Bollocks. I didn't say design documents were the end all and be all of game design. I said that people who work at a company that uses these, read them. Otherwise, they are not doing their job. Plain and simple.
They may not read the entire document, but joe-nobody at the bottom of the process wouldn't have a clue what his 2D item objects were for without reading the design document. If he didn't read the art treatment sections, If he didn't read the sections that talk about what these items are (lets use the rupee item from any zelda game as an example) he wouldn't stand a chance at making them look right. And if he asks "Hey, boss, what am I supposed to make drawings of?" That boss will say, "Look in the design document, I'm busy critiqueing these character designs and telling the artist who drew them what need's work."
The lead programmer can choose to impliment whatever system they think is best, so it might mean that the underlings don't have to read THE design document. However, I'm willing to bet most do, and I'm also willing to bet that 90% of the information provided to them comes from the design document verbatim.
Like any company, there will be people who aren't doing what they should be. Those people are poor employees. They obviously don't care about the project they are working on enough to know what it is all about, so why would you expect them to do a good job at what they are being asked to do?
They may not read the entire document, but joe-nobody at the bottom of the process wouldn't have a clue what his 2D item objects were for without reading the design document. If he didn't read the art treatment sections, If he didn't read the sections that talk about what these items are (lets use the rupee item from any zelda game as an example) he wouldn't stand a chance at making them look right. And if he asks "Hey, boss, what am I supposed to make drawings of?" That boss will say, "Look in the design document, I'm busy critiqueing these character designs and telling the artist who drew them what need's work."
The lead programmer can choose to impliment whatever system they think is best, so it might mean that the underlings don't have to read THE design document. However, I'm willing to bet most do, and I'm also willing to bet that 90% of the information provided to them comes from the design document verbatim.
Like any company, there will be people who aren't doing what they should be. Those people are poor employees. They obviously don't care about the project they are working on enough to know what it is all about, so why would you expect them to do a good job at what they are being asked to do?