A common misconception about #gamedev which I just realized after years of being a game developer is the idea that the job of a game designer is to design brand new games.
A game designer's job is to take an existing game design and fill in gaps, often while the game is already being programmed. Usually these gaps are things that were intentionally put off until programming started, or gaps that were discovered in the course of making the game.
An example of the first type: my first paid game design job was on a tactics game, and my first tasks were to write lore for every unit, and develop a system for balancing stats and powers against casting cost.
An example of the second type: during development, Bioshock Infinite posted a job for a level designer specifically to design firefights in the game's vertical spaces, because their existing combat design expertise was all about mostly-horizontal spaces and didn't translate.
The gaps game designers are tasked to fill can be very small (tune the stats on these units) or very big (design an entire CCG minigame to be played inside this RPG). And, obviously, the same designer can be tasked to do multiple things.
Also obviously: level designers, system designers, enemy designers, etc. are all people who specialize in filling certain kinds of gaps in a game's design.
Of course it's good to know all about the whole process of making a game from concept to ship as a game designer, but as a game designer for hire your only chance to make the specific game you've always wanted to make is if you get hired by a team already making that game.
Creative directors are the ones who get to design games from scratch, but they still have constraints. They fill gaps too, but their gaps are more ambiguous and holistic like "make a match-3 mobile game about this IP" or "make a battle royale shooter with this theme".
As a game developer, I've been lucky in that there have been a BUNCH of different games I've really wanted to make, and many of them have been nebulous enough that I've been able to adapt them to design gaps I've been tasked with filling.
But I won't have opportunities to make my specific "dream games" working for someone else; I'll need to start my own team for those.

Fortunately I can program, too, so at least to start with that "team" can just be me.
And if the scope of a game is small enough, then I can just develop it solo.

But for larger "dream game" projects, I'll need to figure out how to build my own team, and hire other developers to fill in the gaps while I work as a creative director on the holistic design.

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