Being a video game developer is a dream job for many people who grew up with video games at their disposal. The reason for this is that these people know what they want in a video game, and, with the right tools, can implement their ideas into something of their choosing. This is what created the highly competitive job scene of the video game industry in the 90s, specifically of game developers. Because of this, the industry was pushed even further by those who held a true passion for this art.
With all the new things video games can do, due to advances in technology, more and more people get into video games, and, in turn, go into the industry to work so they can act upon their visions. Rinse and repeat, and the video game industry today is highly competitive, driven by triple A titles that keep on pushing the boundaries of online play and open worlds, and the rare independent developer who makes a groundbreaking title which makes its way into the mainstream. Through some turn of luck, the industry that was dragged through the mud for years for being “too violent” is now one of the leading industries of the 21st Century.
A game designers whole goal is to create a video game, no exceptions. If you don’t want to create a game, then being a video game designer is the wrong job option. Usually, to accomplish this goal of creating a video game, a game developer works on a team of people. If you are in a bigger company, teams could be switched up, but this very rarely happens, so a video game developer is spending sixty to one hundred hours a week with the same people. It is possible to be game developer and not be with a team of people, but that would make the process of actually creating the game even longer, which in most cases, is not a good idea.
Video game designers are the ones who design every single aspect of a game. Characters, levels, puzzles, art, and animation are just a few of the many jobs a game developer has to do. In some cases, game developers also are the ones who are tasked with creating code, managing the project, and testing demos. Then there is the competition and crunch time. Competition makes up most of the video game industry’s major quarrels. Competition between publishing companies, and most importantly, competition between developers.It is a highly competitive market, and it just isn’t for some people. Good alternate careers would be graphic designer or computer programmer. Both of these career options puts one in close contact with the developers, but they don’t have nearly as much freedom as a developer. Just proving your chops, however can take years to do, and if you haven’t proven your abilities, well, you’ll lose the job to a more experienced developer, who has more under their belt, and can, therefore, handle the insane crunch times.
Crunch time is a term used to describe when a team of designers are working incredibly hard to get a game out in time. It could be because the holidays are right on the corner, and the company needs to entice kids with something, or because it was a game that was promised a while back, and the company needs to live up to expectations. Either way, this is when, according to chron.com, a game developer doesn’t see less than eighty hours a week. However there are numerous upsides to being a game developer. One of those would be, it’s just a generally fun job. A lot of the time, the people a game designer works with share the same passion for games, and after spending numerous hours on a game, it feels good to see that game do well on the market. A game designer also doesn’t need a degree to get a good job at a good company. A lot of the time, if you have past game making experience, you will get hired as a developer. Not only that, but it pays well.According to JobMonkey.com, entry level game developers can earn around fifty-seven thousand dollars. The highest salary reported was three hundred-ten thousand dollars. Depending on what company a game developer works for, they don’t even have to interview for pay raises.
The locations of most major video game companies are restrictive, to say the least. Nearly all major companies are based in Japan. This includes Nintendo, SEGA, Capcom, Sony, and Konami. Of course, these companies do usually have American locations, but being on a team that has to communicate with a different team, that also speaks another language, it makes things more difficult than they have to be. American companies can also be a little bit restrictive, because, according to GameDesigning.com the majority of American video game companies are either based in California or Washington State. This includes Electronic Arts, VALvE, Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, and Naughty Dog inc. There are outliers to this, including Rockstar Games (New York City, New York), Take-Two Interactive Software inc. (New York City, New York), ZeniMax Media inc. (Rockville, Maryland), Bethesda (Rockville, Maryland), and Epic Games (Cary, North Carolina). Finally, there are those that are neither American nor Japanese. Those include Canada’s BioWare, Sweden’s Mojang, France’s Gameloft and Ubisoft, and South Korea’s NCSOFT.
In conclusion, video game designing is a tough job, that isn’t without it’s perks. It features an incredibly competitive job scene to match it’s market, but it also has a steady pay that only grows, the more experience a game developer gains. Crunch time is a thing that will undoubtedly affect every game developer that goes to work for a major company. On the other hand, a game developer gets to make what they want, and have a good time while doing it. A game designer gets to control essentially every important part of what goes into a video game, and this can result either horrendously or pay off in a very satisfying way. It is a very risky profession to go into, but in the end, it’s not about any pros or cons, or whatever else there may be. In the end, it’s about a passion for video games that made someone say I want to do that when playing their favorite video game.
