O'Luanaigh - basic game design stuff

Straightforward stuff...

the basic game designer lingo: gameplay, game mechanic, GUI, front end, demographics, first person/third person, USP, mass market, IP, immersion.

the ten rules to live by: 1. stand up for your ideas 2. listen to other people's opinions 3. be tact 4. pick your battles (with the producer/project manager) 5. remember your overall design vision 6. play as many games as possible 7. the first level or 30 minutes of every game is important, so make an impression 8. develop a professional story for the game (with a proper beginning, middle, and end) 9. think about/leave room for future sequels 10. abuse people's primal instincts.

the core gameplay fundamentals: camera, control systems, interaction, variety, accessibility, replayability, exigency, completing techniques, difficulty levels, fun.

when designing games: brainstorm, use experts, step out of your comfort zone.

Lots of this we've already covered or touched on, but I think it's really interesting to think about how complex making a video game is. From beginning to end, there's so much work and thought that goes into it that it almost seems like an overwhelming about of work. I guess that's why it usually takes teams of people to make games. I think it would be really cool to follow the creation of a game from beginning to end and see just how much time was put into it and see how the process works and the people and tasks involved.

For me, this reading came across as almost a sort of over simplification of what it really takes to make a good video game. I'm probably wrong, because I have no idea what it's like, but I get the feeling that there's something O'Luanaigh is leaving out. Like this is the minimum you need to know to understand what game designers do, but probably isn't even close to what it takes to actually design game - like no really successful game has just these basic game design elements. 

I guess it's somewhere to start, so I enjoyed reading...