I don't know, some fluffy arguments and self-back-patting here, but I have to tentatively agree on one point. Out of the 11 designers that I've worked with, 7 w

I don't know, some fluffy arguments and self-back-patting here, but I have to tentatively agree on one point. Out of the 11 designers that I've worked with, 7 were rock solid and came from a programming or art background, with the artists doing some scripting now and again. The other 4 were pure designers, and only one of them was good (although damn good)...the others fit Richard's stereotypes pretty well. This doesn't include the few games I've worked on that didn't have a designer at all, and didn't seem the worse for it. Not exactly huge sample sizes here, I know, but his argument is plausible to me. It behooves designers to at least be ankle deep in the technical cesspool of game development.