You have a great game idea?

Looking for some programmers and artists to help you bring that idea to reality?

You're going to have a lot of difficulty. Ideas are easy to come by. There are thousands--maybe millions--of posts across the internet by people that have great game ideas that are looking for someone to help them out. There are people employed in the games industry that have a great idea and want someone to help them out. There are people with day jobs that want to get something going on the side. There are college students, high school students, middle-school students...

Ideas don't sell games. The difference between getting an A+ and an A from a games-review site might be on the quality of that idea, but the difference between an idea and an A is far, far greater than from an A to an A+. The work put in by the programmers and artists and level builders and world scripters will far exceed the worth of that idea.

And then there are the great ideas marred by buggy implementations. Take Shadowbane, widely acclaimed as a tremendous idea and a disappointing failure. Dozens of people spent years of their life on that game. Do you think the idea you came up with this afternoon is worth more than all those man-years of effort?

A game isn't just one idea; it's thousands. A great game isn't made by that one idea alone. It's instructive to read the reviews of the top-rated games; they're never perfect. There's usually more than just nits; usually the review is "it had this flaw, but that's easy to overlook because the rest of the game was so awesome." What is it that makes Half-Life awesome? Is it one idea? Or is it the execution, the cutscenes, the voice acting, the level design and textures, the AI?

What about Team Fortress 2? Is it the idea of having charismatic cartoony characters? Reading behind-the-scenes interviews, it's amazing how much was removed from the game to make it better. There's no one idea that makes that game great; it's the process that produced the game that allowed it to excel.

Take any other popular title, from Mario to Warcraft to the Sims.

Having an idea like "it's got the same art quality as TF2, but in space!" isn't worth the time it takes to think it. That "same art quality" represents a huge amount of work, as well as some skilled judgment in art direction. Plus the technical side!

I'm amazed at the number of teenage guild leaders in World of Warcraft. 99% of you suck. Great, so you're 15 now. Do you think 12 year olds are particularly mature? Would you be willing to follow an 8-year old into battle? No? Then why the fuck do you think someone twice your age would think you are a good leader?

Likewise: you have a great game idea. Swell. I'm happy for you. I have "great game ideas" every fifteen minutes. More than that if I'm stuck in traffic. A great game idea and $1.07 will buy me a cheeseburger.

If you want to get into the games industry, don't start with an idea. Learn to draw or to program. Make some levels. Learn to script.

But whatever you do, please don't make a post on every game dev board you find, asking for other people to make your game for you.