I disagree slightly. I think that building a mod is, bar none, the best way to test the waters of game design. Furthermore, many (many) extremely talented game

I disagree slightly. I think that building a mod is, bar none, the best way to test the waters of game design. Furthermore, many (many) extremely talented game designers got into "real" game design by modding: from Counter-Strike, to DOTA, to Natural Selection, building a good mod is easier and far more consequential than slogging through building yet another Pong clone.