Video Game Designer

Video Game Designer

Computer game and digital gaming are now being considered as a trillion-dollar industry. Video Game Designers need to possess a blend of creative mind, proper and adequate technical skill and a deep passion for gaming to develop cutting-edge games. If you are prone to art and multimedia skill and love to learn the latest gaming technology along with the required programming language, then developing games is the right career path for you. The scopes and opportunities for Video Game Designers are huge, depending on the interest and the available opportunities for employment. According to a survey, the employment opportunity for Video Game Designer increases around 30%, over the last decade, which is considered the fastest-growing career.

 In most cases, Video Game Designers have three options from where they have the freedom to select their preferred one. Those options are Game Artist, Game programmer and Game Designer. Regardless of the option you choose, your career path will determine your job roles and responsibilities in a daily manner. At the same time, you must earn the required academic background and skill in order to develop your career as a Videogame Designer.

During the learning phase, almost every Video Game Designer has to spend a significant amount of time in the classroom, either virtual or on-campus in order to learn advanced skills in order to stay synchronized with the rapidly evolving advanced gaming technologies, platforms and trends. Great reward comes with great effort. Hence, such hard work of Video Game Designers with five or more years of experience will let them earn £77,202, per year.

Job Responsibilities of Video Game Designers

a) With a right set of skill and required experience, Video Game Designers are responsible for the jobs mentioned below:

  • Design, develop and deploy a robust and eye catching game play environment.
  • Develop descriptive feature role-play machines, story-lines and the characters of the game.
  • Go through regular reviews on the game design throughout the game development timeline.
  • Work in collaboration with artists, graphic designers and sound engineers for real-time audio-visual effects.
  • Design the game plan using game play flowcharts, screenshots and other devices used for visual effects.
  • Maintain proper documentation for each design level including outlines of the mission, game mechanics and flowcharts.
  • Work in collaboration with the graphic designers and programmers in order to ensure a flawless design of the game.

b) Job Responsibilities of Video Game Artists

  • Video Game Artists are usually responsible for developing seamless simulation and visual style of the game.
  • They must have enough skill on the concepts and the techniques of traditional art like line, curved line, shadow, color and light.
  • Video Game Artists must be able to design the artwork for almost every aspect of the game, including weapons, environment, weather, vehicles and characters.
  • They must know how to use 2D/3D computer animation application/software in order to animate the levels of the games.
  • Professional Video Game Artists prefer using motion-capture software in order to integrate the live action of the actors.
  • They also must work in collaboration with graphic designers and programmers to come up with the finest finished product.

c)  Job Responsibility of Video Game Programmer

  • Video Game Programmers should be skilled and experienced with some high level programming languages like Java, C and C++.
  • Video Game Programmers must also know about the development of artificial Intelligence (AI) in the game in order to direct the reaction of the digitally managed components.
  • They must also know about how to debug the error of the game (if any) and deploy the laws of physics in the game so that the game objects can move and react in real-time.
  • Video Game Programmers also need to work in collaboration with the graphic designers and the artists in order to integrate the real time vision in the game.

Video Game Designers are also serving the industry at other job roles like Video game Designer, Interactive Media Developer, Flash Designer, Video Game Developer, Digital Media Specialists and so on.

Academic requirement of a Videogame Designer

The academic requirement of the Video Game Designer depends on his/her job role. The training for Video Game Designer is concentrated on three core areas, which are programming, art and design. Depending on your personal interest, desired career path and passion, you have to choose which training fit best for you in order to get your dream job. The brief details of academic requirements for these three areas of game development are given below:

a)      Video Game Designer

Colleges and universities are offering game design, creative writing and similar courses which may help you to work as a Videogame Designer. As a Videogame Designer, you must know about storyboarding, game layout, game theory, creative scripting, creative planning, storytelling, a lot of brainstorming and so on.

b)      Video Game Programmer

Programming for video games requires a bit more technical skill, where Video Game Programmers are required to have at least a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Mobile Application Development,  Software Engineering, Game and Simulation Programming, Game Development and/or similar fields of study. It is recommended that Video Game Programmers must have enough knowledge, skill and experience on at least one or more object-oriented programming languages, which are widely used for game development purposes, like C, C++, Java and so on.

c)      Video Game Artist

Video Game Artists need to have at least two to four years degree in fine arts, creative technology, Game Development and/or similar fields of study. However, a high school degree in creative arts might work in some exceptional cases where the Video Game Artist has excellent creative thinking ability and fluency in at least one or more object-oriented programming languages, required for game development purposes. Generic Video Game Artists are required to know the details about basic techniques and principles of game development. An excellent portfolio with good feedback from previous clients is an asset for a Video Game Artist. Formal academic requirement is less required if the Video Game Artist has a good portfolio and adequate skill on game development. They must have the fluency in updated graphic design and computer aided animation software like Adobe Flash and other game development tools and technologies.

What is the trend of qualification that the game design companies are looking for?

Game design and development companies are looking forward to individuals who have the passion for gaming. A hardcore gamer can easily recommended whether a game is good, excellent, bad or incredible. Strong problem solving attitude is a key to success for Game Designers. In order to be a successful game designer and developer, you must have extreme patience and the ability to work long hours, even over time to resolve any issues. It is also important for successful game designers to work in collaboration with the team members and lead the team.

Job Outlook of Video Game Designers

The trend of the Computer game/ Video game industry is moving upwards, almost exponentially. More than one hundred and forty billion video game industries across the world have almost tripled in size over the last few decades. Video game market is booming more than the expectation and the games on PC and some other widely used gaming consoles like Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo have also increased the demand of video games as well. Rapidly growing industry of smartphones and social networks has also increased the demand of video games. In reality, mobile gaming now occupies almost half of the gaming market, as well. Employment opportunity for Video Game Designers is about to grow by 26 percent within the year from 2018 to 2028.

Salary Structure of Video Game Designers

Video Game Designers are getting paid around £61,761 per year. Depending on the job role, skill, experience and geographical location, the salary range of Video Game Designer also varies, which is given below:

  •  QA/Video Game Tester: £41,689
  •  Video Game Artist: £59,445
  •  Game Level Designer: £61,761
  •  Video Game Designer: £61,761
  •  Video Game Art Director: £67,165
  •  Video Game Developer: £67,165
  •  iPhone Game Developer: £69,482
  •  Blackberry Game Developer: £69,482
  •  Android Game Developer: £72,57
  • Java Game Developer: £74,114