Game Design Evolved

This week's episode of Players Only explains how pros stay on top of the game of designing games.

Behind every great game, there’s a great game designer. And like great directors or artists, it’s vision and inspiration that drives them to create. On this week’s episode of Players Only, we sit down with some of the industry’s most revered leaders to find out what makes them tick, what they’ve learned, and what fellow designers they most admire.

“If you’ve looked at any of my titles, from A to B it was always about making things bigger,” explains Chris Taylor, creator of Total Annihilation and founder of Gas Powered Gamnes. “Now it’s actually about making it more fun, about making the experience easier to get into, more persistent. Or more fun in a shorter period of time.”

And with user-generated content coming to the forefront of game design, will there always be a place for game designers? Not surprisingly, the pros answer with an emphatic yes.

“My history approach to game design has been delivering long experiences,” says Lorne Lanning, co-founder of Oddworld Inhabitants. “My learned approach has been figuring out how to design the right type of tool sets for people to create their own experiences.”

Digital Trends’ video series Players Only debuted last year, earning critical acclaim by offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the video games industry, through the eyes of the people running it. The new season runs August 17 through September 28, with new episodes debuting ever Monday. Game Design: Raising the Bar is available immediately.