I agree.

My issue isn't that there aren't lots of implementation detail to seemingly obvious logical manifestations of everyday objects, my issue is that the game designer is trying to make it sound like that aspect of their job is difficult. It isn't. It's possibly tedious, but it's not hard.

Now, that aside, being a GREAT game designer IS hard because the creativity necessary isn't something that can really be taught - but again, this isn't what the person in the article was referring to.

I love that "Feature Creep" is both adverbial and can be a noun. "Oh, look, it's the feature creep..." ;)

Made me laugh, and I used your analogy in another post...

Yes, and a Game Designer will know who the target audience is, the genre, and the platform (important.) It doesn't make a door any harder to design, it does make it harder to implement.

It's clear that the Game Designer was trying to say "It's not as simple as saying we have doors in the game", but it sounds a lot like someone saying (and I'm ripping off another poster here) "Being a model is like, super hard... You have to stand around all day, and then they expect you to walk... It's not like we just show up and they pay us..."

I understand, but trying to make a door sound complicated as opposed to trivially simple is a bit too far (imho.)

The issue is that Game Design isn't difficult from the technical point of view, it is difficult from the creative point of view.
Game Implementation is difficult from the technical point of view.

Anywho, I know what you mean, but it still seems a rather egregious example. ;)

I should have added that the real challenge doesn't lie with the Game Designer, it lies with the Gameplay Engineer who has to correlate the design person's wishful thinking.

Compare that to "we need to store patient data..."

Do you know what HIPAA is?
Is this going to be accessible over networks/internet?
How are you planning for archive/restoration?
How will we handle auditing?
Should it be over web services or custom server?
How are we going to manage permissions?
How do we securely persist on the client side?

Seriously? The door exercise is strenuous mentally? Anybody with actual software engineering experience will tell you that ALL software features result in design complexities, and a door in a game is pretty simplistic one - whether networked or otherwise.

EXACTLY

It's your choice, which would you prefer, the "hardships" of graduate school (LOL) or flipping burgers?

Hell, if you're worried about eating, be a bartender. I tended bar on weekends in school and the kitchen staff hooked me up all the time.

...if you don't have the means and/or resources necessary to live comfortably during that period AND you're not willing to make the sacrifices necessary otherwise - then don't go.

Seriously, wtf is up with people thinking that they should get everything they want all the time?

Agreed, this is known to just about anyone with an interest in nuclear proliferation issues, or the history of post 1948 Israel.