I'd rather be a game designer+artist, because I think girls are more into that kind of thing.

Yeah, but to really get girls you need some skills, like nunchucks or bow hunting.

Mmm not me
Designer+Programmer more clever guys, less hippie "blah blah"
Like Mr. Gilbert here and others freaks

But is your negative stereotype of an artist more obnoxious than my negative stereotype of a computer programmer?

This comic here by programming's golden boy XKCD exemplifies my negative stereotype of programmers. The guy on the podium is made to be a straw man so that someone in the audience can be sarcastic at him. Sarcasm itself is a weak enough attack, but coupled with a straw man, any validation for sarcasm is lost and you're left with nothing but a kind of psychopathic bitterness. Sarcasm is not justified, or even clever, when you're being sarcastic at someone you just made up, and yet the 'person in the audience' obviously thinks he's the cleverest of all of them.

This kind of 'personality malfunction' I've encountered enough times in clever computer types to think of it as more or less a trend. People like Mr. Gilbert are the exception to the rule, but it's held true enough times that I avoid I.T. professionals more than any other people. I do think programmers can be more clever and witty than artists, but I've never been dismissed and patronised and generally snarked at by artist-types as much as I have by programmer-types.

I didn't know PCs don't generally have Firewire ports, okay? I'd been working with Macs for a long time. For asking how many Firewire ports a particular PC had, was I really deserving of a long, slow look followed by a disdainful 'no'? Was it really too degrading a thing to clarify my confusion in a friendly and helpful manner? Gawd.

I was being sarcastic
:P

Ah, man, now I look like a jerk who looks like he has a grudge against programmers. You were supposed to rebut me with your negative stereotype of artists. I'd share my own negative stereotype of artists, but then I'd look like a jerk who has a grudge against programmers and artists and who talks to himself.

"I look like a jerk who looks like he..."

Yeah... I should add a few years to that literary masterpiece I have in the works.

Waiiiit!! You win
I really ment what I said at first, only that put the sarcastic thing because of the sarcastics things that YOU said:

"Sarcasm itself is a weak enough attack" and
"sarcasm is not justified, or even clever, when you're being sarcastic at someone you just made up, and yet the 'person in the audience' obviously thinks he's the cleverest of all of them. "

see? I love sarcasm, and programmers more than artist. And Ron :D
Not all is lost :P

(And... I've got the courage and skill of a master swordsMAN, but don't say man to me because soon you'll be wearing my sword like a shish kebab! ¬¬)

Your English is impeccable as always, I can really understand what you're saying. What do you mean by hippie "blah blah"? Why are programmers more clever than artists? Because you say so? Because you're Ron Gilbert's stalker fangirl and he's a programmer?

UFF
It was a joke, ok? I don't believe in stereotypes and programmers aren't more clever than artist.

My english sucks, YES, because my native language is another and I do what I can to talk with you. I know it could be really annoying, sorry. Anyway, the "blah blah hippie" thing was an image of a hippie saying nonsense things... another joke.

<joke>
And I'm not exactly a stalker fangirl, the proper term would be religious fanaticism cultist
</joke>

With all due respect, Sir, I am of the opinion that Game Designer+Artist is a better combination. Let me elaborate. Shortly. Before I hit the pillow.

Design is an artist's discipline. It is mostly concerned with creative choices. Programming is just the tool to achieve the goal. A means to an end.

It takes an artist to create a fully-fledged world of wonder that is fascinating. And not many can do this, not many have the right guts to deliver. Whereas programmers are interchangeable.

But in my humble opinion, you are close to a Game Designer+Artist+Programmer. It's just that your artistic abilities lie in conceptual thinking, in dreaming up a story and a world, and in writing funny dialogue.

There are some astonishing film directors working today. But some of them, like Baz Luhrmann, openly confess that they can't draw storyboards. He's more of a conceptual director who hires talented directors of photography and storyboard artists to flesh out his ideas.

There also are great Art Directors and Creative Directors at Advertising Agencies who cannot draw well or even use the computer. They are conceptual thinkers who know when they see something great that fits the idea.

To sum it up: you don't have to be able to draw well or have Photoshop skills to be considered an artist. Which makes you a Game Designer+Artist+Programmer.

I completely disagree. Programming a large system is an exercise in creativity, organization, and consistency. A code monkey may only know how to plug Java factories together, but a programmer is an artist.

Roger Ebert disagrees strongly with you. Programming is NOT art. It's following rules.

Roger Ebert is an idiot.

Demoscene programmers of the 4kb scene would like to speak to you.

This sounds, oddly, like the old Scientist vs Engineer debate.

To recap:
The "scientist" comes up with new creative ideas, while the "engineer" is just some monkey cobbling "things" together from pre-invented ideas.

Where it falls apart is that many really good scientists get their totally new creative ideas from playing with cobbling existing things together, and the really good engineers know how to creatively put together just the right things in the right new way to make something magical. Yes, there are also ivory-tower scientists and engineers with the creativity of a damp rock, but they are the unreasonable artists and code-monkeys analogues.

A good programmer has a lot in common with a good engineer. He knows how to put things together so they work to specifications. A great engineer also has a lot in common with a great programmer, they both can put things together in unexpected and beautiful ways that their lesser brethren (for wont of expertise or creativity) cannot.

As a programmer I find your post highly insulting.

If you truly think programming and program design is merely "a means to an end" and "programmers are interchangeable" then you don't know shit about programming, that's for sure.

As a normal person, I find your face highly insulting.

I agree with the others; if you truly think that programmers are interchangable you've never coded anything.   Programming itself is an art form; the more proficient programmers can definitely tell when a piece of code or an algorythm is beautiful.  

Donald Knuth's discussion on Programming as an Art:

http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html

Paul Graham is a god.

As a programmer+artist I disagree. Rendering skills are just as frequently used as a tool to an end.  Just ask the 3D modeler that has to make a barbie model that has exact breast dimensions for a tank top that must be whatever the rgb version of barbie pink is. Or the outsourced texture artist that has to have all of his work to match the lead artist or concept artist's vision.  I have a BFA in painting and will soon have an MS in game programming and consider myself pretty good at both, but I find just as much creativity in trying to DESIGN software or hack advanced lighting in real-time as I do painting.

I say programmer. Better an ugly game than no game at all.

Designer + Programmer. You can always hire someone to do your art, and while you can tell a programmer how "jump" should work, you can't really just say "no no, use 0.5f, it feels better." Much easier to describe an idea visually (for me at least) than anything else.

It really depends on the circumstance, and the scale at which you're working.

If I was a game designer working alone, or with a very small team, I'd rather have the programming knowledge myself and be able to hire an artist. Ultimately, I could prototype the gameplay mechanics with boxes, and plug in art assets later--"the red box hits the green box with the blue box" isn't as visually arresting as "Guybrush stabs LeChuck with his Voodoo Sword," but it's proof of concept and still lets you get a "feel" for the mechanics.

On the other hand, for a big-budget, large-team game, I might prefer having the art skills. If you're trying to sell a group of people on your vision for a world, or to communicate to people the experience you're envisioning in your head, the ability to get that out onto paper would be invaluable--and someone else's art will never quite match what's in your head.

I'm not actually sure whether or not you can design a game without being a programmer at some level, though. You certainly don't have to be a John Carmack-style nuts-and-bolts "here's how the graphics driver interacts with the GPU hardware, and how can we take advantage of that" programmer, but at some level with game design you're defining the mechanics of a world, and that takes the kind of problem-quantification that programmers base their careers around.

I completely agree with your point of view.

What about us Game Designers+Writers? Can only draw stick figures, can't program in Flash, but we can write that kickass proposal that'll blow the socks off the upper management types so you can get the budget you need in the first place.

I think this is the best answer, so far. I personally fall into the disallowed and unholy designer+artist+programmer category. I'm here to tell you it is virtually worthless to be Pretty Good at Everything Except Selling (TM). The most successful game designers I have ever worked with fall into a category more like designer+salesperson+politician. Unless you (firstly) get the finance department and (secondly) everyone else on the team to be super excited about your game design, it will ultimately go nowhere.

Recently, I've read an article by Chris Hecker and Jonathan Blow (found here: http://chrishecker.com/New_Year%27s_Resolutions_for_Game_Industry_Newbies) which caused some disagreement between the two. In their own "five resolutions," the fifth one happens to be "Learn to Program" and the comment reads as follows (this is for tl,dr; crowd): "Learn to program. Yes, I mean even if you don't want to be a programmer. The heart of games is interactivity, and interactivity is about algorithms and systems, and code is how you teach the computer to do these things."

Since I agree with this statement, it's certainly worth citing a classic text by Chris Crawford, published in 1982. I'm not a videogame designer, but I still consider the text important for anyone dealing with interactive media. The quote in question comes from Chapter 4: "Every art form is expressed through a physical medium. The control and manipulation of this physical medium is a technical problem that the artist must master before she can express herself through it. [...] So too must the computer game designer thoroughly understand the medium with which she works. The computer offers special possibilities and imposes special constraints on the designer." Full text has been kindly preserved online (legally) at http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html

Historically, the very limitations of the medium has managed to evolve gracefully into mechanics and even stories (I find that this tends to hold true for all digital arts). Unrestrained imagination may be useful as a method to obtain some excellent ideas, but the ability to conceptualize the interaction between the man and the machine are far more challenging and difficult without an understanding of the gears that put it all in motion.

Persons completely ignorant of formal logic (at the very least) would most likely create poor documents which will have to be interpreted and re-written by the programmers to make any practical sense. Programmers, on the other hand, could actually implement the games they envision, although with ugly or primitive art. It's important to note that the latter WILL ACTUALLY CREATE A GAME.

Bottom line: if you wish to write a piece of music for a bassoon, you don't have to play the bassoon, but you have to know enough about the instrument in order to avoid obvious pitfalls. If you're a designer of video games that knows nothing about coding, you're actually trailing behind  Ron's sketches above (or at least their function in the design). He may not be an "artist," but I could tell which one was a gun and which one was the sword. (Consider the old design documents of Sierra On-Line's Al Lowe - www.allowe.com - as an example of a "middle ground," although Lowe was a programmer.)

Ha!  Don't forget apostrophe muckin' things up in its own special way.

The magic is with the art, not the code.  And that can mean design but mostly means a/v and storytelling.  So I'm in your camp.  I try to butter up the artists early and often.

I think I'd rather be a game designer+pastry chef, because that would be totally badass.

Tricky one. Both have their pros and cons.

I think I rather be Game Designer + Artist, because I think visual style is a great part of telling the story; you can hire an artist but if there's really no correlation with the story and the kind of spirit of the game and the narrative and all that you as writer meant to get across, it's no good. Being able to tell your story visually as well as textually gives you full control (or most control) of the sensations your game will communicate. And, as Karl pointed out, a programmer is interchangeable (although I don't agree there's no creativity to programming, it's quite the opposite in my opinion).

Jason said that you can't get the game to work as you had imagined unless you are a programmer, and that's also valid, but I think there is little room for error when getting someone else to figure out your original intentions in programming, which is not the case for art design.

fco, take a look at early Braid graphic design and then tell us you would play THAT to the end, however brilliantly written the concept and the code may be.

@Nacho and Karl: I think that the whole "interchangeable" comment is cheating the original question. Ron states that one IS a designer. That's a given - the vision exists, whether technical skill is present to make that a reality. (I know multiple artists, none of whom can animate, and would you play Braid at all if nothing was animated and simply slid around like blocks?)

To me, the question appears to be asking if a Game Designer is better suited for the job if he/she is influenced by his/her technical background or visual/artistic one. The Braid example above shows that a deep exploration of game mechanics can be dressed up post-fact, so the interchangeability you refer to is present on both fronts. But I still don't see how an artist would conceive a gameplay mechanic without at least some awareness of code.

Google Reader didn't mind your plusses. There's no defeating Google, it's smarter than pitiful humans.

To hell with google.

The chinese beg to differ.

Fuck google. Their "Don't be evil" mantra is bullshit. Look what they did with the data they collected from your personal WLANs.

being game designer+artist would do better for me, as coding is not my talent. on the other hand, art is also not my talent, but i could do preliminary sketches fine.
what really would rock is being game designer+musician. doing game design and writing a soundtrack looks totally awesome, keeping in mind that former is a soul-extracting, brain-electrocuting, just plain hard job with no sleep for weeks, and the latter is almost pure fun and happiness - to me, at least.

Game designer + artist for me. I can draw a good bit and I'd rather paint the picture on the canvas and let the professionals scan the thing, to speak in simple terms.

I'm a game designer+programmer, which is helpful in my job as it's very scripting heavy. This does cause some limitation in personal projects - though thankfully blocky ugly 8 bit graphics can sometimes be seen as pretty cool.

I have a colleague who is a designer+artist - he makes the most amazing mockup screenshots of designs that make me pretty jealous, as they make it easy for him to get his ideas across quickly in a way that excites people about the potential end result.

Though I guess I have more ability to quickly mock up a playable prototype of a design. One that has awful graphics.

Ew, I feel SO identified there. I am an artist and I have always felt the utter need to watch my characters running around my scenes and playing with them. I also permanently have like a dozen game ideas buzzing around my head, but... I just suck at programming.

No matter how many times I've tried, I have never learnt how to program, and I guess I never will. Maths are my worst enemy, so my chances are either teaming up with a programmer, or just work for others. It's a bit frustrating. The only chance I have to play with my artwork right now seems to be cutting them out and using them as dolls (since full-time artist jobs are quite scarce right now)!

I prefer the combination game programmer + serial killer.

Designer + Programmer is better, I think.
I'm on the Designer + Artist camp. I can create great mock-ups. But I never went beyond BASIC or some basic Javascript, so I can't turn my ideas into something functional :(

Man! I have greta ideas for the iPhone, but I feel that "begging for code" to my friends is pathetic, so I guess those ideas are never going to see the light of day... :(
(And yes, I'm pretty sure my ideas are GREAT, but whatever.)

Which is better?

Yes.

Ok, before I can answer, I need to ask: What defines an artist?

"On who does art!"

So what is art you ask? That's easy too, that's defined by "what Roger Egbert knows as art when he sees it!"

I'm a D+P and I'll have to come down on that side. You can have a game with stick figures, but you can't have a game with "Hello World". If you can't actually craft a cgame yourself, you're less of a cgame designer. IMO. YMMV.

This is pretty academic though, today we have design TEAMS right?

Geez this is a giant game of Designer, Artist,  Programmer - which is not entirely like Bear, Hunter, Ninja, but could be conformed to Rock, Paper, Scissors if it wasn't for the logic that Paper just plain can't be rock.

I digress...

Artist + Programmer, that way you can use your ninja-like programming while seducing the audience with the coolness that is your art and you have someone else be the game designer so they get all the credit but you can have all their money by being the sole source of their production.

I for one am excellent at Adobe and former Macromeaningless products but also slice through programming butter with Visual Studio. Let someone have the ideas - you can be creative and eccentric!

I originally rolled a Designer then added a level or two of Artist because I was going for the Level Designer Prestige Class. However over the next few levels I neglected Artist and started levelling up programmer out of a sheer need to be able to make games myself.

These days my day job is one of Designer/Programmer but I still have a few levels of Artist I can't get rid off and occasionally add a new one.

However if I were to respec and could only take 2 classes it would have to be Designer/Programmer. If there is no code then there is no game and all the artwork in the world won't ever change that.

After all you can make a game without art but you can't make a game without code. I've also worked on games where we made a game with both art and code but no design. They were terrible.

I don't think one is better than the other. Any game do need code and art. Actually, I think you should have both game desigeners+artists and game designers+programmers, this way you can always have different points of view regarding any giving project, and coming with new ideas from different places. The programming is the infrastructure of the game, but that doesn't mean that all the design should come from the "plumbing" of the game.

This is the same dilema that we have on civil construction: a building needs both an architect and an engineer to be beautiful, safe and practical.

A crappy looking prototype will never make it. Lots of concept art might make it.

by "make it" I mean get $$$ to finish the game.

Hmm!
I'm actually a Programmer+Inventor/Designer+Writer+Musician/Composer+Artist+misc. other stuff, more or less in that order and at varying levels...

I'd say that for a Game Designer there is higher value in knowing Programming as it'll be invaluable during development. (you'll hardly have time to be the Game Designer and Artist, but you'll have time to do the odd line of code or communicate ideas with the coders.)
Though it wouldn't hurt to have a Co-Game Designer with art skills as that would help during the budget hunt obviously.

Oh and Ron, if you'd like to wet your feet on Windows/Mac/Linux programming I'd highly advice looking at PureBasic http://purebasic.com
very cheap and it's a lifetime license and all 3 platforms inclusive,
and don't let the Basic part fool you, it's as fast as C, you can do asm, it's procedural, good set of built in functions, good API support, and the exe's are really tiny. (no runtime libaries or dll's needed), and a great support forum community.

Back on topic again...

If you don't know art you can still see what looks good and communicate with the artists, if you do know art then as pointed out above it's easier to conceptualize and present a game idea early so Artist skills got that edge though.

Take these two examples:

"No no! Less red on that wall there, otherwise it would look like blood!"
"No no! If you don't handle negatives for the floats then the health count could glitch real badly!"

A Game Designer+Programmer could do both those, while a Game Designer+Artist would only be able to do the first one.

This is inherently due to the nature of computers, as anything that goes on inside a computer are due to programs.
Also, programmers just like artists are also designers to some extent, artists decide what colors should play off each other or which perspective illusions to use or not. And a programmer decides the structure of the game, in what order things should be done, which extreme situations could cause issues etc.

Now if a Game Designer is neither a Artist nor a Programmer then at least they should be Game Designer+Logical so that they know that if you subtract from the health score that you might eventually hit 0 or possibly go negative and that it should be handled if it should happen.

If one thinks logically then one does not need any particular skills to be a good Game Designer.

Did you just ask Ron Gilbert if he wants to WET HIS FEET doing Windows programming? And suggested PureBasic?

Your arrogance and ignorance are astounding.

Oh wow! Name calling? How mature!

But since you asked (You did use question marks after all!) I will answer.

Wet his feet was a joke, after all Ron did mention in this very post that he's a experienced programmer so I kinda thought other readers would notice that. I guess that's what I get for holding other people to higher standards!

I never said "Windows programming", I said "Windows/Mac/Linux programming" as PureBasic source with minor changes (dependent on the program obviously)  can be recompiled on all three platforms. (not forgetting x86 and x64, and PPC on the Mac)

And finally. You may turn your nose up at PureBasic but what if it was called PureC instead, just the fact that it's based on the BASIC syntax does not make it any less professional.

Maybe I should mention that even though there is a visual designer in the package, most choose not to use it as it's preferable to just use the IDE Text/Source editor and compiler interface.
PureBasic has been used in commercial software and games.

It is not an interpreted language, it's fully compiled. And you can make 4KB (with no dependencies other than standards OS functions) programs if your really want to.

And to round this off I must say that I would never have suggested something unless I knew that he might like it or find it interesting.

PureBasic is the kind of language that you can use for large commercial projects, or simply just a quick mock up in those cases where the OS lacks a feature and you don't feel like crawling the net to find a tool with that feature. In my eyes PureBasic is the easiest "toolbox" out there that still sticks to classic procedural coding, so if your spoiled with .NET and managed languages you might find a challenge, but if your a experienced programmer like Ron, then PureBasic might be a different but familiar
face.

Now Mario Colbert, if your name is related to Stephen Colbert (the character not the person) I applaud you for staying in character.
But if not then I suggest your read up on netiquette as your second line "Your arrogance and ignorance are astounding." is actually self descriptive as well.

And did you ever consider how rude you are speaking on seemingly his behalf in such a rude and hostile way?

At worst I only manage to make myself look like a verbose elitist ass,
you o n the other hand...I'm way to polite to say what I really think, as there is a nice old saying that goes "If you have nothing nice to say then say nothing at all!"

Though looking at this reply of mine I have to admit that it might have been best to just ignore you, oh well...I can leave with Ron looking down on me for falling for troll traps...But at least I'll still have my integrity intact as I remain true to my character in what I say and stand for, and that's really what matters isn't it...Ones self image!

Your lack of humour is also astounding.

I would say it depends on the situation which one is better.

I don't work in the game industry, even though I would like to, so what I think is true mustn't be true.
In my opinion I guess it's easier to get into the gaming industry as game designer+programmer. But if you are already in the game industry, I guess it's better to be a game designer+artist.

There are alot of artist out there who create good work, but only a few get into the gaming industry. As programmer you can make your own way into the industry simply with creating a game and release it, no matter what it looks like. There are games out there with fantastic graphics, but alot of people still enjoy crappy looking flash games.

But as programmer you will never get the visual results you would like to see, even if someone else does the artistic work.

I once created a model and because I can't create skins (my stickguys have the same quality) I published it in a forum and asked for someone to skin it. I wasn't satisfied at all with the skin he created, and even though I said what I would like to be another way he didn't really understood what should be changed because in his eyes, what I said sounded like the skin he made.
Someone might say that one of us, or even booth, were to stupid to understand each other. But if you have an idea in your head, the results other do will never look anything like that. If you are lucky you get someone to make something which you consider even better than your image in the head, but that should be rare.

I would say from myself that I would be able to program, and I even did it for quite a while without having any major difficulties. But I never had the time to really learn a language to a degree whereas I could create a full game.
So with my limited knowledge about programming I would say it's easier to tell a programmer how something should work, than telling an artist how to draw the image in your head.

...and where is Monkey Island in all of this??

Calvin looks outstanding!

I'm neither an artist nor a designer, but my stick figures look very similiar to yours. It's good to see that there's at least one thing where I'm as talented as the mighty Ron Gilbert.

By the way, doesn't your "games are Art" Argument imply that people who make games (Game-designers) are Artists?
So Game-Designer+Artist = Artist+Artist,
whether Game-Designer+Programmer = Artist+Programmer
So obviously it's better to be an Game-designer+Programmer, since you  will be good at two fields instead of just one.

Ah the almighty power of logic! No One can resist it!

No.  In this context, I am using the word Artist to mean someone that draws, paints, animates, etc.  The Art in a game is not necessarily the Art of the game.

Rather be game designer that is also an artist. Because you have a bunch of pictures even if the game doesn't get made.

I'm probably not a game designer though because all my hobby game ideas are just clones of other games (in terms of mechanics). Are the programmer game designers better at designing game mechanics?

Heh! Not necessarily , there is always the oddball with no programming experience that is able to cough up the most amazing game mechanics, as I said earlier above it's all about Logic thinking.

Now a programmer or game designer+programmer are usually Logic thinking by default.

Maybe Game Designer + Programmer is wrong (sorry Ron)
Maybe it's more appropriate to call it:

Game Designer + Logical   vs   Game Designer + Artistic

It's kinda the same as Order vs Chaos.
So a Game Designer + Programmer tends to be more logic or order based than a Game Designer + (Visual) Artist which is more a mix of both.

Actually I think I'm talking myself into a corner here...

Hmm! Hey Ron, back to your posts question...
I don't think it matters at all if you are a Game Designer + Artist or Game Designer + Programmer,
one makes it easier to visualize things to others, while the other makes it easier to explain the mechanics.

As long as you have a good mix of Logic and Non-Logic (would Imagination fit as the opposite of Logic?)
then you are a good Game Designer!

(PS! No offense to Artists, but "Art" tends to be more chaotic than logical.)

Art is chaotic for those, who cant understand it. Chaos itself is an overwhelming amout of events, unable to be understood by those, being in a specifically dimension, while it could be easy understood by beings from/of other dimesions.

The text above is an improvisation of few things i thought after reading your "Oder vs Chaos".

Even Artists are constantly motivated by logical events. Now, to get an "Order" of that Chaotic mind behind the artist, you will have to make your way to research pretty much all his background or you won't be able to get the whole picture. (okay, sometimes it isn't necessary to see the whole picture).

Just saying though, since some of your words or sentences give me the feeling that, for you, talking about artists is like talking about clueless monkeys with pencils in their hands, doing whatever they CAN do, giving programmers even more work to do as they would ask for.

Last but not least, in my opinion logic is not only ONE out there. Sure there is only one mathematical logic as we know it , but then it's not entire logical itself nor it is for us little bugs in the universe.

On a side note, i apologize for not being constructive to the topic itself.

                ------------- End of Transmision-------------

It's definitely Designer + Programmer for me. I've played works by one-man developers who have made some of the best games ever. I bet more than one of you here know about Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya who created Cave Story, who wasn't that much of an artist; But I bet there's only a 10% chance someone here besides me knows of a man named ZUN. You see, his art makes Pixel's look like masterpieces, but his Touhou series of shmups(of the bullet hell kind) have a popularity that eclipses Cave Story overseas. Like Pixel, ZUN's not just  a Designer + Programmer, but also a composer. And when i say composer I mean one who's works are stellar enough to rival and even surpass the likes of Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Dave Wise.
And just HOW popular are ZUN's games? Well, there's the overabundance of fanart, the ridiculous plethora of remixes you can find on youtube just by typing 'Touhou music', and even professional-quality music videos(Marisa Stole the Precious Thing has been for many a gateway drug into the Touhou games). In a nutshell, Touhou's fanbase is unexpectingly gi-nourmous.
I hope I'm not digressing too much, but ZUN and pixel's programming, music, and design skills are so good, that the art is mostly left to the fandom.

I, personally, fall into the latter category... I can come up with awesome ideas for a game and sit there and code a nice game engine for it to run on but when it comes to art I totally fail...

I think being a game designer + programmer is the best thing really... because when you design and write your own game, but get someone else to do the graphics for you, it means you spend a lot of time over the story of the game and the way that the game PLAYS... And how it plays is one of the main things.. even if you have a game that looks good and has a good story it doesn't mean anything if it's annoying to play.. A game that has a good story and plays well is allowed to have bad graphics as long as it's enjoyable (think about old atari 2600 games, look bad but still fun to play)

The problem I forsee with the designer + artist combo is that you have to rely on someone else to make it "feel" right... Also in my experience, no offence to artists here, they seem to think a lot more about the look than the story and don't make very good "writers" because their brains don't seem geared that way. Maybe it's just the artists I know...

But anyway... I digress.. you just don't have what it takes.. no, that's not what I was gunna say! I think Game Designer + Programmer is probably the best way to go.

If an artists had designed a game that I thought was good and was happy to do the art for it himself I'd probably program the game for them but they'd have to prove it was going to be a good game to me first. if I had written a game that they could play already that I wanted them to do the art for they'd already know if the game was good ;)

It's all down to perspective :)

I'd rather be a Game Designer + Artist over Designer + Programmer, simply because I am hugely interested in visual design and storytelling.  This is kind of ironic, considering I'm currently studying Computer Science and Game Design at UC Santa Cruz (with a minor in Japanese language -- no time for art classes!).

People who make me laugh that many times must be skilled in the art of humour. Thus, you go against God. Problem solved.

I think that the right formula is: designer + programer + artist + man with the money + sponsors + girlfriend who makes cookies + karl marx's photo in the wall. That works for me, i'm pretty sure that it will work for you.

PS: Ron, you're a GREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT artist!!!

Programmer.

An artist can draw pictures and write docs all he likes, he isn't going to get the game made unless he has a team of people, and then he has to be an excellent communicator to get the exact vision out of his head.

A programmer can just do it.

A Designer+Programmer could make an awesome game that just looks crummy.  A Designer+Artist could make awesome mock-ups of a game.  So, while "better" is a very harsh word to use, the Designer+Programmer's result may look crummy, but at least it's a game.

But as to which would I rather be?  Knowing I'll never be a great programmer (having flunked out of a few college courses for it, some years ago) I'd take the route of Designer+Artist.  Not because it's "better," but because I imagine it would be "better for me."  (Not that I know much about the art creation, mind you.  I just doubt I'd be a worse pixel pusher than code monkey.)

Artist/Designers are losers. They'd be better off picking up litter along our nation's highways. At least they will after the programmers finish that "make awesome art now" button.

Is this sarcastic or are you really calling yourself a loser?

I am never sarcastic. Except for that. That was sarcasm.

Wait now I'm confused. Which company is working on the 'make awesome art button'?

I've actually already accomplished this:

http://i111.photobucket.com/albums/n151/malignityomega/Growl/ProtoShipSheet.gif

You can google pixel spaceships for more ideas on this. My method here just uses a wandering pixel.

A simple set of modular pieces can work with basic pixel art: paper dolls with pieces like "some dude" "sexy woman" "burly woman" etc, with other pieces overlaid. These are simple enough to generate with some basic constraints.

More complex painterly art would probably require some 3d algorithims - something kind of like Spore, designed to generate art. If anyone has simpler ideas on how to algorithmically make sprites that say, look like the monsters from Final Fantasy 6, I'm extremely interested.

Also: where in blazes a floating point number and it's pseudo random and increasingly inaccurate precision is the best tool for the job over fixed point types. This has been haunting me awhile now.

Here's someone who's clearly Designer+Programmer+Artist; Eric Chahi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWBV08FTXFw&feature=related

I'm a Game Designer+Artist.  I just need a team of Programmers!  How does one acquire a team of Programmers? Maniac Mansion rules!  Was Nurse Edna really based on Ron's mom?

I enjoyed and still hold the Lucas Arts adventure games as the best games I've ever played for the great stories, for the great characters, great hummor and scripts, but also for the great ART!!
Those games were no graphic benchmarks even for the computers of their time. They were very simplistic, in a technological way ( though not rudimentary ) But they were some of the Best Looking Games of their time, because they had Fantastic artists. Everything was handrawn, everything was coherent and well thoght through. They didn't need rotating 3d geometry, they had well done drawings that made me not feel bored if I was stuck in one of those games. I could stare at those screens for ours and they were always interesting.

Now you as a terrible artist, probably easily neglected those aspects. And I say that because I've seen footage from Deathspank, witch seems fun, The music is FANTASTIC, the few jokes I saw made me smile, the voice acting is good, and I have no doubt the game design and story are gonna be stellar.
Its a game I'm gonna play no matter what. But I have to say the truth. Its a shame its so darn ugly. I'm not talking about cool 3d effects, lighting, shaders and that kind of bullshit, I'm talking about engaging, cool locking scenes. The top down camera is just boring to look at. Its ok for walking around or battling, but for a dialogue they suck. Specially with huge windows popping up in the Middle of the screen blocking up the sight of basically everything even when caracters say just a few lines of text. Shit, the game is in 3d, you can put the camera at any cool angle.

The game just feels Mechanical and almost souless. Its Gamey. MI, Dott, S&M and all the others, their art really gave them a lot of personallity, and they helpd us to want to dive into that world, and belive on it. That is sertainly not gonna happen in Death Spank.

As a programmer working with game designers on a big AAA project, I'd definitely go with the coding types GD : they might have a clue of what is a game and how it is enginered.
Possibly.

I'm a programmer myself, and have recently started to do games, and even though I can't draw for shit I can still make good games. So I definitely think the designer + programmer is the right way to start. Sure it is a bit of a pain in the arse when you can't draw, but I can always explain to others what I want and they can draw it for me (has worked so far at least).

But said that I don't think either one makes you better or worse at designing games. I think being a designer is completely separate, and some people are good at it and some not so much and that has nothing to do with being a programmer or artist.

P.S. to those who said programmers are interchangeable, I hope you are being sarcastic, comments like that really confuse and trouble me.

I'm a designer+programmer, which I think works best if you're making a game that can be done with a small team, because you can develop it using your own crappy concept art. When it comes time to get funding you've got to shell out a few bucks for an artist, or twist the arm of someone who might want to work on the game if it's funded. Note, I'm not covering the scenario where a talented artist decides to help you complete your game for free, because I'm bitter.

I reckon if you're a designer+artist that helps better if you're designing a big game with a big team, and you need to story board and concept characters and worlds. All my design documents are full of images from Google Images because I lack the artistic skill to even write legibly.

i think this is like saying which one you prefer to lose? your legs or your arms? neither of them is good specially if you don´t have a team.
I can draw i can animate but i´m a complete idiot when it comes to programming i haven´t been able to learn action script 2, now i want to create a platform game on flash and i know i can make it look very good, however how i´m going to build it?? simple i can´t... so i think that neither of those options is good, if ron didn´t had access to the great graphic artist that he had when he created monkey island it would have been as frustrating as if he were as good to drawing as steve purcell but if he couldn't´t program a single line you are pretty much in the same hell, i know it.

Hi. I'm sorry this doesn't have anything to do with the post. I just wanted to post a link to a graffiti I made on facebook dedicated to my friend (Who is also a MI fan thanks to myself) and to "LeChuck revenge SE" ( Being a SE of my favorite game in the whole wide world and it looks awesome)
It's not one of my best drawings, but, its a MI one
http://apps.facebook.com/graffitiwall/show.php?rn=6559635875d61d8bc2b74812b1bbd093

I'm more of an art person. I really believe it's not about the talent. It's about what you choose to work on more.

shiramonderer.deviantart.com

From experience: a Game Designer + Programmer is far more valuable than the Game Designer + Artist. I am the Lead Artist with a company that develops casual games for Facebook and before I arrived they developed a very successful game with "Programmer Art" that funded our next set of games with professional "Artist Art". It's all about the gameplay IMO - that's what drives people to play it.

As much as I would love to create my own games, I just don't have the programming knowledge to deal with memory leaks, bugs, and anything more than 'trace ("Hello World");'.

Hell, I mean, look at Secret of Monkey Island, I'd rather sit down and play the 8-bit classic than Modern Warfare or those other "pretty games".

There is a guy who spends hours on shooping old games to look all pretty and such:

http://orioto.deviantart.com/

In an interview he came across as.... well...................

Anyway, he makes some pretty shoops.

Believe me Ron, you don't want to be a Programmer+Artist+Game designer, because that would mean you'd have to share your "little talent" as a programmer as an artist too.

Yeah, you could make games by yourself, but the result would be lacking quality in every aspect.

Being "only" a good designer ensures you'll get help of good programmers and good artists and you'll be able to create a great game, if not by yourself.

Who even wants to create a game alone?

Designer + artist is the winner, but come on, Ron, you're too modest - you're a fantastic artist! Those stick figures were priceless!

I apologise if someone has already said this. There were too many comments and I couldn't be bothered to read them all.

To me, programmers and artists are two sides of the same coin. Everybody wants to be creative, somehow, but people only generally excel in either traditional art (in the drawing/music/whatever sense) or science (maths, computer science etc.), so have to find a way to express their creativity with what they know.

Programming is a way for people who suck at drawing to be creative. It is an art form, in a way that people who are good at what is traditionally known as art rarely understand. But I digress.

In all honesty, you need both artists and programmers to make a game, I don't think it really matters which one wears the game design hat. Alone, we all sort of suck.

The "Man holding a Sword" seems also to be "Man holding a Sword and blinking" your stick men look just like mine, although the mand holding a sword would be holding it from the hilt, but thats cause i draw very sharp swords.

Ron, will you attend E3?

Game design is like sex between the two. You can be really good at one of them you just need someone else who is good at the other.

I'm a designer and programmer with little-to-no artistic skill, so I don't even need to pick hypothetically here.  :¬)

As an artist turned designer who is learning to code I can say that the answer is:

Designer+Programmer

If you can't make something interactive, all you have is a pretty picture.

Ron, this has something to do with you?

http://n4g.com/news/539624/legendary-game-designer-to-reveal-new-project-on-gttv

OMG If only!! Could it be Could it be Could it be!!!

I try to read almost all comments... and i have to say one thing.

I'm a programmer that know photoshop, 3D (3dsmax and Zbrush), Shaders I have a Wacon A4 tablet. So I'm maybe in the middle of both worlds... 70% programmer - 30% designer so....

Game Designer+Artist
Pros
- "More creative"
- More gameplay fun games (like beat'em ups)
Cons
- Dont know if this is posible
- They allways say what if...
- Erratic people
- Mac users

Game Designer+Programmer
Pros
- Know what can be done and How much time is needed, can measure a
project, priorize,  and trash some ideas easly etc...
- More mind fun game (like puzzle or Adventure games)
- Windows / Linux users
Cons
- Too much mind, they think too much.
- Less flexible


I prefer: One mind design the game (full script) and a few review it. (like a book) Better if the script is review it constantly.

A programmer design increase successful rate imo.

Programmers should be slaves of artists, as easy as that. Art is inherently divinely sexually superior to mathematics. Oh, many angry people. And me masturbating.

A good world is a word full of magnificent Art.
A bad world is the world we have now: useless technology, iPads, no Art whatsoever. This world sucks while the other doesn't.

Programmers will bend down to Art or self destruct.

I am crazy and programmers suck. Pretentious petty small minded people. I'm better than them, most certainly. Sexually. The purpose of life is being more like me and less like programmers.

give red herring to troll

I agree completely with you. Programmers are merely monkeys typing away at their computer. Most of them are fat, bald, eat pizza and chips, have no friends other than their clan from Team Fortress or Quake 3 and can only dream of having a (real) girlfriend.

Artists on the other hand are cool.

Use gopher repellent on troll

Since I want to do creative and/or writing work on some game some day, I've always been the latter, even though I dabble in art.

I guess - and I'm looking at it from a game dev point of view - that programming forces new, creative ways of thinking about certain problems. The dialogue flowcharts of adventure games comes to mind. That always struck me as a programmer's way of thinking, not an artist's.

Similarly, an artist will think of things that the programmer simply won't. It can be a little thing like adding radios to troops in the concept, which makes the programmers think, "Oh, maybe we can make the player shoot the radios so troops can't call back-up", for example; or it can be a very big thing that I can't think of, because I am not an artist.

I guess the major advantage of being a programmer is that it's much easier to do your own work than someone else's. If an artist wanted to do something new and creative in terms of gameplay (say blend Braid with Zelda), and had story, dialogue and art mapped out, it'd still be hard to find someone enthusiastic enough to wire-up the game for him and iterate. Whereas a programmer can put out a bunch of prototypes and can tell if they're fun or not, aka if it's time to hire an artist. If he wanted to make a blend of RPG, adventure and hacknslash he could code it in, see if it's fun and then make it pretty, whereas the artist only doesn't have that advantage.

But I think it's important to try and understand, as much as you can, how and why certain drawings were done in this way or that. I pay as much attention to art direction as every other schmuck who likes to draw. Similarly, I usually goof around in a game to see how it was put together (to try and see the logic of the programming). You can learn from both.

Anyways, to answer, I'll probably say designer+programmer.

As a designer/artist who spends a lot of time trying to program, I think I might have to say programmer.

And I even have my BS in game art & design. Look at me, the egg, my face...

My reasoning is simple - if you can program, you can MAKE things. You may not be able to make things hella pretty, but you can start making things happen. An artist can spend weeks drawing awesome things and making great animations, mockups, etc... but none of these things have the kind of motivational impact as a functional prototype. And by motivational impact, I mean the capacity to get people excited about working on something and excited about using it. Plus, all the drawings and design work in the world can't compare to a prototype, when it comes to finding out if something is fun/actually works.

It's for this reason I spend so much time trying to learn programming. I love design, I love art, I love games and I love interaction - so I saw this giant void in my toolbox and I'm attempting to resolve it.

The only thing I would disagree with is that artists can't program. We can. We can handle scripting and even OOP that's abstracted away from crazy scary stuff like memory management, pointers, etc... We just can't do it as well as you programmer types. That's why we have to work as a team. Then, in that sense, we have a lot that we can teach each other. :)

i have so many ideas for games, but i can't even program "hello world" in basic. some time ago i drew my game-plans in university lessons and showed it to my neighbours. they all liked it. this makes me sad and i feel a little more useless every time i think about this. :'-(

Gamedesigner by day, artist by night :D

If you want to design games, then focus on being a great game designer / world builder / story writer etc.  If you can't program then find a great programmer and if your art sucks find a great artist.  If you're great at art and/or programming but can't design a game worth crap then lend your talents to a great designer.  

If you happen to be great at 2 or more than awesome!  Thank god Ron was a great designer and programmer.  SCUMM was brilliant and his games have forever changed my life.  Based on his stick figures I'm glad he was man enough to let the art to someone else.

I happen to like programming better than art just because I'm better at programming and at an insane level I think programming is an art form.  I see people who just throw code together because it works but then I see others where the code is so elegant so beautifully thought out that it brings tears to my eyes... well that's a lie but maybe you get my point?

Programers mind: My code is better then his/hers. (No, lets face the truth: his)
Artists mind: My art is better then his/her art.

I think both on the edge of insanity.

First obviously, you don't need talent for programming. Just learn it or hire someone.
Artist? Well, you either are one or you're not. You can't learn it, so there you go. Question answered.

Just like you don't need talent to draw.  But as Ron's stick figures show us, this does not result in great art.  (Sorry Ron!)  Anyone can learn to program or to draw, but to be great at either you need talent.

Eh... everyone is born an artist. Some just stick with it.

You can hire artists far more cheaply than programmers ;)

DeathSpank for the PC?
Please!!!

Graphic Artists + Programmers are like Peanut Butter and Jelly.  So what's worse, being able to make great graphics for a game but not being able to program or being able to program but not being able to make amazing graphics. I say, just kill the frustration by uniting as a team, but everybody already knows this.

I like the response by f***er without the profanity.

Ron,

I have just seen the new trailer for DeathSpank over VG247.com...

And I have noticed that your name has disappeared..

If i remember correctly it was: Ron Gilbert' DeathSpank...

EA Effect?!?!

Corporate will do that to you. Mainstream Marketablity

Unless your name is Tom Clancy ofcourse

So, does anyone know if he works for [REDACTED] now after leaving Hothead and if he's developing [REDACTED]?

OHMEGOD. Why didn't you tell me earlier! I'm currently heading for a univesity career but I thought I can never become a game designer because I can't draw for my life. I just can't. It's inexplicable. But to answer your question, well, I can't do this either, my thoughts will just start to oscillate between a and b. Both seem to suck!
But You know whats even worse? A developer where no one can write dialogue. That's  like 98% of all games that get released.

Gamedesigner + Artist is what I want to be.

As I'm a design student it's the thing that fits me most.
That's my dream: to make incredibly designed games.

design + artist in general, but you go against the norm. I guess because in the old days, programming wasn't as easy and common. Nowadays it's easier

If you don't mind me asking, how old were you when you started programming?

You could make a Team. If you are a good Game Designer (and have some social skills), just find a great artist and a great Programmer and Voila !

That's hard. Can't I just be a programmer+artist?  Because that's what I am, I suck at design.

Interesting question. But what happens when you're a music composer and a Game Designer? :)

That's where I fell (that's where Al Lowe was too), you end up learning programming (or any kid of scripting) to get stuff done.

It's sort of a chicken and egg problem... or maybe a catch-22, without great art you don't get people interested in playing what is potentially a fun game, without programming you don't get a game.  I'm a programmer (not even a very good one), personally I'd rather be a good D+A because that is ultimately cooler :-)

In my experience the best designers are hybrids but even the Designer+Artists can do a bit of coding even if it's just a little scripting of their art tools.

Ah, now I get why you're following me on Twitter. :)

I suppose you're using cocos2d? If you have any questions I'd be happy to help.


Signed. And if you dig deeper down into the runtime functions you might be surprised how reflective that language can be.

I definitely fall in the programmer-designer category. I must be an abomination because recently I gave doing my own artwork a try. I am surprised how insanely crappy doodles can still look half-way decent. At least to me they do. For the rest of the world ... well, let's just say I fear the worst but hope for the best.

Shakespeare - Actor            Actor -   Shakespeare


Director  -   Actor  - Shakespeare    

Actor    -   Shakespeare  -    Director     etc.

Hmmmm... I am a game designer+programmer+artist+musician.
This works perfectly well as long as you just do it. You don´t think about it you just do it. You need to lock yourself up 857 hours in a small room, drink coke and eat pizza all the time. It really works as long as you are enthusiastic about what you do.
You need to share this feeling with other people to succeed and feel strong enough to continue. You need a life free of the interference of people telling you what to do for money. You need time free of the folks telling you: "Awww! This won´t work!". K, it´s absolutely clear: If you are over 30 you are busy running after every dime to make your living, busy making your family feel safe, busy keeping up old friendships, busy being attractive to women (when your wife doesn´t notice). But you have no time anymore to do what you really want to do.
So... isn´t Guybrush Threepwood even a winner after all? No job, no money, no sex, no family, no kids but.... free to do whatever he likes.
Even this miserable loser is better off than anyone of us vindicating our dreams away in the sea of "But I have to..."s.
So, Ron, lock yourself up, eat pizza, draw stick figures and one day and with a little practice they will become veritable artwork.
Be an average person or be a pirate. It´s your decision. Not even the greatest amount of money can keep you from doing this if you are willing to succeed.

BTW... do you have $5000 in spare that you could borrow me? :D

Why does everyone have to be multi-classed??? Fighter-Mage! Cleric-thief! WTF??  Programmer it is for me 18-00 :P