Description
Who Does What in the Video Game Industry
Many of the following development team roles are increasingly becoming specialized as video games rival blockbuster movies in their armies of creative people working on them.
Producer
Responsible for keeping the whole project together, a video game producer benefits from both hands-on experience in as many related fields as possible and a sense of overall vision. The number of a producer’s creative responsibilities varies within development teams. In some cases, a producer solely works as management, solving conflicts and keeping a team going.
This may be an unnecessary post in smaller projects, however. A tiny operation obviously doesn’t benefit much from a hired producer.
Some typical producer duties include the following:
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Building and maintaining a functional team
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Contracting out work and delegating responsibilities
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Media relations
Designer
Video game designers come up with the conceptual part of a product. Good game design is timeless. Think of chess: it was designed in the sixth century and is still going strong. Creating balanced game dynamics and a low enough learning curve are the designer’s job. Also, as sprawling 3D games are all the rage, level designers are very much in demand. Modern level designers usually work with dedicated software, sometimes provided by the programmers in the team.
Programmer
Programmers handle perhaps the most diverse bunch of duties within game production. There are numerous specialized programming fields needed in creating a competitive product. In the early days of the 1980s, being a programmer meant you were the sole person behind a title. Not so much in modern times, although there are exceptions (Minecraft, for one, is a one-person operation). Being a programmer can mean these things and much more.
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Game core creator : This is what people usually mean by programmer. The game core creator is responsible for game mechanics, main visuals, and player controls.
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Artificial intelligence developer: This person is responsible for making smart enemies within a game.
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Problem solver : If you’re really good, you may be hired as a mercenary programmer to solve a development team’s issues within a project.
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Physics expert : This person is responsible for creating realistic maps/levels for games with a set of artificial laws of physics governing the game world.
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Networking specialist : Many games are run online these days as multiplayer war zones. This creates a whole host of challenges to a project.
Usually, being a good programmer requires a strong sense of logic and/or mathematics. The importance of math is somewhat exaggerated in most programming literature, but it always helps. Some fields of programming work, such as physics, simply do require strong math skills.
Many programmers have a “pet language,” which is one they are most comfortable with. Make sure yours is one of the more useful ones, such as C++ or Java.
Visual Artist
Video games used to mostly feature simple on-screen shapes for visuals. Since the advent of 3D graphics in the mid-to-late 1980s, visual artists span an increasingly large group of subfields. These include the following:
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2D artist : This includes duties such as presentation and, in the case of 2D games, in-game visuals.
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3D artist/3D modeler : These artists create 3D objects with software such as Blender or Maya.
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3D animator : This may in many cases be the job of the modeler also. An animator works with the 3D objects created by the modeler and crafts fetching animated sequences, such as a 3D human walking, running, or fighting.
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Texture artist : In essence, 3D objects need a coat of digital paint on them to make them look less bland and more realistic, which is the duty of the texture artist.
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Environmental artist : Most 3D games need compelling vistas to make them draw the players in.
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Conceptual artist : Especially bigger projects benefit from unified art direction. Concept drawings on whatever media help with this goal .
Sound Designer/Musician
If you are an experienced musician , you can in theory make it as a video game composer. Earlier on, as in the 1980s, computer musicians were required to create their compositions pretty much using programming skills. As of late, as long as the output is in digital form, your audio work can be quickly incorporated into a video game project.
Sound designers may or may not also be musicians. What they need is the ability to create audio usable in a video game context, meaning mostly sound effects and atmospheres.
Tester
Testing is a very important phase in a video game’s life. If you are a one-person developer, you should put considerable effort into testing your products thoroughly before release.
There are roughly two stages of game testing: alpha (in-house) and beta. Beta testing refers to the public at large volunteering to spot issues in your game. Beta testing can be either by invitation only or in public.
Game testing is actually a rather grueling line of work. Therefore, getting beta volunteers for a company with no industry status can be difficult. Here are some steps you may want to consider if you are in this position:
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Have an attractive company web site with a clearly marked beta testing page.
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Be timely and considerate in your communications. Do not advertise the position until you have a product ready to be tested.
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Proudly announce your projects in all of your social media accounts.
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Utilize sites dedicated to discovering beta testers, such as Betahound.com.
As fun as it sounds, game testing is not for everybody. Your testers need to have attention to detail (e.g., STEM major students) and the ability to work under serious stress. Emphasize and look for these qualities in your future beta testers.
Writer/Copywriter
Here are some of the types of work a writer may be doing in a video game project:
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Character dialogue. This may or may not refer to fixing lousy dialogue some programmer came up with.
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Tutorial prompts.
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Copywriting (i.e., advertising text, usually provided by freelancers).