Hiring a game designer can be a genuine accelerator for your game: sharpening your vision, fixing core issues and helping a project finally move forward. It can also add a whole new layer of confusion if expectations are messy, or if the project just isn’t ready. A lot of teams hire a game designer too early, too late, or for the wrong reasons altogether. They bring someone in hoping for a magical fix, but end up receiving vague feedback and tension over what the role is actually responsible for.

In this article I’ll share some advice to bear in mind before you make the leap and start spending that all-important budget. It’ll help you to decide when hiring a designer makes sense and how to get real value.

Be Clear on The Game Design Problem You’re Trying to Solve

Before you hire anyone, you need to know what you’re actually trying to fix. That sounds obvious, but it’s the number one reason these collaborations go sideways. Teams will say “we need a designer” when what they really mean is “we’re stuck” – and that’s not a brief.

Are you trying to shape an idea into something more coherent? Diagnose why a prototype isn’t fun? Bring structure to mid-production where priorities are beginning to drift? Those are three completely different problems, and they require different types of design work. If you don’t define the problem upfront, you’ll get feedback that feels vague and you’ll waste consultation sessions circling the same points – ultimately leaving frustrated and wondering what you actually paid for.

Write down the exact issues you want solved before you reach out. Not just “make it better,” but concrete things like “the core loop feels repetitive after five minutes”, “we can’t decide what to cut”, or “new players don’t understand the rules without us explaining them”. That clarity makes it far easier for somebody to help – and far easier for you to judge whether or not their help is any good. If you can’t describe the problem clearly, no hire will be able to fix it.

Understand the Difference Between Design and Implementation

A lot of frustration comes from one simple misunderstanding: people hire a game designer and expect them to also be the person who codes it, builds the UI, makes the assets and ships the game. Sometimes you’ll find hybrids who can do multiple things, but you can’t assume that’s what you’re hiring.

A game designer’s job is to focus on the systems, rules, pacing and the player experience. They define how mechanics should behave, how progression should unfold, how difficulty should ramp and what choices the player is meant to be making. That’s the blueprint work. Implementation is the build work, like the coding, integration and content production.

This matters even more when teams are also looking to hire game developer support. Designers and developers often collaborate closely, but they’re not automatically interchangeable. If you want someone to implement changes, say so. If you want someone to diagnose the experience and propose solutions, say so. If you want both, you either need a rare hybrid or you need to hire for two roles.

Make Sure Your Game Is Ready for Outside Input

Hiring a designer only works if there’s something solid for them to engage with – and if you’re actually willing to hear what they say. If your core decisions are still emotional and constantly changing, external advice tends to just bounce off. You’ll pay for clarity and then ignore it because the team isn’t ready to commit.

Designers work best when there’s something actually tangible to review. That can be a rough prototype, a playable slice, a design doc or even just a messy feature list – anything that clearly shows what you’ve built and what you’re aiming for. Without that, conversations become far too abstract, and abstract feedback is easy to misunderstand or misapply.

The other aspect that teams underestimate is how uncomfortable a good review can be. A solid designer will challenge the scope, point out where the loop is weak, and sometimes tell you that a feature just isn’t pulling its weight. That’s what you’re paying for. But it only helps if you’re willing to change direction when the truth is inconvenient. If you’re not ready to adjust priorities and cut features, don’t hire yet.

Choose Experience Over Titles

Game development job titles are all over the place. One studio’s “game designer” is another studio’s “systems designer,” and someone called a “creative lead” might be doing pure narrative work while another is deep in spreadsheets balancing economies. Titles don’t tell you what someone can actually do. What matters is evidence of thinking and evidence of shipping. When you hire a game designer, you’re paying for their judgment. Ask them what they’ve worked on that resembles your problem, what they learned from it, and how they approach trade-offs under real production constraints.

Also, listen for reasoning. A strong designer can explain why they’re recommending something: what player behaviour it’s meant to create as well as what risks it introduces. If somebody only talks in vague terms like “make it more fun” or “add more depth” without being able to articulate how, that’s a big red flag. An impressive resume is nice, but clarity of thought is what you’re really looking for. If they can consistently explain problems, propose practical solutions and defend those solutions logically, you’ve found someone valuable regardless of whatever title they have on paper.

Start Small and Test the Collaboration

When hiring, you don’t need to start with a massive commitment. Start with something small enough to evaluate the fit. A single session or a tight design review can tell you almost everything you need to know about how someone works. Use those early sessions to judge the things that actually matter: do they ask the right questions, do they understand your constraints, do they communicate clearly and do they leave you with practical next steps?

This is also where you’ll spot whether the collaboration feels healthy. A good designer should make you feel more confident and more focused, not dependent. They should leave you with clearer priorities and a that plan you can execute. If every meeting ends with nothing actionable, that’s not great design support and not worth the commitment. Once you’ve validated the fit, then you can scale the relationship. Long-term collaboration works best after trust is built and you’ve seen proof that their input actually improves the project.

Conclusion

Hiring a game designer should reduce confusion, not add to it. You should get clearer priorities and decisions that finally feel grounded. When it doesn’t, it’s usually because the brief was vague, the role was misunderstood or the team wasn’t ready to act on outside input. The right time to hire is when you can clearly explain what you need help with, and you’re willing to change course based on what you learn. Be explicit about whether you need design thinking, implementation support or both. Look for shipped experience and clear reasoning rather than fancy titles and start small so you can test communication and alignment before you commit to anything.

Treat the collaboration like a tool to move the project forward rather than a shortcut or a replacement for decision making. The best designers give you the clarity to shape your game into what it was always meant to be.