How to find a developer for your idea while protecting yourself?

#1 Hi Blake -

This is one of the most common questions that new game designers ask. The truth is tough - you really can't, and even if you could (with lawyers, NDA's, big sticks, etc), you'd have a hard time doing anything because ideas themselves really can't be protected.

Here's the honest truth - ideas are a dime a dozen. They're worthless. Everyone has them, and everyone thinks their idea is special. Almost every developer or artist that you talk to is just like you - they often get ideas, and don't have the time or resources to do them.

So if an idea is worthless, what does have worth? Implementations of ideas. Since you're not a developer or artist, but in a designer role, what does that mean? It means a comprehensive and thorough design document. Something that lays out exactly, 100% what everything does, looks like sounds like, how things react, background story, characters, their background, their dogs background (etc.) And the fortunate thing is, as an implementation, your design document is copyrighted. If you can present this, then you have a better chance of attracting people to your project. Not only that, but you'll have a better chance of finishing also.

#2 Jaimi,

Thanks for the response first of all. I'm not very good with getting my thoughts across but you figured out exactly what i was trying to ask. Basically I have the whole gameplay, design, and even the market figured out(in my head not on paper yet). So if I understood you right all it takes for me to protect myself is to have a complete document of everything that is in the game. Then once i present the document to a developer, they could not just kick me out the door and develop the game(or a similar game) without me getting an agreed on share of the revenue. And I would be able to take legal action if they "screwed me over".

#3 Not to offend, only to inform and offer additional consideration, check out #12: www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson24.html

Quote:I'm not very good with getting my thoughts across

This will absolutely KILL you and your idea or at best stretch out your development time to the point that your team practically gives up and mutinies or runs away. Lack of content and direction are the biggest hurdles I face when working with the idea person. I respect creativity but if you can't communicate your idea then you'll end up with project drafts that are not what you intended and waste everyone's time. It's terribly frustrating for everyone involved.

The advice given by Jaimi McEntire is priceless. Print it out. Read it. Believe in it. Just do it.

Quote:It means a comprehensive and thorough design document. Something that lays out exactly, 100% what everything does, looks like sounds like, how things react, background story, characters, their background, their dogs background (etc.)

#4 @Blake
There are two basic roles in game development, artist and programmer. If you're not either one of these then that means you must be the 'idea guy' and this is probably the worst position to be in. The reason for this is simple, it doesn't take any effort at all to generate ideas, as Jaimi states, but both artists and programmer invest countless manhours of labor (building and testing) to produce viable results. Its been my experience that because of this dynamic artists and programmer tend to have little respect for game designers.

So when you go to negotiate with contractors who will be building your dream game you ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE a design doc that is comprehensive in its description and professional in its presentation. Anything less is an indicator to your contractors that you're not really serious about pulling the project through. This will often lead to the bailouts and mutinies that Steven mentioned.

Trust is another issue, just as important as having a complete design doc. If you don't already have a good reputation by name then all you have to go on is trust. Even an ironclad NDA is no real substitute for solid trust. Both the client and the contractor must trust that the other is sincere enough to follow-thru with the committment they make. If either of them fail in that it results in bad reputations and pretty soon everyone here finds out where you stand, whether you're a good-guy or bad. So whatever you do in the future always try to make good on your commitments and deliver a solid design doc for the contractors to follow.

#5 Thanks for the response Steven. I'm not at all offended by your response. I see exactly where you are coming from. That was just poor spur of the moment wording on my part though. What I meant was if i'm asking a question about something, it sometimes is not exactly the same thing I have in my head because of wording and how the other person interprets it. Although most of the time the question still gets answered just with different terms than I used. When I said my game idea, I actually meant the complete document or implementation. I'm just not fimiliar with all the legal or technical terms.

As far as the document goes. I should be able to give a presentation that dosn't lack quality, content, or direction. I have a little bit of knowledge of sales and communication with clients from my time working for a direct mail company as a programmer/scripter where I had to communicate with clients on a daily basis and even had to help put together a presentation for a new technology that we were beginning to offer. And once our salesperson made the sale to one of our clients, I had to go an give a complete overview of the system that was going to be in use.

And thanks for the link to that website too. I haven't read over the whole thing yet(gonna go print it out in a second), but I did take a look at #12 like you suggested. I am just asking for the direction I should go about in protecting it as much as possible since i've never really dealt with this before. I'm not scared to the point where I'm not going to tell anyone or something like that; I just know that I can't go contact a developer and just simply tell them my idea and not end up getting screwed over if it is a good idea.

Honestly I never thought much of my game ideas until about a week ago. I was laying in bed one night after looking at the top selling games on XBox Live and saw that Uno was one of the top sellers. Seeing that completely changed my view/mindset on how to make a successful game. Well later that night (I'm pretty much unable to sleep when something is on my mind) I thought of a basic idea for a game. What was it? Dominos for XBox Live. Well I spent the rest of the night thinking about it until i finally passed out. The next day I got online to look into it a little more and found this:

http://www.xblah.net/2008/04/oflc-watch-domino-master-and-beatn.html

That was pretty exciting for me to find because I had absolutely no idea there was a dominos game for XBox Live in the works already. That showed me I was capable of thinking of a good idea for a game that could actually materialize. Well good news...if you're still awake/reading this....i'm done!

#6 N R Bharathae,

Thanks for the response. I'm nothing less than 100% commited to this or I would not have even thought about starting this thread. I've been a TGE indie license owner for about a year and a half and never really taken my thoughts seriously enough to even think about bringing this topic up much less posting on this forum. Once I do give my presentation, and if it is a good enough game design that someone wants to develop it, then I'm willing to do everything I am able to do to help in that process as well.

ETA: I'm going to post a blog about myself so everyone can get to know me enough to see where I'm coming from and what my level of commitment is. I should have it up sometime in the morning or later tonight and I'll post here to say when it is up incase you want to read it before you reply to my post.

And thanks again for all of the advice so far!

#7 Here's a link to my first blog post. It's kind of lengthy and only part of my...uhhh...post high school bio(with the rest to come soon in another 1 or 2 blog posts). I figured this is the least I could for people offering me advice to let them know that I'm not just trying to waste their time. So if you want to get an idea of who I am then feel free to read my blog post.

www.garagegames.com/blogs/85928/15205

Thanks!

#8 As for documentation and being a "Designer" I must disagree

as for "ideas are anyones"

Absolutely must disagree, and redefine "Idea guy" while I am at it.

Yes anyone can have an Idea, and many do, "hey lets make a shooter...umm with guns"

Someone had ideas to make doom, quake, halflife, etc it wasn' t just new code and new graphics, or we would be playing doom 33, someone had a "heart" a feel an "IDEA" there are 'ideas' and there are "IDEAS" Fully formed that come to life, and if you think that is dime a dozen...sure (look at the game market of hits) but if you think its easy, look at all the coders who start projects that sell poorly or not at all (again game market) and thats not all the programmers/graphic artists faults.

Everquest is so not visually stunning or unique yet it did something recently to "win back" players...basically it took ideas from other MMO's, (we can argue that if you like, but they did) and incorporated them along with ideas of their own.

Systems and ways of doing things, those kinds of Ideas are what I am talking about. Anyone can say "lets make a hot chick who shoots things" and still get away with it, but will get blamed for ripping off any number of former "hot chicks with Guns" Lara for instance.

Can you think of an Idea why a Female would be a reasonable hero in a way that would drive a game with average graphics/code? If so, and its good thats Gold.

If you can't, you got a tomb raider/parasite eve (fill in the bank) knock off.

Yes I think anyone who is HERE to buy the engine surely has Ideas, and probably good ones too.
I don't think many coders said, Hey I am bored...I know I will go write a game...even though I have no ideas...same for Graphic Artists.

But can the Designer, the Artist, the Coder Bring it to life?


Be an Idea Guy (Or Girl) awesome...but as with the above by Jaimi, bring it to life as a Document, really offer the team something, don't just say "I was the first to think of a guy a girl a gun and a peacock, now make the game and make me rich."

Give them something so fleshed out and wonderful they say...OH Crap! I wanna code and bring that to life!

If you have passion for your ideas and as stated above once again, the trust of the people you work with, you can pour your heart out to them, as well as your mind.

If you have no trust you just got a business deal...and as you know, there are always loopholes there.

Ideas are Seed, one can't really say they are worth "nothing" (disagreeing with earlier post) because properly planted even the tiniest seed becomes mighty.

Now whether you like the taste of the fruit that grows is another matter ;)

#9 Like the others have said, yes, the ideas are the most important part of a great game, but ideas are simple, and ideas are cheap. If you expect to get anything back from your game you'll need to be more than just the idea guy. You'll need to really get in there, write up a great and detailed design document, and guide the programmers and artists to your vision.

Like this quote from the Sloperama site.

Quote:I have heard that a friend of Frank Herbert (author of Dune) asked Herbert to author the friend's idea and split the profits 50/50. Herbert refused, even though the guy was a good friend -- Herbert's reply was basically that ideas are easy; the writing is the hard part. Think about it for a minute -- would YOU want to have a friend come up to you, tell you a few sentences, then have you spend months hunched over a keyboard turning his few sentences into the Great American Novel? I doubt it. If you /did/ spend months writing that book, would you want to give half of the money to that guy? I don't think so.

Not much else I have to add here that hasn't already been said.

#10 Fully agreed, just saying sometimes you find someone who can code all day long but can't come up with a good idea, or develope it (and thats the key, Develope it.

#11 Thanks for the input everyone!

I'm currently putting my design document together for this game and will update as the process moves along. Maybe my game idea/design will get picked up by a developer, maybe it wont, but I'm sure I will learn a lot of valuable information during this process that will at least help me come up with better game designs in the future.

#12 Idea guys are pretty much non exsistant in small projects, its usually just artist and programmer combo, usually with some combined design knowledge. To be honest, learn to program, learn to do some 3d/2d art, or save up some cash to hire people with the previous talents, youll be hard pressed to find people who will stay for longterm through the project if you don't understand there craft fully, especially in a lead / design role.

And to add to that, more you understand about the process of creating assets and code, better designer you will be, you will be able to build designs with the limitations of the programming environment/graphical limitations in mind.

#13 Idea guys aren't non-existent on small projects. They are there, but they are usually wearing other hats as well. Because everyone has ideas, and with the ton of ideas floating around people's heads, some of them are great ones. And some of the great ones are even do-able. Many are not, but that's why they're so cheap. Ideas are literally a dime a dozen. It is not the idea that counts nearly as much as the implementation of the idea. Sure, there are great ideas behind great games, but the reason that those games exist is because those ideas were implemented.