What skill is the most important for a game developer?

Vote your opinion, reply some other skills that I have missed on the poll.

 

Patience.

 

Wow cool, but can you make an example when this skill is necessary?

 

All of them. Plus lots of others you missed such as marketing. Pick whatever suits you best and focus on that. Team up with others for the rest (or buy assets).

 

Insanity. Obsession. Stubbornness. Unjustified optimism.

Those sorts of things.

 

Perseverance.

 

I was going to say persistence. ( wccrawford beat me by .00005 seconds )

As an soloist I would say programming is the most important out of the one listed, with designing a close second. Sound and art can be acquired if needed. If your teaming up then they are all important. (This is all from a noob viewpoint. Don't put much weight into what I say)

 

Doesn't "patience" sum these up much better?

I'm having trouble finding examples of where it is not necessary in gamedev.

What makes you say that, or rather why do you think programming is more important than gamedesign, to make a fun game?

 

Desgin: where all things start, include rewarding system, concept...
Programming: how the game is possible to exist.
Art/animation: what the game looks, this will be all we can see. Some games are highly rated for good graphic.
Sound: not so important but also a must have. Some games are highly rated for soundtrack.

 

All the time but especially during the tasks you hate the most.

 

Patience is normally considered a virtue. Game dev seems to require one to be a little unhinged. Hence my choice of terms.

 

A little unhinged. Yes.

Full Unhinged. No.

So keep taking your meds guys.

 

Well I'm on the third section or so of Jesse Schell's book, so...

And really, that's the foundation. You can hire someone to write code ("Available for freelance coding in 2017") and still say, "This is my game." You can hire someone to do the art and still say, "This is my game." You can hire someone to compose the music and still say, "This is my game."

You can't hire someone to come up with the game and still say, "this is my game."

Alternatively, think about Hideo Kojima, Cid Meier, Cliff Beszinski, Will Wright, Amy Hennig, Tetsuya Nomura, etc. None of these people are known for their programming, graphical, or musical skills.

 

Ignorance and self-confidence.

 

When you're about to give up on making a game.

 

Perseverance is my vote as well with a close second of loving to learn & improve. The two together are very powerful.

 

none of the options you listed, no matter what you are trying to do, its always good to have patients and above average problem solving skills. On both the art and logic side of games, things are just a lot of smoke and mirrors and it takes some creative thinking to build your idea given a set of limitations.

 

ignorance of how hard creating fun is and self-confidence to overcome the consequences of ignorance

 

Mad skillz.

 

Well now I get it, this term is not really fit though.

 

The skills of being able to a) not bite off more than you can chew b) clean your plate

 

The skill to get the job done with balance of amount of work and attitude? Oh yes so patience is really powerful here.
Tbh, I dont always get hyped to work on a game, and when i feel bored, i just delete the whole thing. But then I feel guilt. Lol

 

Why is procrastination never on these lists? I am very good at it.

 

i was going to list it, but never got to it yet

 

I simply meant that, as an individual hobbyist, I can design the greatest game ever made in my head or on paper, but without knowing how to program it in to the computer it will never see the light of day. So from my perspective programming would be more important. If I already knew how to program I would probably say game design, since that is probably the most important element.

You will notice I gave equal weight to it when working as a team member.

Please note, again, just a noob here, don't really pay attention to what I say

 

I'm pretty sure that game design and programming are equally important, especially since they can't function without each other

 

Well, arguably programming follows game design.

"I'm going to program a game!"
"I'm going to make graphical art for a game!"
"I'm going to make music for a game!"

All require something...

We're all noobs here, just more or less so of one. -sage sayings from me

 

Sure, there will always be a chicken and egg problem but the solution requires both. Not even sure why this not obvious or why I'm even participating.

 

Obviously sound! :3

But all skills matter, which one is more important depends on what the game focuses on.

 

I was the one with the idea but wasn't able to program it, simply ask for help, or sell your idea.

 

You have to be obsessed.

 

I suppose Time Management should be considered but probably nobody wants to mention while it on the forum.

 

It was mentioned once.

 

Where's blind luck?

You forgot blind luck.

 

Writing on forums?

 

Luck = make yourself noticed by a famous youtuber

You could make your own luck by building hype long enough so youtubers might notice you.

Or have your very own millionaire marketing budget.

 

Pfft. Animation obviously - cause static objects are boring - regardless how great they are designed or programmed.

 

Parenting

Because successfully creating content is basically like raising children. It pukes on you for years and in the long run you'll regret doing it wrong, but its pretty great when you do it right.

 

You mean the only people who have a clue how to do it right are those that have never tried it?

 

A proper sense of scope. Aka the ability to know mmos take more than three weeks to make.

 

ZING!

 

I vote for Googling

 

Hahaha, I didn't expect so many parallels.

 

You probably need all the 4 categories otherwise you got a boring buggy, ugly cacophony of a game. You need at 1 least one those categories to be really great and the others to be good enough.

 

little ignorance is an underestimated skill . In my day job (a job in which innovation is a crime) I have noticed a pattern.
juniors are afraid to face the situation.
mid-seniors (the arrogant ignorant) do marvelous things among all the catastrophes they cause.
seniors become afraid again.

 

"efficiency" using your time wisely, and figuring out the best way to use your resources

You must be efficient if you want to be a successful game developer.

 

I've linked that a bunch of times already but I think it's one of the best talks on that topic that I've seen so far and I keep thinking about it and how I could improve my dev workflow to be more efficient.

 

An excellent common sense presentation. Pretty much agree on it all (didn't watch it all but agreed on parts I watched).