Mike Birkhead, who’s worked on God of War: Ghost of Sparta and the recent Mortal Kombat, says that nobody gives a damn about your game idea.
“A designer that locks himself away has made two mistakes. One, as I’ve already stated, is that he misses out on great ideas from all around him. Second, and more important, is that designers require honest and consistent peer review.
Designers, when first starting out, always make this mistake I was no exception. They hold onto their ideas until they are seemingly perfect; like Gollum they hold their precious close, and woe onto he who criticizes it. I call this Ugly Baby Syndrome, for just as no one likes to be told their baby is ugly, so does the designer who coddles his idea hate to be criticized.”
Birkhead later goes on to say that ideas get cut all the time and that no idea is precious. He’s right that even good ideas can become great in a collaborative arena, but on ruling out individual ideas with minimal outside input (yes, even ones like these), he’s prescribing a way that can choke out interesting individual expression. Birkhead’s method wouldn’t allow for games like Space Funeral, which is worth playing, flaws and all.
– Filipe Salgado