There is nobody more widely disdained among professional game developers than an unskilled “idea guy/girl”, i.e. than someone who thinks they should be allowed to just come up with all the creative ideas and have everyone else on the team implement those ideas without doing any of the work themselves. Ideas aren’t enough.
One of the fastest ways to get a game developer to ignore you is to tell them that you have some “great game ideas” but don’t have any actual game creation skills yourself and that you want their help. Everybody in game dev has their own game ideas. Very few game devs ever want to work under someone who hasn’t proven their ability to create things with their own hands. You have to prove your creative ability if you want game devs to respect you.
Among all the many different diverse creative fields involved in game development, the one most dreaded by the uninitiated is typically computer programming. However, computer programming is the beating heart of what makes video game creation possible. Someone who does not know how to program will be unlikely to be able to create a game on their own. Programming is the glue that holds all the other game dev disciplines together. It is the core.
Some game engines advertise “not requiring programming” but this is always at the cost of either having crippling limitations or just dressing up programming in a superficially different format (e.g. visual scripting). Either way though, if you want to create a game that is actually interesting to play then you will need to program.
Programming is not as difficult as many uninitiated people imagine it to be. It is just a way of communicating your intent precisely to a computer. Once you get over the initial shock value and learn the basic principles it quickly becomes a lot easier. A person can learn to program in just a week or two, usually. Don’t be afraid to try.
The other reason to learn to program, besides just that it is the only thing that makes it possible to create games, is that it gives you additional insight into how to create interesting new gameplay mechanics and what kind of technical constraints you may face.
This game dev tip is an excerpt taken from a small book I wrote. You can find more information about the book here on my website.