What must be in a GDD? Literally nothing, there isn't an industry standard. We're not talking about designing five nines reliable systems that can cost millions or kill people if they go awry, there's no oversight like with engineering. It is just whatever the guy running the show decides should be in there.
there's a standard, if ppl use it correctly or not probably talks a lot about their competency at their jobs. That's because it follows the same principles of thorough documentation meant as workflow reference bible - done properly it will always result in a more consistent final product - when done wrong it becomes disjointed and disorganized and results in bad products.
A GDD works similarly to what pre-production film documents, product design documents, so on so forth. It's a logistical piece that, despite carrying creative work, is meant to achieve proper results and is a document made for others, not to be fun or boost ego. If you are working with ppl who do that than I feel sorry for you but it means they shouldn't be at creative lead positions at all...
Maybe the difference is that the industry doesn't demand it to be good - but try to pull that off when seeking financing for a film or pitching the large scale production of a product and you'll be bet with a massive middle finger and remain unemployed/unfinanced.
As for what's in a "proper" one? IMO? The entirety of the game design itself -- same as a software design document. Starting with the core concept and a "wiring diagram" for various loop(s), going all the way down to where UI elements fit and interact, the story structure, level design aspects and -- this is sorta important too -- the various technical milestones to make all that work.
Exactly, it's a lot of work and requires a lot of consideration and knowledge. Of course nobody can remember every crack and nuance about all technicalities, but a proper GDD will contain measures predicting all troubles during a development cycle, and try to steer it to be as much of a clean work as it should.
Feeling diminished because one cannot contribute to it, or think that such a work is a "privilege" is insane. Some ppl are better at doing things like that while others excel at practical applications like programming, conceptual art, 3d designing, level designing, etc etc etc.
Outside example would be that we do have college specialization on logistics, and job positions for that.
Same goes for Administration. The thing about "promotions" that place ppl on leading positions' that it's not good, yet it's safer than betting on new leadership talent, and as such it's the overall standard for most of the market.
A company that recognizes such nuances about individuality and understands that leadership isn't a prize but a talent, ends up dominating markets because the majority of ppl believe this absurd misconception that leadership work and creative work are "fun" or "less work than mine" when in reality most of these ppl wouldn't be able to pull that off properly. Funnily a fair share of those are right leaning politically, but preach some sort of "socialist" take on things when it becomes personal "it isn't fair" when it was never about "fairness" or "justice" but optimizing the results, different ppl have different talents and weaknesses.
Companies that had the correct take on these things today own the entire market, like google ie.
Something tells me that the guy who has trouble with coding is going to struggle with that last one.
Not at all - there's a reason why logic's time and time again affirmed to be the core knowledge to deal with programming at any levels. In that regard I was always pristine, my limitations with coding are much more about my disorder combined with my personality. I simply hate working in front of computers with computers.
I often split my working between digital and analogic whenever I can - be it using typewriters or pen&paper I'll always opt to do the hefty part by hand and only use the computer to make it more accessible and organized, even when eventually dealing with art designs where I do have to bring graphical elements to something, I'll draw by hand first until I have a clean draft that I'll later on digitalize by hand.
I don't have difficulty coding, I don't do it if I have a choice - to a point that if I'm "blackmailed" into it with things like "you can only do this if you code" I simply walk. What makes you think I should do something just because someone else "demanded" it?
Do you know Rage Against the Machine? Repeat those words like a mantra
