Content designers: from hobby games to computer games

Many people who now work on video games started work in the hobby game industry: Dungeons and Dragons, RPGs, wargames. That shouldn’t be surprising. If you want people who will write good role-playing content, and if you want people who know how to weave stories while dealing with the rules of the game, then the hobby game industry is a good place to find them. This is the lesson in Chris Pramas’ recent developer log at Flying Lab Software‘s site for Pirates of the Burning Sea.

OK, I’m here. Now where’s the story?

The other lesson is that this is usually a win-win situation. The game is better because you actually have good content [insert comment here about how too many games have no-sense plots], but the designer also becomes a better designer (Chris Pramas now knows more about 18th century history and folklore than ever before). Good skills are always useful, and new experiences are good seeds for future stories.

By the time that people like Chris Pramas and other storyteller-designers quit making video games (even though the video game industry will be poorer for it), they will have a whole new set of ideas to put into their future story-making projects.

Many people who now work on video games started work in the hobby game industry: Dungeons and Dragons, RPGs, wargames. That shouldn’t be surprising. If you want people who will write good role-playing content, and if you want people who know how to weave stories while dealing with the rules of the game, then the hobby game industry is a good place to find them. This is the lesson in Chris Pramas’ recent developer log at Flying Lab Software‘s site for Pirates of the Burning Sea.

OK, I’m here. Now where’s the story?

The other lesson is that this is usually a win-win situation. The game is better because you actually have good content [insert comment here about how too many games have no-sense plots], but the designer also becomes a better designer (Chris Pramas now knows more about 18th century history and folklore than ever before). Good skills are always useful, and new experiences are good seeds for future stories.

By the time that people like Chris Pramas and other storyteller-designers quit making video games (even though the video game industry will be poorer for it), they will have a whole new set of ideas to put into their future story-making projects.