Nervous About Giving Away Ideas

[Alfonso Crawford]

I've got alot of ideas for games, but I can write about them far more quickly than build them. I was thinking of blogging about project-ideas that I've started working on; but I'm scared of getting beaten to my own punches! I guess that I'm just operating under a mentality of scarcity, a belief that the handful of ideas that I currently have are the only ideas that I'll ever have.

Financially, I'm in a tight spot; and my current "landlord," my father, seems likely to react negatively, towards the notion of just forfeiting ideas to the market. I could submit that execution is what really makes a good game, and that someone that'd shamelessly rip me off is likely not creative or patient enough to get the concept right; but… I stand a good chance of losing a few teeth, with that argument, as my past 2-3 years of learning code hasn't yet produced a complete game: my lack of results resulted in a falling-out, between us, two years ago.

I've been chewing on "Super Pocket Monsters," a response to the failings from which Pokémon suffers at high levels of play; and since that's not even an entirely original idea, and it's a potential pain to even program, I figured that sharing my revelations regarding it could only help me get positive attention for myself: if nothing else, it could work as advertising the game-development tutoring I want to start providing. Any thoughts you have are greatly appreciated!

[aelle]

Honestly, commercial success depends on much more than the original idea: capital investment, know-how, business plan, distribution network, marketing force... If someone steals an idea, they still don't have all of that. If they have all that, they rarely even need a good idea! For example, Archos actually thought of the Ipod concept long before Apple, but could never launch it because they lacked all these.

Just refrain from shouting an idea to the world if selling it requires no special skills, network or investment...

[RT Wolf]

The Value of Ideas

Ideas are pretty much worthless. I have at least three or four ideas that could make someone quite a bit of money (at least 500k) if it was executed properly. Execution matters almost infinite times more than the original idea. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that having an original idea is all that's required. Sure, you've heard the stories of success that start with, "but he had a new idea!" which make it sound like success is based entirely on having an original idea, which is just greedy reductionism. It's just wrong. I can think of a few organizations and people which are really, really successful, and if you look at them you'd say they don't have an original idea. They may not, but they tend to have original and unique execution.

Even in science, many great ideas weren't "original", they became popular at a certain point rather than becoming influential right after being created. Theory of evolution had been posited many times before Darwin. Darwin's original contribution was to come up with a good mechanism of evolution (natural selection), and that he spent decades collecting evidence. IE, execution. There is some evidence that Edison didn't invent the lightbulb, or, at least, wasn't the first person. Freud popularized and integrated a lot of preexisting ideas. Execution even for a very simple idea matters, too, for example say I have a great idea but I can't communicate it. Even in an essay or something, then my great idea means almost nothing, and the execution matters a lot more.

Edit: Make a game, any game. Feel free to make it ♥♥♥♥♥♥. In fact, make it ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Make it bad and short and bad. Get your ideas out there, immediately. Don't fall into this trap:

the show with zefrank

[Alfonso Crawford]

Originally Posted by aelle

Just refrain from shouting an idea to the world if selling it requires no special skills, network or investment...

Hm! But, if shouting the idea is also the act of selling it, then…! I suppose that über-serious competitive gaming is a microscopic niche, but the back-end requirements of making a game leave sharing game-concepts with being either productive or benign.

I suppose the real value would be in displaying the creative process; to explicate something that will actually come to exist. "Hype," in so many words. "Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo: HD Remix" was well-served by David Sirlin's articles regarding character-balance: my journaling would be to the same effect.

Gotta hop off, for a while!

[rocksupreme]

What? You think you'll run out of ideas sometime soon?

How do you know they are any good if you don't share them and get feedback?

You have to put a few of them out there and test them. See which ideas spark the interest of others and which one fall flat. That information is worth a LOT more than a bunch of day dreams you have that might be worth something to somebody someday.

Besides, ideas have a shelf life, and if you can't use one before it gets stale, better to give it to someone who can.

[Alfonso Crawford]

Originally Posted by rocksupreme

Besides, ideas have a shelf life; and if you can't use one before it gets stale, better to give it to someone who can.

Do y'all just sit in rooms, thinking these up?

[spirit4711]

@Alfonso,

How about teaming up with a great programmer? Share the ideas, build the games, sell them!

[mysticmadness]

Best way would be to blog about related stuff and send teasers of your idea. SInce you dont have muscles to build and market it than you hsould atleast blog and wait for magic to happen. Truth would be out soon and you can get the reality check. To be frank I think 1 in thousand will get a break this way while maybe 100 of them would make reputation by blogging. You can atleast target blogging and hope for you to be that single lucky person.

[dannielo]

Originally Posted by RT Wolf

The Value of Ideas

A nice addition to that article is: Calibration

[Alfonso Crawford]

Originally Posted by spirit4711

@Alfonso,

How about teaming up with a great programmer? Share the ideas, build the games, sell them!

I'll do that right away! Now, what's my phone-number? Nah; outta minutes…. I'll just go talk to myself, in person. I'll google my address. Wow! I live really close to here!

….

I had to do it. Sorry.

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by Alfonso Crawford

I'll do that right away! Now, what's my phone-number? Nah; outta minutes…. I'll just go talk to myself, in person. I'll google my address. Wow! I live really close to here!

….

I had to do it. Sorry.

No problem, pal .

What struck me in your original post that you didn't seem to be able to produce code, so that was what triggered me. Why not outsource what you didn't seem to be good at? Sorry if I misread you.

as my past 2-3 years of learning code hasn't yet produced a complete game: my lack of results resulted in a falling-out, between us, two years ago.

[jetpack]

I have a great idea, and I'll give it to you for free. It could easily net you $1M.

Make an oil painting of flowers and sell it.

Hopefully you can see that many ideas require a lot of real skill in execution, and that's where the real value is. Someone with a real skill in painting should be able to come up with topics to paint. I think game design is much the same way, as with many business ideas.

When I look for new ideas in business, I look at where other people had good ideas, but poor execution.

[Alfonso Crawford]

Huh! Sprit', it looks like I misread… myself! I forgot about that part of my own post!

The score is 0-1, in your favor, and I've even got a yellow flag.

[Kasha]

Think about it like this..the more you give, the more you'll receive...a lot more actually..! Working with others is very rewarding

[MyEyeIsOpen]

Your fear is unfounded -- give away all you can!