The Power Of Experience

In game design, what distinguishes a good designer from a great designer is not creativity. In fact, creativity is a prerequisite for the gig in the first place. If one is not creative, they should not be in the line.

The distinguishing factors are in fact influence and experience. A veteran and a newbie may well come up with the exact same creative idea and flesh out every spec that the idea needs in order to get implemented. Yet more often than not, the veteran's idea will come out closer to the original vision than the newbie's. This is where influence and experience come in.

As the adage goes, a designer's only as good as her relationship with the team. If the team hates the designer, they will be quite well incentivized to not implement exactly what the designer wants. It may not be an unprofessional attempt to sabotage the project since they would suffer for it as well, but it would come in the form of dislike for the designer bleeding into dislike for the idea in general. Alternatively, the sheer reputation of a designer might hold some sway, but that will only go so far if everything else about them is downright repulsive. No influence, no implementation. 'nuff said.

Then comes the experience. Even if the designer's absolutely influential, it does not mean that the team will be able to get the ideas out at first pass. Misimplementation is just one possible problem, but easily spotted. If it doesn't match, it's wrong. The other is having an inferior foundation, which is by far a more insidious issue. It is very easy to charge towards milestones while paying little heed to the pipeline and tools used for future iterations. Eventually, the inferior foundation will make itself known, as the even slightly increased delay between iterations will add up over time. It must be noted that few things are ever done right on the first pass, and every additional delay in each iteration will be multiplied by the dozens if not hundreds or thousands of iterations before a feature is finally shipped.

Considering this, it should be clear that while talent will be what distinguishes equally experienced and influential designers, it plays a much smaller role than what many beginner handbooks seem to be pushing. Not everyone can be exquisitely talented, but anyone who pays attention to what is going on can become somewhat more influential and certainly more experienced.