Soapbox: What Ever Happened to the Designer/Programmer?

Computer gaming is unique among art forms in that it has undergone a transformation from a solo medium to a collaborative one. For the most part, theater has always been a group effort, and novel writing has always been a solitary activity. However, since the early 1980s commercial computer games have changed from being developed by a single designer/programmer/artist in a room alone with a computer into projects undertaken by large teams in similarly large offices.

This change has had a number of significant effects on game development: management has become much more of an issue; games have become considerably more expensive to develop, limiting the quantity and type of games that get made; the games have changed from representing a distinctly personal vision to that of a group; and the position of lead designer/programmer has been distributed between two separate people. While the first three of these effects may be inherent to the way that computer games have changed as a medium, the last change seems to have come about accidentally, and, to my mind, is not a change for the better.

EA's early designer/programmer ad campaign

On one hand, it makes sense from a management perspective that development tasks be divided in the most logical way possible. On cursory inspection it might appear that designing gameplay is an entirely different discipline from actually implementing it. But on the other hand, there are many advantages to including a multi-talented designer/programmer on a team, regardless of the team's size.

A designer who programs will be able to implement the design he or she has in mind perfectly, resulting in time saved both communicating that idea to a programmer as well as reducing the amount of rework required to get that idea working optimally. Furthermore, any programmer knows that coding a game is full of "little" decisions that no amount of designer forethought is going to be able to anticipate, yet it is these programmer choices that ultimately establish the elusive "feel" of a game. All good designers know that - regardless of their own skills - if the programmers working on the game don't have a good sense for gameplay, the final game is not going to be worth a damn. Who better to make sure this "feel" is correct than a programmer who truly understands the game's design?

Designer/programmers have the further advantage of better understanding a game's core technology, leading to thorough exploitation of that technology to create a superior game. Designers with a weak technical background will often fail to understand what can be accomplished trivially and what is nearly impossible to pull off. Indeed, some programmers will use this fact against unsavvy designers, claiming that tasks are impossible merely because they don't want to add them to the game.

It's a sad truth that designers who cannot program are at the mercy of the game's programmers and what they feel like adding to the project. Though a designer/ programmer may not add every last feature to the project, if the gameplay is not turning out as hoped, at least a designer/programmer can step into the code and adjust it until it's perfect. Furthermore, designers who can add features to games themselves are much more at liberty to experiment with the gameplay and to try out bizarre ideas that no one thinks will work. In the end, such quirky ideas may turn out to be the best elements of a game.

Despite the many advantages of having a designer/programmer, few companies today seem to use them. When I was looking for a new job two years ago, I found no studios who were interested in hiring someone who would both design and program games. In part this may be because programmers are so rare that those a company does find need to be programming constantly and not spending half their time working on levels or writing design documents. Perhaps there are fears, again from a management perspective, that having a designer/programmer concentrates too much power and responsibility in a single individual.
But if one looks at the industry's most revered designers, one will find that a significant number of them started out as programmers - Richard Garriott, Chris Roberts, Steve Meretzky, Jordan Mechner, Dani Bunten Berry, and Tim Schafer, to name just a few. Furthermore, a similarly impressive list continue to program on their projects to this day - Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux, Ed Logg, BrianReynolds, Jason Jones, and Eugene Jarvis. I was fortunate enough to interview Sid Meier for my book, Game Design: Theory and Practice, and questioned him about how he could possibly have time to be lead designer and lead programmer on his projects when so many teams divide that position between two individuals. His immediate answer: "Well, I think they probably spend half their time talking to each other, which is something I don't have to do."

The breakout critical and commercial success of Roller Coaster Tycoon is a prime example of the perfect synergy of the designer/programmer. Chris Sawyer was not only the lead designer/programmer on the project, he was the only designer and the only programmer, making the game's development extremely reminiscent of projects from the early 1980s. It seems that Sawyer's filling of both roles gave the game its very personal feel, a unique vision that is a huge part of the game's appeal.

Of course, few commercial games are small enough in technological and gameplay scope to be developed by a single person, but having a designer/programmer on the team can be a boon for any project. Though it's indisputable that many great games have been designed by people who have never programmed, it appears that designer/programmers have a distinct advantage at creating compelling interactive works. Game studios would do well to consider this when assembling their development teams.

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