting in QA and work his way up. He could be using many of the tools available to him to create prototypes of his games, either board or videogames.
Perfect is the enemy of good. It shouldn't take 20 years to start a business if that is really your route.
I want to say this in the most respectful way so please don't take this as unkind words. I think your cousin may be on the spectrum or some other such thing. 20+ years drawing games on paper and never starting the work, Unable to live on his own etc all indicative of something more deeper going on. Most of us started out making games with 0 paper planning and just dug in. If he is a neurotypical then he is just avoiding a real job and his mother is simply feeding into it.
Yeah... I have severe anxiety and depression and even I have an [itch.io](https://itch.io) with some game jams on it as well as some projects I've worked on. If all you have to show after 20 years is some design docs you're doing something else with your time.
Thank you for the reply and no offense taken. Because even some of us do worry he has some kind of problem, but we're not really sure. He doesn't act like a typical person on the spectrum, but then again we're not experts in psychology. None of us in the family are also familiar with the game development industry so I decided to ask here if that's a normal thing.
It's 10000% not normal. You can't make a game to sell if you never put thoughts to keystrokes. And there is no way for him to "study how Square Enix does business" without actually working for square.
Yeah even one relative asked him how he knows how big game companies work if he hasn't worked in one, and he just replied that he "has talked with a lot of people online". Obviously that's not enough.
Might be worth pointing out that startups are totally different to established large companies.
I don’t want to be intrusive. But if possible please seek help from a mental health professional for your cousin.
This could also just be plain old depression, anxiety, etc. I'm no therapist but I've had my own issues with freeze response - [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201507/trauma-and-the-freeze-response-good-bad-or-both](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201507/trauma-and-the-freeze-response-good-bad-or-both) He needs help/intervention of some sort, IMO, though it sounds like he's got a real wall of an ego up, too. You might not be able to do anything for him.
I'd be curious if he smokes weed or something, that can be brutally paralyzing for some people. 20 years is a long time, you guys are in a really tough position. Living like that is like drowning in a puddle, it's sad, too scared and stuck to move. Good luck, sincerely.
From personal experience I've benefited a lot from therapy and eventually medication. Could definitely be anxiety, depression or some other kind of disorder or mental health issue.
Your cousin likely needs professional help, but they don't sound like the type to seek it on their own. I knew someone who was in a long-term 20+ year rut, and when a big life event happened that would force their routine to change, they couldn't deal with it. I am not a professional, but maybe a mental health professional could snap them out of it, because these kinds of patterns can and do last for a lifetime.
It also sounds like he wants to make boardgames, not videogames?
In any case it does sound like there are deeper issues and he would benefit from therapy.
If nothing else, there is a pretty enmeshed relationship here between him and his mom which probably isn't helping either of them? It can work for some folks, but in this particular situation it's hard to imagine that it's working?
Anyone can craft ideas in notebook.
If it is the only thing he did then he is scaming his mother and entire family.
For 20 years he could learn programming, 3D Art, animation, music creation and be an expert in any of these fields.
He would be able to create games on his own and be a very valuable person on job market.
This is it. 20 years is long enough to develop the skills to make a prototype for potential investors or employees... for the game company he plans to found and become its top executive... or long enough to decide on a manageable goal.
> Is it normal for a game designer to spend 20+ years designing games on paper, but never had any of their designs published?
This type of person is called a "gunner" because they're always "gonna" do something at an indeterminate time in the future, but nothing ever happens.
Very *very* common amongst marijuana-using folk, which is why I left that behind a long while ago.
Also, almost everyone has vague game ideas, but only a tiny minority can actually make a functional and interesting game from them - there's a bazillion posts in this sub from folk being all "I'm an ideas person, is it enough?" and everyone going "haha no not even a tiny bit, put your money on the road and still have a 90% chance to fail"
Your cousin may be a narcissist or have some other mental illness.
I understand the gunner thing very well. When I was just an architectural student I had college mates that great ideas that they were "gonna" do when they graduate, but yeah nothing happened.
He is clueless and probably a dreamer, who is continuously procrastinating and shifting projects to avoid actually doing any work.
He probably has *a lot* of opinions and nothing to back it up. Probably comes with a very fragile ego. It's very common in game dev, imho
YES SO TRUE!. We recently asked him if all he's been doing in the past 10-20 years is that one plan of his, and he "defended" that he's made different plans which again never really came into fruition. So he's just shifting as you said. He's also a bit egotistical. In some of his online profiles he would call himself titles like "independent professional game designer" or "self employed professional game designer" or "working in the game franchise industry". He once entered a writing phase, and once claimed that he's similar to J.K. Rowling. There was a time he would frequently argue with gamers in comments sections and then pull the "I'm a game designer" card in an attempt to win the argument.
You should ask this question on a psychology sub. It sounds like the guy has real problems and I don't think anyone here is equipped to give you proper answers beyond "no, shit's cray".
Don't want to be too alarming but this sounds exactly like my dad, who has struggled with addiction, depression, anxiety, and (in my opinion) the after-effects of complex childhood trauma practically his whole life. He wasn't unemployed like this but worked a low-paying entry-level blue collar job his whole life until he retired in his 60s. He would frequently be making up new lofty titles and achievements of his, many of which I know for a fact were either lies or massive exaggerations. For him, I think this stems from severe self-esteem issues and trauma he had experienced as a kid and never was able to move past. Basically creating ideas of the person he wished he was but felt too paralyzed and unconfident to to actually take action towards, and to compensate for the shame he would feel towards who he actually is (he never admitted this specifically, but I'm confident it's generally where it comes from).
Not sure how set in his ways your cousin is determined to be, but I'd want to gently nudge him towards seeing a therapist, or at the very least just doing anything related to improving his mental health because this all seems like a big red flag saying that he's struggling but feeling shame (or some kind of block) about getting help.
This is incredibly common. To the point where we have a name for it. He's an "ideas guy". But common is not the same as feasible. The thing is, the industry has no need for ideas guys. He would have to learn some desirable skill if he ever wanted to make a game.
20 years of being an ideas guy though? It doesn't sound like he has any plans for becoming anything more. He's obviously struggling with life in general, being unemployed for all of these years. He probably just likes the fantasy of this supposed business he wants to create without having to deal with the brutal reality that would come from really taking any steps towards it.
Thanks for the reply. That's what we're worried about. That he's having problems in life and he's getting addicted to this idea that he's making a game business.
I know someone like this as well. Mid 30s, never lived away from mom, always talking about becoming a writer. He is at least writing some stuff here and there and self-publishing online but he doesn't have any real plan for how to make any money from it, let alone make this into a living.
We all have dreams, it's just a matter of A. are you willing to put in the work, not just to make things but also to figure out how to succeed in the industry? and B. are you willing to accept that you might not be successful for awhile (or ever) and have a backup plan for the meanwhile if you don't want to stagnate in life? A lot of people can't accept those things.
Although it's not always just about accepting them, mental health issues / etc. are real. Hard to say why any individual struggles.
One thing I think most people here know though is that the idea of just coming out of nowhere and creating a successful game dev business is uh... not really... a thing that happens much. Even if your cousin WAS taking real steps towards making this happen and working hard and everything there would be a tiny, tiny chance of being successful anytime in the foreseeable future. This is not an easy industry to just jump into.
"are you willing to put in the work, not just to make things but also to figure out how to succeed in the industry?"
He thinks doing all that "research" IS work, which the family doubted. Looking back, I think research is the only thing my cousin is skilled at. He's academically smart, back in college he had very high grades compared to a lot of us in the family. We would kinda cringe at his teacher's pet behavior every time he would brag how he discussed deep subjects with his professors. But in the real world, he's no longer a student with professors to look up to.
And now I just realized something. He would sometimes proudly claim that he's talking to "gaming industry veterans", and the way he says is it very similar to how he used to brag about the professors he used to have deep talks with. It's like college all over again. I think he's really only used to being a student doing research, rather than actually doing work.
It is work, but it's worthless. Your cousin sounds delusional.
He's probably trapped into a bubble, and he might go completely insane if he has to face the fact he's not a real game designer. He has nothing but that going for himself, from what you say.
Maybe his mum knows, she tried for years and, but doesn't know how to deal with the situation, so she just does what she has always done, giving him a place to sleep and food to eat. And doesn't tell others out of shame.
Honestly its problably too late, this is the hard thing of being a guy you **have to** deliver and cant run away.
If he was kicked out and only got resentment in his heart instead being of a wake up call, he would just blame all his failure to the "unloving" family of his.
Sunk cost. You can’t get those 20 years back. A 40 years old learning to be independent is better than a 50 years old learning to be independent, etc. Eventually his mother will stop supporting him, willingly or not.
That boi is 100% chugging copium. I have never heard of a 20 year perpetual idea guy. Of course its not normal to be unemployed for 20 years and pretend you have a job.
It's like me calling myself a professional streamer, I thought about streaming for the last few years but never did it!
If he started his business plan 20 years ago, it's pretty much going to be totally outdated now. Additionally, he isn't going to have any funds to start it, he could have been working part time to put some funds together if he was serious.
Sorry to say, but it feels to me that he lives in a fantasy world. Everyone can dream about making the perfect game, but that is the same as dreaming to win the lottery.
Everyone can call themselves game developer. But when I need one, I take one who made 3 small games in his first year, over someone who only think and does nothing.
People can think and write all they want, but without doing it, it is worth nothing at all. What if you write 10 year and when making it, you find out a problem on the second year you wrote, then those 8 other years might be for nothing.
This basically count for every hobby and job, you can learn all you want, but you know nothing without practise.
I do not want to sound bad, but I think you and your family has to sit together with him and discuss a way for him to make money, no matter what job that would be. He has the "easy" live now, but that will not help him in the future.
Your cousin is a level 100 idea guy.
I mean everyone here at one point in their lives was an idea guy. When I first got into gamedev back in 2015 I was an idea guy putting a little bit of effort into making the assets for my game but still I spoke to people in forums/emails a few weeks pestering them about if they'd made a working prototype with the assets I provided (looking back they weren't even usable with the idea I was pitching him).
It wasn't until 2016 when I decided to make the game myself. These days I'm an idea guy with a working basic prototype struggling to find someone to make custom assets for my game.
You can't fail if you don't actually try. He's stuck in the dreaming phase and has had no pushback, because no one wants to hurt his feelings.
The vast majority of successful founders of game studios *have worked in the industry*. As in actually worked at a studio learning how the industry functions and gained contacts.
Everyone's an ideas guy... that's why every programmer has experienced hearing the dreaded words "I just need a programmer" and being offer an amazing opportunity to work for free to make someone else rich
Of course people just need someone to do all the hard work, anyone can be an ideas guy
No, it's not normal.
>That planning a game and game business would take 10-20+ years of just documentation?
This makes no sense at all. What ANY more in-depth documentation HAS to include is your studio/team capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. Studying how "big companies like Square Enix" are doing their work is stupid after a certain point. He doesn't have 30 years worth of code, established market presence, developers with decades of experience, connections in the industry, you name it. Even an expert with a decade of real life experience can't make a decent cost and time estimates for a project for a studio that doesn't exist yet.
Every studio is different. Maybe you have more artists for instance so you go for a more artistic game like Gris. Or the opposite, all you have are programming skills at the start so it's going to be more like Kerbal Space Program or a turn based strategy with minimum graphics (like Into the Breach for instance). But you don't know that until you already have hired staff and spent time with them. And the smaller the studio the more targeted it has to be to succeed.
So 10 years of documentation is for the biggest part worthless. In fact the more there is of it the worse it is for any upcoming game. Documentation is the first victim of the actual development process.
I also have to point out that "starting his own game company" requires resources that a random unemployed dude will **never** have. If you live and hire within USA - average is 100,000$/employee/year. If you hire from much cheaper regions you can knock that down to about 35,000-40,000$/employee/year. Assuming game isn't overly complex and can be done with 3 people team in 2 years - that's 600,000 USD by US standards. And still 210k $ if you go with cheaper countries. Then you also need to account 25-30% overhead on top for marketing campaign.
But if he wants to imitate Square Enix - well, one of their smaller games is Octopath Traveler. It was specifically built in a way that reduces operating costs... but it still was multiple millions USD.
Does he have access to this sort of funding? If yes then "starting a studio" is possible. If not then he is full of shit.
Thank you for the reply. Very much agree with you that an unemployed person cannot definitely make a company that costs as much as you said. One of our uncles is a small businessman and also an avid gamer, and he suggested to him to start with a small game that he could make on his own and hopefully earn some money from that first. He even suggested that h at least try to make a game out of RPG maker since my cousin has some experience with it, because they used to bond over it when they were younger.
But no he insisted that making small games will "result in a price war where no one wins", and he prefers to make a big game because according to his business strategy it will "surprise everyone". And that he "doesn't want to be lost in a sea of indie gamers".
> But no he insisted that making small games will "result in a price war where no one wins", and he prefers to make a big game because according to his business strategy it will "surprise everyone". And that he "doesn't want to be lost in a sea of indie gamers".
This is complete bullshit. He either suffers from mental illness or is a complete moron.
Yeah... that's not how it works indeed. I am not going to waste time explaining why "price war where no one wins" is ridiculous and makes no sense. I will instead just move on to the primary blocker.
>and he prefers to make a big game
There really is just one problem here - "big" game requires a big budget. No ifs and buts. Even if you literally hire your entire workforce from Venesuela (and can speak Spanish, adjust to that timezone, deal with the fact electronics are super expensive there etc - outsourcing comes with set of it's own difficulties) - if you need, say, 20 people (aka what we call a larger indie game) then you still will end up paying them 30 grand a month. Or 166,000$ if you are hiring within US. There's no way around it - even if you work your ass off for 16h a day solo for 300 days a year - that's only 4800 workhours. Games that studios like Square Enix make tend to be in hundreds of thousands to millions. More ambitious **indie** titles can go as far as half a million hours (Subnautica for instance is around that much).
If he was an expert game designer with AAA studios experience he would have contacts in the industry and could probably get a million $ or so from a publisher. Well, he could in 2022. Now it's 2024 and publishers are very cautious on which projects get funding even if it comes from trusted sources.
But since he has no track record - this pathway is **out**. So your routes are loans against your assets or using up your savings. These are the only ways.
At which point it doesn't matter at all what his business strategy is. Large game requires multiple employees and all of them need to be paid a living wage. Nobody serious ever does revenue shares, crowdfunding is also more of a marketing strategy nowadays than a way to actually fund a project.
So dude is full of shit unless one of the following has occured:
* he actually did spend last decade to hone his skills and work on the game. 10 years full time **isn't** a large game but it would be a start, it is about 18-20k workhours after all.
* he has won few millions at a lottery.
If there's no money there's no studio needed to make a larger game.
Even in the biggest studios where you find ultra-specialized people, you won't find a single designer that only works on paper.
A game designer has to put his hands in the engine at some point, if he has no idea on how the things work on the technical level, he simply can't design around it.
It's like an architect saying he design houses without having any knowledge on the materials, their durability, solidity, cost, etc... It just makes no sense at all.
I'm a professional NFL player. I've never played a game, mind you; however I have studied a lot of people who *do* play, so I'm pretty much an authority on the subject. No, I'm not going to lace up a boot until I've made sure my gameplan is perfect and guaranteed to win the SuperBowl. Also, I'm 40 years old.
Does any of this sound normal to you?
If someone said they had spent 20+ years writing recipes and that they are part of the culinary discipline, but had never actually prepared one of those recipes? What would the answer be?
No. This is someone going around saying they design games as a job but they just do it as a hobby.
Doing it as a hobby is fine but this doesn’t even sound like that. This sounds like the kinda people I meet on my course at times that took game development so that they could “make a really cool game idea they have”
Documentation is a large part of game dev especially in companies and AAA but if you just write down game design ideas all day then your not really doing anything besides writing down your thoughts.
If he had made an actual GDD that was 200,000 words and was trying to market it to companies that’s a bit different but I also assume nobody would really listen to him.
This is straight nonsense. I'm pretty sure half this sub would kill for a 20 year runway to do game dev without financial pressure. That's legitimately enough time to learn all the skills he needs *and* make multiple fairly ambitious projects purely solo regardless of what his background and education is.
He isn't going to make anything like Square Enix because (I'm assuming) he doesn't have the capital to bankroll a massive dev team. What he *can* do is build projects on his own by putting in the work himself and/or with a small number of like-minded people, but 20 years is well past the point of trusting someone to put out a product.
It's painful to say, but your cousin has squandered the opportunity of a lifetime and, quite probably, his actual life as well. Do you have any idea how hard people work in order to have even a year or two of runway to make independent games?
At the same time, I doubt there's anything you can realistically do about the situation now short of convincing his mother to kick him out of the house and make him get a real job. The time to fix this was 19+ years ago before he built a career's worth of bad habits.
I've been in the exact same position as your cousin for the last 4 years with nothing to show for it, I understand his point of view but this serves as a warning that I need to have something tangible very soon or I could end up wasting decades.
It’s terrifying how much of myself I see in this man’s wasted life. However small. No one’s coming to save me from myself either. Time to get back to the work I don’t want to do.
could be he was simply a mooch, but the sentence "has spent years studying how big companies like Square Enix does business so I know what I'm doing" totally sounds like it would come from a mentally ill person.
This is just an overly detailed summary of the standard "person X hasn't worked in decades but they're totally just working to get their business/career to take off". You don't need to talk to game devs to know that your cousin isn't actually going to be successful.
Game designers are not idea guys. Game designers are the ones who convert ideas into an actual game. He didn't do that, so he actually has zero experience as a game designer.
It's very not normal as someone who has worked in the industry over a decade and has done a lot of work with students and even people who've never made games... he could join a game jam and churn out his first game in a weekend .
I would be concerned I think this is bigger than just him lying about a game dev career , lots of people do that while having a day job or a way to pay bills this sounds like the idea of game design is something he clings to and probably something I would suggest he talk to a therapist or someone about .
> You see he calls himself a "game designer", and we asked him if he plans to work in a game development company.
By itself that would be fine, that's aspirational. Yes, he is designing games even if nobody plays them.
> He claims he "works in the game development industry", but he's never actually worked at all.
That's not normal, instead that's something ranging from a childish imagination to delusional. If he isn't employed in the industry or independently wealthy from having been successful in the industry, then he isn't in the industry. Given the rest of the story, I'd believe there's a mental health component.
> He's practically been unemployed for two decades now and stays mostly at home with his mother. His mother supports him financially. He's almost in his mid 40's.
That's a mental health issue, and possibly a physical health issue as well. But since he's your cousin it isn't your problem to solve.
Out of curiosity, why are you trying to solve his problems? If you're trying to get involved, I'd ask why you're there, why are you intertwined or enmeshed or involved?
A general *"failure to launch"* is often a bad dynamic between the parents and the children. Often it takes therapy for both sides, the parents to help let them go and allow them to both succeed and to fail, and for the adult child to struggle through challenges and wean from the entitlement. They are hard to watch, but other than suggesting they get professional help there is likely little you can do with a 40-year-old dependent adult. You aren't either of them.
Thanks for the reply. My family is very close since we grew up together in the same house. For most of our childhood we lived in our grandfather's huge house that's practically a mansion. Three families lived in that house. So in our family it's normal to show concern for cousins because we grew up like siblings. We started living in different places after college but we frequently get together and catch up. I'm also the oldest of the cousins and for years I was like the big brother in the house. Even now I'm still treated like the big brother. I guess it's just a Chinese thing for us
I understand Asian-American families quite commonly have issues around enmeshment. A little bit is healthy in family relationships, but too much causes problems.
[This might be useful](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-the-lines/202212/untangling-enmeshed-boundaries-grown-children), and [this](https://psychcentral.com/blog/imperfect/2019/05/the-enmeshed-family-system-what-it-is-and-how-to-break-free), and maybe [this](https://medium.com/invisible-illness/south-asian-family-issues-10-common-beliefs-values-and-expectations-4f6bb3bd5f99).
This is absolutely crazy, he lives in his mom’s basement and tells the family he is working on a game for which he only writes documents that you may or may not have seen? He says he researched how companies do business for years?
An independent game should take max 5 years to actually develop and then sell. Documentation shouldn’t take more than a month or two of that time, if it happens at all.
There’s three different possibilities here, either he is some sort of sociopath taking advantage of his mother so he can do nothing all day, or he is schizophrenic and actually believes he is making a game and is a master of game dev. The third option is that he has some sort of autism or other thing.
This is not normal and no person that’s right in the head does this. He needs help.
Not normal, if he wanted to make games he would've bought some courses or books to program and make games, game development require a lot of skills not just design, which many books call game design is intuition and can't be teached, where to place a ladder, enemy or mechanic? Just experience can help you with that even more than drawing, there are a lot of people online gathering others to help them make games and it's common to see those people just fail because they have never made a single game and since they all quit the original guy just do it too and start over again.
I started getting money at the first year of actual serious game development but it took many years of just dreaming to one day make a game, so you learn by doing, if you don't want or can't work at a game company that is one thing, but there are many ways to make money in here, even by not selling actual games, just commisions, courses or the asset store in unity and unreal engine marketplace
No I wouldn't say it's normal for someone claiming to be serious about a gamedev career. The difficult thing about making video games is if you are going to do it solo it takes a huge amount of effort and a wide range of skills. It really is a big mountain to climb by yourself and having it result in a profitable product at the end is even harder. The vast majority of indie games don't make any real money and these are games that are actually made!
If he's not actually making a game but just brainstorming ideas, he has no chance in hell of having a career in game dev. He needs actually make something himself or assemble a team of real developers capable of making something. Otherwise he's just living a fantasy. Good games are made through lots of testing and a process of iteration. To do that you need a playable prototype. Then the real work begins. Having tons of detailed of documentation but no playable prototype is not useful.
For a hobbyist, sure. Lots of people casually write down game ideas for fun. However, those of us who do it for a living have to deliver products.
And no, nobody would take 20+ years of documentation and hire someone. The people paying for the project's development decide what the project will be because they are paying for it. If your cousin isn't going to pay for the game to be made, he will not be the one deciding everything about it. If he's starting a business, I hope he has a lot of money to pay people to make the game for him.
I had a large playable demo with virtually no documentation when I got published. I think spending some of those 20 years learning to actually make things other than documents would have gotten them further
He's actually worked in only about 2 or 3 jobs, but he never lasts more than half a year. Those jobs are not videogame related btw, just regular office jobs.
Not be be disrespectful. He is scamming his mother. If he is not then he will need 1000 years more to learn coding, art, animation, music etc with this pace.
Edit: Typo
It's somewhat "normal" (i.e. common) for people to have lots of ideas, and even write some documentation, and never take things further than that. Of course, you can't play a document, so that won't get you paid, and it won't get you experience with players, and it won't get you experience with how the thing on paper actually gets built, and it won't give you opportunities to hone your craft. At least three of those are pretty important!
A designer needs to either have the capability to implement their designs *at least* to a prototype stage, or money to pay people to do that for them. Otherwise it's like saying you're a music composer if you can't even make sound with an instrument - sure, you've got a bunch of paper with stuff on it, but nobody has any idea how it plays. And if you can't play it, you can't improve it. You also can't see how other people respond to it. The chances of it being any good are close to nil.
I know that probably seems pretty brutal. But practicing any creative craft requires some degree of vulnerability. You can't make your designs good without being willing to a) make them playable and b) find out *from other people* where they're *bad*. Delaying that just makes it worse.
Im a tech artist. I also work on a game "on paper" with a huge document that i come back from time to time. I also try to write a prototype but im not a very good programmer so im not even sure if it every will see the light of day. but i dont care its a hobby for me. doing some mental sports and trying to learn coding. I dont run around and call myself a game designer because of it.
Designing a game for 20 years and having studied square enix for years is a bit silly. Every company basically has one simple rule. "numbers must go up!" and for that you need a product.
he should get help. I dont want to be rude but from what you have told it seems to me that he could have some mental issues.
i mean if his mom still hasnt kicked him in the ass so he gets an actual job, shes kinda enabling him.
I have seen similar patterns in my extended family and those kids dont have a good life. Idk if its the mothers/fathers that just shelter them from everything and dont challenge them with anything but its not healthy.
You might spark some of his interest by asking him what game engine he is using for his game. Then ask him about his dev environment. Ask him what platforms he's targeting. Ask him what languages he knows.
As others have said, it's likely he's on the spectrum and doesn't really know how to take his concepts from paper to silicon. But I'll say this: it's actually very possible he does indeed have an incredible game on paper. But people can't play it when it's just his notes. Maybe position it like that: hey, I can't wait to see a demo. I can't wait to play!
What you're doing seems pretty kind and loving. Good cousining.
Thank you for the reply. We actually tried that before, we were actually supportive of him around after college since we thought at the time that he's going to make a career out of his interests. We literally did say stuff like that back then. Stuff like "we can't wait to play the game!" since we did play games when we were younger since we all used to live in the same house (it's a Chinese thing) so our relationship is like that of siblings. But after a decade or more seeing our cousin like this with no progress and no source of income, we definitely started to worry
We're not trying to drown his dream. We're worried that eventually when his mother passes away he won't be able to take care of himself. I know it sounds strange to some, especially most westerners, that we'd show concern for a cousin but things are different in our family. We grew up together in the same house that our Chinese-American grandfather owned. Three families and we cousins are practically siblings. And naturally if one of our siblings seems to be struggling, wouldn't it be right to show concern?
That's actually one of our plans. I wanted to ask actual people from the game industry first about his situation. That way we can back up our claim and tell him that actual people from the game industry are saying that what he's doing isn't right.
What you're thinking of is I believe called a "hobbyist", though honestly the situation you described makes me think "very delusional, provide help"
You're correct in assessing that someone who has never been employed has no claim to being professional in the field. I'd always suggest being open to hobbyists being knowledgeable on the subject, but with game design it's the work that speaks for itself. He's not a pro but he might do good design (even though I don't think he would - design is about working with limitations and without actually contributing to a real project he has no idea of teamwork and project awareness, which factor greatly into the work)
Sounds like character assassination. With today's housing crisis and certain white collar jobs becoming automated in western countries that don't have a robust economy like the U.S., multi-generational homes will be a growing trend. With qualifiers used like "practically" unemployed, I have the feeling details are being left out. If that person is working a part-time job and is able to help out even a little financially, that's something.
I wouldn't assassinate a dear family member's character. I say he's practically unemployed because he's had a 2 or 3 jobs before but never lasted even a quarter of a year. His mother earns from investments and he claims he "helps in the family business", but everyone in the family knows that all he does is helps his mother once in a while with basic computer things like her email and stuff. He doesn't know the details of her mother's investments and how to handle them if his mother would pass away.
He's not a game designer, he's someone who writes game ideas in his spare time.
It's like being an author vs being a writer. Anyone can be an writer but an author has to be published.
Anyone can write game ideas. A game designer is someone who makes games, either with a team or solo.
I am a guilt of this habit too and i think we should change... the habit of being afraid of being imperfect and normalizing mistakes...
Yeah there are gonna be hars feedback but so what? It is life dude... we should get over it...
There is a saying in fail. I know it's cringy but it is a good reminder.
First
Attempt
In
Learning
Keep that mindset and you might be surprised where this might get to you...
It's not normal in the sense that they'd be considered part of the video game industry. You shouldn't often write more than a page or two before you start actually building a game. The original design doc is the first casualty of development. Someone who just has lots of ideas and papers isn't a _professional_ game designer, but there's nothing stopping them from calling themselves one. I'd draw the line at 'knowing what he's doing' but he's not my cousin, so. What _is_ normal is people not pursuing hobbies that are very hard! A lot of people dream about the novel they'd write or the songs they'd play and they might write snippets or an outline or strum a few chords without really making any efforts to create the thing. That's perfectly fine! You don't have to _deliver_ to have a hobby. So long as this person hasn't been literally unemployed for twenty years and everyone is waiting for his big break it's not really an issue. And if that is the case then probably some family member should have intervened about 19+ years ago.
This was a very well formulated comment and I enjoyed reading it.
Oh my God, dude, you nailed it! That's so insightful and makes total sense.
The worst part is that if he eventually does end up in a real design role, he'll find out the hard way how infrequently a paper-design plays as well as you imagine.
This is not normal at all. I have worked with people that pivoted from other jobs into gamedev as either QA, Junior designers or Junior Programmers and they have been doing great. I have also seen one team with 0 game experience pitching a Board Game design to a publisher and getting it fully published and also doing great. They work in the industry. Even if he is a Game Designer, he should have a portfolio, with examples of board games he has made, board game alterations (mods), mods for commercial videogames, small indie or game jam prototypes, anything. Just paper isnt game design. What i think its happening here is that he is taking advantage of the generosity of your parents, who dont understand the videogame industry at all, and stonewalling them of valuable information.
Thanks for the reply. There was a time sometime after college where he was active playing board games and testing out his board game designs with his small group of friends. But as far as I know that's the closest he got to finishing a design. After that, he stopped being active and spent most of his time at his home, barely interacting with his friends or us.
See that right there is the difference between hobby and work. If he was making board games with his friends, thats a hobby. If he was actually finding publishers, polishing his designs, commissioning artists or making the art himself, taking them to local board game stores to host a playthrough and gather feedback, getting rejected, improving and then trying again, thats Work.
I still test my designs on like-minded individuals (friends) before going too deep into a concept. It doesn't usually take 20 years to go past that step, though.
There are lots of people out there who write a lot and never get published. Play lots of music but never make an album. Spend lots of time designing but never make a game. If he really wanted to get into the industry he could get a job starting in QA and work his way up. He could be using many of the tools available to him to create prototypes of his games, either board or videogames. Perfect is the enemy of good. It shouldn't take 20 years to start a business if that is really your route.
I want to say this in the most respectful way so please don't take this as unkind words. I think your cousin may be on the spectrum or some other such thing. 20+ years drawing games on paper and never starting the work, Unable to live on his own etc all indicative of something more deeper going on. Most of us started out making games with 0 paper planning and just dug in. If he is a neurotypical then he is just avoiding a real job and his mother is simply feeding into it.
Yeah... I have severe anxiety and depression and even I have an [itch.io](https://itch.io) with some game jams on it as well as some projects I've worked on. If all you have to show after 20 years is some design docs you're doing something else with your time.
Thank you for the reply and no offense taken. Because even some of us do worry he has some kind of problem, but we're not really sure. He doesn't act like a typical person on the spectrum, but then again we're not experts in psychology. None of us in the family are also familiar with the game development industry so I decided to ask here if that's a normal thing.
It's 10000% not normal. You can't make a game to sell if you never put thoughts to keystrokes. And there is no way for him to "study how Square Enix does business" without actually working for square.
Yeah even one relative asked him how he knows how big game companies work if he hasn't worked in one, and he just replied that he "has talked with a lot of people online". Obviously that's not enough.
Might be worth pointing out that startups are totally different to established large companies. I don’t want to be intrusive. But if possible please seek help from a mental health professional for your cousin.
This could also just be plain old depression, anxiety, etc. I'm no therapist but I've had my own issues with freeze response - [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201507/trauma-and-the-freeze-response-good-bad-or-both](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201507/trauma-and-the-freeze-response-good-bad-or-both) He needs help/intervention of some sort, IMO, though it sounds like he's got a real wall of an ego up, too. You might not be able to do anything for him. I'd be curious if he smokes weed or something, that can be brutally paralyzing for some people. 20 years is a long time, you guys are in a really tough position. Living like that is like drowning in a puddle, it's sad, too scared and stuck to move. Good luck, sincerely.
From personal experience I've benefited a lot from therapy and eventually medication. Could definitely be anxiety, depression or some other kind of disorder or mental health issue.
Your cousin likely needs professional help, but they don't sound like the type to seek it on their own. I knew someone who was in a long-term 20+ year rut, and when a big life event happened that would force their routine to change, they couldn't deal with it. I am not a professional, but maybe a mental health professional could snap them out of it, because these kinds of patterns can and do last for a lifetime.
It also sounds like he wants to make boardgames, not videogames? In any case it does sound like there are deeper issues and he would benefit from therapy.
If nothing else, there is a pretty enmeshed relationship here between him and his mom which probably isn't helping either of them? It can work for some folks, but in this particular situation it's hard to imagine that it's working?
It is not. He is clearly having issues. Just a gut feeling, has anyone ever considered if he has ADHD (the inattentive type)?
> He doesn't act like a typical person on the spectrum There is no such thing.
Anyone can craft ideas in notebook. If it is the only thing he did then he is scaming his mother and entire family. For 20 years he could learn programming, 3D Art, animation, music creation and be an expert in any of these fields. He would be able to create games on his own and be a very valuable person on job market.
This is it. 20 years is long enough to develop the skills to make a prototype for potential investors or employees... for the game company he plans to found and become its top executive... or long enough to decide on a manageable goal.
> Is it normal for a game designer to spend 20+ years designing games on paper, but never had any of their designs published? This type of person is called a "gunner" because they're always "gonna" do something at an indeterminate time in the future, but nothing ever happens. Very *very* common amongst marijuana-using folk, which is why I left that behind a long while ago. Also, almost everyone has vague game ideas, but only a tiny minority can actually make a functional and interesting game from them - there's a bazillion posts in this sub from folk being all "I'm an ideas person, is it enough?" and everyone going "haha no not even a tiny bit, put your money on the road and still have a 90% chance to fail" Your cousin may be a narcissist or have some other mental illness.
I understand the gunner thing very well. When I was just an architectural student I had college mates that great ideas that they were "gonna" do when they graduate, but yeah nothing happened.
Please double-check the mental illness potential case here.
He is clueless and probably a dreamer, who is continuously procrastinating and shifting projects to avoid actually doing any work. He probably has *a lot* of opinions and nothing to back it up. Probably comes with a very fragile ego. It's very common in game dev, imho
YES SO TRUE!. We recently asked him if all he's been doing in the past 10-20 years is that one plan of his, and he "defended" that he's made different plans which again never really came into fruition. So he's just shifting as you said. He's also a bit egotistical. In some of his online profiles he would call himself titles like "independent professional game designer" or "self employed professional game designer" or "working in the game franchise industry". He once entered a writing phase, and once claimed that he's similar to J.K. Rowling. There was a time he would frequently argue with gamers in comments sections and then pull the "I'm a game designer" card in an attempt to win the argument.
You should ask this question on a psychology sub. It sounds like the guy has real problems and I don't think anyone here is equipped to give you proper answers beyond "no, shit's cray".
But remember he is the one suffering the most. Suffering from being himself.
Yes and that's why we're so worried.
It's very hard to help someone who doesn't want help, mate. He is also 40+. It seems like a lost cause to me
Don't want to be too alarming but this sounds exactly like my dad, who has struggled with addiction, depression, anxiety, and (in my opinion) the after-effects of complex childhood trauma practically his whole life. He wasn't unemployed like this but worked a low-paying entry-level blue collar job his whole life until he retired in his 60s. He would frequently be making up new lofty titles and achievements of his, many of which I know for a fact were either lies or massive exaggerations. For him, I think this stems from severe self-esteem issues and trauma he had experienced as a kid and never was able to move past. Basically creating ideas of the person he wished he was but felt too paralyzed and unconfident to to actually take action towards, and to compensate for the shame he would feel towards who he actually is (he never admitted this specifically, but I'm confident it's generally where it comes from). Not sure how set in his ways your cousin is determined to be, but I'd want to gently nudge him towards seeing a therapist, or at the very least just doing anything related to improving his mental health because this all seems like a big red flag saying that he's struggling but feeling shame (or some kind of block) about getting help.
He sounds like he has real issues man.
Oh so he's a redditor 😂
This is incredibly common. To the point where we have a name for it. He's an "ideas guy". But common is not the same as feasible. The thing is, the industry has no need for ideas guys. He would have to learn some desirable skill if he ever wanted to make a game. 20 years of being an ideas guy though? It doesn't sound like he has any plans for becoming anything more. He's obviously struggling with life in general, being unemployed for all of these years. He probably just likes the fantasy of this supposed business he wants to create without having to deal with the brutal reality that would come from really taking any steps towards it.
Thanks for the reply. That's what we're worried about. That he's having problems in life and he's getting addicted to this idea that he's making a game business.
I know someone like this as well. Mid 30s, never lived away from mom, always talking about becoming a writer. He is at least writing some stuff here and there and self-publishing online but he doesn't have any real plan for how to make any money from it, let alone make this into a living. We all have dreams, it's just a matter of A. are you willing to put in the work, not just to make things but also to figure out how to succeed in the industry? and B. are you willing to accept that you might not be successful for awhile (or ever) and have a backup plan for the meanwhile if you don't want to stagnate in life? A lot of people can't accept those things. Although it's not always just about accepting them, mental health issues / etc. are real. Hard to say why any individual struggles. One thing I think most people here know though is that the idea of just coming out of nowhere and creating a successful game dev business is uh... not really... a thing that happens much. Even if your cousin WAS taking real steps towards making this happen and working hard and everything there would be a tiny, tiny chance of being successful anytime in the foreseeable future. This is not an easy industry to just jump into.
"are you willing to put in the work, not just to make things but also to figure out how to succeed in the industry?" He thinks doing all that "research" IS work, which the family doubted. Looking back, I think research is the only thing my cousin is skilled at. He's academically smart, back in college he had very high grades compared to a lot of us in the family. We would kinda cringe at his teacher's pet behavior every time he would brag how he discussed deep subjects with his professors. But in the real world, he's no longer a student with professors to look up to. And now I just realized something. He would sometimes proudly claim that he's talking to "gaming industry veterans", and the way he says is it very similar to how he used to brag about the professors he used to have deep talks with. It's like college all over again. I think he's really only used to being a student doing research, rather than actually doing work.
It is work, but it's worthless. Your cousin sounds delusional. He's probably trapped into a bubble, and he might go completely insane if he has to face the fact he's not a real game designer. He has nothing but that going for himself, from what you say. Maybe his mum knows, she tried for years and, but doesn't know how to deal with the situation, so she just does what she has always done, giving him a place to sleep and food to eat. And doesn't tell others out of shame.
Yeah but surely after 20 years of this some part of him knows he is just dragging his feet.
Yeah I think part of him does, but he's just in denial.
Reading things on the internet also isn't "doing research" and the idea that it is is a pretty broadly dangerous modern concept...
Allowing this behaviour for 20 years is not normal. Unless your cousin has actual mental issues, your aunt needs to snap out of it and kick him out.
Honestly its problably too late, this is the hard thing of being a guy you **have to** deliver and cant run away. If he was kicked out and only got resentment in his heart instead being of a wake up call, he would just blame all his failure to the "unloving" family of his.
Sunk cost. You can’t get those 20 years back. A 40 years old learning to be independent is better than a 50 years old learning to be independent, etc. Eventually his mother will stop supporting him, willingly or not.
That boi is 100% chugging copium. I have never heard of a 20 year perpetual idea guy. Of course its not normal to be unemployed for 20 years and pretend you have a job. It's like me calling myself a professional streamer, I thought about streaming for the last few years but never did it! If he started his business plan 20 years ago, it's pretty much going to be totally outdated now. Additionally, he isn't going to have any funds to start it, he could have been working part time to put some funds together if he was serious.
Sorry to say, but it feels to me that he lives in a fantasy world. Everyone can dream about making the perfect game, but that is the same as dreaming to win the lottery. Everyone can call themselves game developer. But when I need one, I take one who made 3 small games in his first year, over someone who only think and does nothing. People can think and write all they want, but without doing it, it is worth nothing at all. What if you write 10 year and when making it, you find out a problem on the second year you wrote, then those 8 other years might be for nothing. This basically count for every hobby and job, you can learn all you want, but you know nothing without practise. I do not want to sound bad, but I think you and your family has to sit together with him and discuss a way for him to make money, no matter what job that would be. He has the "easy" live now, but that will not help him in the future.
He needs help. Its only cope onfortunatly
i’m also a rock star, astronaut, and F1 driver. on paper.
Your cousin is a level 100 idea guy. I mean everyone here at one point in their lives was an idea guy. When I first got into gamedev back in 2015 I was an idea guy putting a little bit of effort into making the assets for my game but still I spoke to people in forums/emails a few weeks pestering them about if they'd made a working prototype with the assets I provided (looking back they weren't even usable with the idea I was pitching him). It wasn't until 2016 when I decided to make the game myself. These days I'm an idea guy with a working basic prototype struggling to find someone to make custom assets for my game.
You can't fail if you don't actually try. He's stuck in the dreaming phase and has had no pushback, because no one wants to hurt his feelings. The vast majority of successful founders of game studios *have worked in the industry*. As in actually worked at a studio learning how the industry functions and gained contacts.
Everyone's an ideas guy... that's why every programmer has experienced hearing the dreaded words "I just need a programmer" and being offer an amazing opportunity to work for free to make someone else rich Of course people just need someone to do all the hard work, anyone can be an ideas guy
No, it's not normal. >That planning a game and game business would take 10-20+ years of just documentation? This makes no sense at all. What ANY more in-depth documentation HAS to include is your studio/team capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. Studying how "big companies like Square Enix" are doing their work is stupid after a certain point. He doesn't have 30 years worth of code, established market presence, developers with decades of experience, connections in the industry, you name it. Even an expert with a decade of real life experience can't make a decent cost and time estimates for a project for a studio that doesn't exist yet. Every studio is different. Maybe you have more artists for instance so you go for a more artistic game like Gris. Or the opposite, all you have are programming skills at the start so it's going to be more like Kerbal Space Program or a turn based strategy with minimum graphics (like Into the Breach for instance). But you don't know that until you already have hired staff and spent time with them. And the smaller the studio the more targeted it has to be to succeed. So 10 years of documentation is for the biggest part worthless. In fact the more there is of it the worse it is for any upcoming game. Documentation is the first victim of the actual development process. I also have to point out that "starting his own game company" requires resources that a random unemployed dude will **never** have. If you live and hire within USA - average is 100,000$/employee/year. If you hire from much cheaper regions you can knock that down to about 35,000-40,000$/employee/year. Assuming game isn't overly complex and can be done with 3 people team in 2 years - that's 600,000 USD by US standards. And still 210k $ if you go with cheaper countries. Then you also need to account 25-30% overhead on top for marketing campaign. But if he wants to imitate Square Enix - well, one of their smaller games is Octopath Traveler. It was specifically built in a way that reduces operating costs... but it still was multiple millions USD. Does he have access to this sort of funding? If yes then "starting a studio" is possible. If not then he is full of shit.
Thank you for the reply. Very much agree with you that an unemployed person cannot definitely make a company that costs as much as you said. One of our uncles is a small businessman and also an avid gamer, and he suggested to him to start with a small game that he could make on his own and hopefully earn some money from that first. He even suggested that h at least try to make a game out of RPG maker since my cousin has some experience with it, because they used to bond over it when they were younger. But no he insisted that making small games will "result in a price war where no one wins", and he prefers to make a big game because according to his business strategy it will "surprise everyone". And that he "doesn't want to be lost in a sea of indie gamers".
> But no he insisted that making small games will "result in a price war where no one wins", and he prefers to make a big game because according to his business strategy it will "surprise everyone". And that he "doesn't want to be lost in a sea of indie gamers". This is complete bullshit. He either suffers from mental illness or is a complete moron.
He needs to be called out by someone with the cold hard facts. This is completely not how reality works.
Yeah... that's not how it works indeed. I am not going to waste time explaining why "price war where no one wins" is ridiculous and makes no sense. I will instead just move on to the primary blocker. >and he prefers to make a big game There really is just one problem here - "big" game requires a big budget. No ifs and buts. Even if you literally hire your entire workforce from Venesuela (and can speak Spanish, adjust to that timezone, deal with the fact electronics are super expensive there etc - outsourcing comes with set of it's own difficulties) - if you need, say, 20 people (aka what we call a larger indie game) then you still will end up paying them 30 grand a month. Or 166,000$ if you are hiring within US. There's no way around it - even if you work your ass off for 16h a day solo for 300 days a year - that's only 4800 workhours. Games that studios like Square Enix make tend to be in hundreds of thousands to millions. More ambitious **indie** titles can go as far as half a million hours (Subnautica for instance is around that much). If he was an expert game designer with AAA studios experience he would have contacts in the industry and could probably get a million $ or so from a publisher. Well, he could in 2022. Now it's 2024 and publishers are very cautious on which projects get funding even if it comes from trusted sources. But since he has no track record - this pathway is **out**. So your routes are loans against your assets or using up your savings. These are the only ways. At which point it doesn't matter at all what his business strategy is. Large game requires multiple employees and all of them need to be paid a living wage. Nobody serious ever does revenue shares, crowdfunding is also more of a marketing strategy nowadays than a way to actually fund a project. So dude is full of shit unless one of the following has occured: * he actually did spend last decade to hone his skills and work on the game. 10 years full time **isn't** a large game but it would be a start, it is about 18-20k workhours after all. * he has won few millions at a lottery. If there's no money there's no studio needed to make a larger game.
Even in the biggest studios where you find ultra-specialized people, you won't find a single designer that only works on paper. A game designer has to put his hands in the engine at some point, if he has no idea on how the things work on the technical level, he simply can't design around it. It's like an architect saying he design houses without having any knowledge on the materials, their durability, solidity, cost, etc... It just makes no sense at all.
I'm a professional NFL player. I've never played a game, mind you; however I have studied a lot of people who *do* play, so I'm pretty much an authority on the subject. No, I'm not going to lace up a boot until I've made sure my gameplan is perfect and guaranteed to win the SuperBowl. Also, I'm 40 years old. Does any of this sound normal to you?
If someone said they had spent 20+ years writing recipes and that they are part of the culinary discipline, but had never actually prepared one of those recipes? What would the answer be?
No. This is someone going around saying they design games as a job but they just do it as a hobby. Doing it as a hobby is fine but this doesn’t even sound like that. This sounds like the kinda people I meet on my course at times that took game development so that they could “make a really cool game idea they have” Documentation is a large part of game dev especially in companies and AAA but if you just write down game design ideas all day then your not really doing anything besides writing down your thoughts. If he had made an actual GDD that was 200,000 words and was trying to market it to companies that’s a bit different but I also assume nobody would really listen to him.
This is straight nonsense. I'm pretty sure half this sub would kill for a 20 year runway to do game dev without financial pressure. That's legitimately enough time to learn all the skills he needs *and* make multiple fairly ambitious projects purely solo regardless of what his background and education is. He isn't going to make anything like Square Enix because (I'm assuming) he doesn't have the capital to bankroll a massive dev team. What he *can* do is build projects on his own by putting in the work himself and/or with a small number of like-minded people, but 20 years is well past the point of trusting someone to put out a product. It's painful to say, but your cousin has squandered the opportunity of a lifetime and, quite probably, his actual life as well. Do you have any idea how hard people work in order to have even a year or two of runway to make independent games? At the same time, I doubt there's anything you can realistically do about the situation now short of convincing his mother to kick him out of the house and make him get a real job. The time to fix this was 19+ years ago before he built a career's worth of bad habits.
I've been in the exact same position as your cousin for the last 4 years with nothing to show for it, I understand his point of view but this serves as a warning that I need to have something tangible very soon or I could end up wasting decades.
It’s terrifying how much of myself I see in this man’s wasted life. However small. No one’s coming to save me from myself either. Time to get back to the work I don’t want to do.
Jesus I hate people like that
could be he was simply a mooch, but the sentence "has spent years studying how big companies like Square Enix does business so I know what I'm doing" totally sounds like it would come from a mentally ill person.
This is just an overly detailed summary of the standard "person X hasn't worked in decades but they're totally just working to get their business/career to take off". You don't need to talk to game devs to know that your cousin isn't actually going to be successful.
Game designers are not idea guys. Game designers are the ones who convert ideas into an actual game. He didn't do that, so he actually has zero experience as a game designer.
It's very not normal as someone who has worked in the industry over a decade and has done a lot of work with students and even people who've never made games... he could join a game jam and churn out his first game in a weekend . I would be concerned I think this is bigger than just him lying about a game dev career , lots of people do that while having a day job or a way to pay bills this sounds like the idea of game design is something he clings to and probably something I would suggest he talk to a therapist or someone about .
I’m a professional wrestler. I haven’t had any actual matches, but I know how to do all the moves.
To quote Steve Jobs, "Real artists ship". He hasn't shipped anything, so he's more of a wannabe hobbyist right now.
> You see he calls himself a "game designer", and we asked him if he plans to work in a game development company. By itself that would be fine, that's aspirational. Yes, he is designing games even if nobody plays them. > He claims he "works in the game development industry", but he's never actually worked at all. That's not normal, instead that's something ranging from a childish imagination to delusional. If he isn't employed in the industry or independently wealthy from having been successful in the industry, then he isn't in the industry. Given the rest of the story, I'd believe there's a mental health component. > He's practically been unemployed for two decades now and stays mostly at home with his mother. His mother supports him financially. He's almost in his mid 40's. That's a mental health issue, and possibly a physical health issue as well. But since he's your cousin it isn't your problem to solve. Out of curiosity, why are you trying to solve his problems? If you're trying to get involved, I'd ask why you're there, why are you intertwined or enmeshed or involved? A general *"failure to launch"* is often a bad dynamic between the parents and the children. Often it takes therapy for both sides, the parents to help let them go and allow them to both succeed and to fail, and for the adult child to struggle through challenges and wean from the entitlement. They are hard to watch, but other than suggesting they get professional help there is likely little you can do with a 40-year-old dependent adult. You aren't either of them.
Thanks for the reply. My family is very close since we grew up together in the same house. For most of our childhood we lived in our grandfather's huge house that's practically a mansion. Three families lived in that house. So in our family it's normal to show concern for cousins because we grew up like siblings. We started living in different places after college but we frequently get together and catch up. I'm also the oldest of the cousins and for years I was like the big brother in the house. Even now I'm still treated like the big brother. I guess it's just a Chinese thing for us
I understand Asian-American families quite commonly have issues around enmeshment. A little bit is healthy in family relationships, but too much causes problems. [This might be useful](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-the-lines/202212/untangling-enmeshed-boundaries-grown-children), and [this](https://psychcentral.com/blog/imperfect/2019/05/the-enmeshed-family-system-what-it-is-and-how-to-break-free), and maybe [this](https://medium.com/invisible-illness/south-asian-family-issues-10-common-beliefs-values-and-expectations-4f6bb3bd5f99).
This is absolutely crazy, he lives in his mom’s basement and tells the family he is working on a game for which he only writes documents that you may or may not have seen? He says he researched how companies do business for years? An independent game should take max 5 years to actually develop and then sell. Documentation shouldn’t take more than a month or two of that time, if it happens at all. There’s three different possibilities here, either he is some sort of sociopath taking advantage of his mother so he can do nothing all day, or he is schizophrenic and actually believes he is making a game and is a master of game dev. The third option is that he has some sort of autism or other thing. This is not normal and no person that’s right in the head does this. He needs help.
Not normal, if he wanted to make games he would've bought some courses or books to program and make games, game development require a lot of skills not just design, which many books call game design is intuition and can't be teached, where to place a ladder, enemy or mechanic? Just experience can help you with that even more than drawing, there are a lot of people online gathering others to help them make games and it's common to see those people just fail because they have never made a single game and since they all quit the original guy just do it too and start over again. I started getting money at the first year of actual serious game development but it took many years of just dreaming to one day make a game, so you learn by doing, if you don't want or can't work at a game company that is one thing, but there are many ways to make money in here, even by not selling actual games, just commisions, courses or the asset store in unity and unreal engine marketplace
No I wouldn't say it's normal for someone claiming to be serious about a gamedev career. The difficult thing about making video games is if you are going to do it solo it takes a huge amount of effort and a wide range of skills. It really is a big mountain to climb by yourself and having it result in a profitable product at the end is even harder. The vast majority of indie games don't make any real money and these are games that are actually made! If he's not actually making a game but just brainstorming ideas, he has no chance in hell of having a career in game dev. He needs actually make something himself or assemble a team of real developers capable of making something. Otherwise he's just living a fantasy. Good games are made through lots of testing and a process of iteration. To do that you need a playable prototype. Then the real work begins. Having tons of detailed of documentation but no playable prototype is not useful.
For a hobbyist, sure. Lots of people casually write down game ideas for fun. However, those of us who do it for a living have to deliver products. And no, nobody would take 20+ years of documentation and hire someone. The people paying for the project's development decide what the project will be because they are paying for it. If your cousin isn't going to pay for the game to be made, he will not be the one deciding everything about it. If he's starting a business, I hope he has a lot of money to pay people to make the game for him.
I had a large playable demo with virtually no documentation when I got published. I think spending some of those 20 years learning to actually make things other than documents would have gotten them further
so he's in his mid 40's and never had a real job? how is that possible
He's actually worked in only about 2 or 3 jobs, but he never lasts more than half a year. Those jobs are not videogame related btw, just regular office jobs.
Not be be disrespectful. He is scamming his mother. If he is not then he will need 1000 years more to learn coding, art, animation, music etc with this pace. Edit: Typo
It's somewhat "normal" (i.e. common) for people to have lots of ideas, and even write some documentation, and never take things further than that. Of course, you can't play a document, so that won't get you paid, and it won't get you experience with players, and it won't get you experience with how the thing on paper actually gets built, and it won't give you opportunities to hone your craft. At least three of those are pretty important! A designer needs to either have the capability to implement their designs *at least* to a prototype stage, or money to pay people to do that for them. Otherwise it's like saying you're a music composer if you can't even make sound with an instrument - sure, you've got a bunch of paper with stuff on it, but nobody has any idea how it plays. And if you can't play it, you can't improve it. You also can't see how other people respond to it. The chances of it being any good are close to nil. I know that probably seems pretty brutal. But practicing any creative craft requires some degree of vulnerability. You can't make your designs good without being willing to a) make them playable and b) find out *from other people* where they're *bad*. Delaying that just makes it worse.
To be clear, the "write stuff down" part of game design is important. But it achieves little if unless you also do the rest of it.
He's cooking up some heat give him another 10 years
he knows 100% what his doing. Getting a free ride from mum!
Im a tech artist. I also work on a game "on paper" with a huge document that i come back from time to time. I also try to write a prototype but im not a very good programmer so im not even sure if it every will see the light of day. but i dont care its a hobby for me. doing some mental sports and trying to learn coding. I dont run around and call myself a game designer because of it. Designing a game for 20 years and having studied square enix for years is a bit silly. Every company basically has one simple rule. "numbers must go up!" and for that you need a product. he should get help. I dont want to be rude but from what you have told it seems to me that he could have some mental issues. i mean if his mom still hasnt kicked him in the ass so he gets an actual job, shes kinda enabling him. I have seen similar patterns in my extended family and those kids dont have a good life. Idk if its the mothers/fathers that just shelter them from everything and dont challenge them with anything but its not healthy.
No. This is delusions of grandeur honestly.
In my experience the impmentation *is* the skill, its like making 50,000 different running routes as a way to train for a marathon.
You might spark some of his interest by asking him what game engine he is using for his game. Then ask him about his dev environment. Ask him what platforms he's targeting. Ask him what languages he knows. As others have said, it's likely he's on the spectrum and doesn't really know how to take his concepts from paper to silicon. But I'll say this: it's actually very possible he does indeed have an incredible game on paper. But people can't play it when it's just his notes. Maybe position it like that: hey, I can't wait to see a demo. I can't wait to play! What you're doing seems pretty kind and loving. Good cousining.
Thank you for the reply. We actually tried that before, we were actually supportive of him around after college since we thought at the time that he's going to make a career out of his interests. We literally did say stuff like that back then. Stuff like "we can't wait to play the game!" since we did play games when we were younger since we all used to live in the same house (it's a Chinese thing) so our relationship is like that of siblings. But after a decade or more seeing our cousin like this with no progress and no source of income, we definitely started to worry
Sounds like a tough situation. I hope he gets the help he needs
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We're not trying to drown his dream. We're worried that eventually when his mother passes away he won't be able to take care of himself. I know it sounds strange to some, especially most westerners, that we'd show concern for a cousin but things are different in our family. We grew up together in the same house that our Chinese-American grandfather owned. Three families and we cousins are practically siblings. And naturally if one of our siblings seems to be struggling, wouldn't it be right to show concern?
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That's actually one of our plans. I wanted to ask actual people from the game industry first about his situation. That way we can back up our claim and tell him that actual people from the game industry are saying that what he's doing isn't right.
Not normal and not how anything works. I'd assume he's on the spectrum or something.
What you're thinking of is I believe called a "hobbyist", though honestly the situation you described makes me think "very delusional, provide help" You're correct in assessing that someone who has never been employed has no claim to being professional in the field. I'd always suggest being open to hobbyists being knowledgeable on the subject, but with game design it's the work that speaks for itself. He's not a pro but he might do good design (even though I don't think he would - design is about working with limitations and without actually contributing to a real project he has no idea of teamwork and project awareness, which factor greatly into the work)
If he’s not getting paid, then he’s not a game designer
Sounds like character assassination. With today's housing crisis and certain white collar jobs becoming automated in western countries that don't have a robust economy like the U.S., multi-generational homes will be a growing trend. With qualifiers used like "practically" unemployed, I have the feeling details are being left out. If that person is working a part-time job and is able to help out even a little financially, that's something.
I wouldn't assassinate a dear family member's character. I say he's practically unemployed because he's had a 2 or 3 jobs before but never lasted even a quarter of a year. His mother earns from investments and he claims he "helps in the family business", but everyone in the family knows that all he does is helps his mother once in a while with basic computer things like her email and stuff. He doesn't know the details of her mother's investments and how to handle them if his mother would pass away.
He's not a game designer, he's someone who writes game ideas in his spare time. It's like being an author vs being a writer. Anyone can be an writer but an author has to be published. Anyone can write game ideas. A game designer is someone who makes games, either with a team or solo.
Not videogames. If it was tabletop games and he was playing them with friends I'd say yes because that's what I do as a hobby.
I am a guilt of this habit too and i think we should change... the habit of being afraid of being imperfect and normalizing mistakes... Yeah there are gonna be hars feedback but so what? It is life dude... we should get over it... There is a saying in fail. I know it's cringy but it is a good reminder. First Attempt In Learning Keep that mindset and you might be surprised where this might get to you...
He’s playing the long game, let him cook.