I think you have the wrong idea about what game designers do. We're not project leads that pitch entire games, we're [content creators] that build the bits of specific content in games - the spells, the monsters, the fights, the classes, the races, the quests, the environments, the stats, the companions, and so on. Your typical AAA dev team has hundreds of developers, including dozens (or even hundreds) of designers there to create the items, quests, abilities, enemies, fights, crafting recipes, and other content that players engage with.

There are times when studios will solicit pitches from the rank and file, but these are few and far between. Everybody from the oldest of the old to the newest of the new have their own game ideas that they want to get made. Only those who have amassed sufficient experience and influence with publishing executives are typically given this opportunity, often because anyone who leads a new game's development is being trusted with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

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