Discover a Career: Game Designer

Who is a Game Designer?

A game designer creates game plots and narratives, levels and landscapes, character interactions, and other creative elements. It’s their responsibility to share ideas with other professionals like developers, programmers, artists, writers, and others and then manage those concepts through game development. Most times, it’s a multidisciplinary job that frequently demands you to know a little bit about everything. Other times, game designers can specialize in a specific game element and work as part of a team for a commercial or independent game development firm, depending on the situation. They can even work alone, developing, designing, programming, and publishing their own games.

Game design is a subset of video game development that refers to the use of creativity and design to the creation of a game for enjoyment or education. It entails developing engaging stories, characters, goals, rules, and challenges to guide interactions with other characters, users, or objects.

Game designers are an integral element of a large group of designers and developers who work together to complete the difficult task of developing a new video game. Characters, levels, riddles, art, and animation are all responsibilities of game designers. They may also write computer code in a variety of programming languages. They may also be in charge of project management and testing early versions of video games, depending on their job responsibilities. A game designer is a person who is in charge of bringing a game to life. Each game contains a variety of gameplay systems, mechanics, and features that all work together to provide players with a pleasant and interesting experience. Video game design is a booming industry with more individuals playing games on their mobile phones. 

Based on the size of the studio they work at, game designers are responsible for the storyline, character backstories, and conversation development as well as gameplay, rules, and a scoring system, choosing the appropriate level of difficulty, creating user interfaces and settings, design of the level and the world, programming/scripting, digital retouching, and testing.

Being a game designer is a difficult task. Passion, perseverance, and patience are required!

In summary, as a game designer, you may create your own design or work from a pre-approved concept (such as a game based on a film). Whatever role you play, you’ll need to be able to:

• Use your ideas to create games for a variety of devices and platforms that will captivate and catch the user’s imagination.
• Every aspect of a new game should be considered, planned, and detailed, including the setting, rules, plot flow, objects, vehicles, character interface, and modes of play.
• Assemble a concept document and use it to persuade the production team that the game is worthwhile.
• Carry out market research to find out what your target market wants
• Write scripts and storyboards to turn a preliminary notion into a precise concept that can then be implemented.
• Work closely with others, such as game developers, artists, and programmers, to create a prototype (a small-scale playable version of the game) and make changes to the game design parameters as the project progresses
• Train quality assurance (QA) testers to play the game so they can properly test it
• Lead the game’s user experience (UX) design, delivering the best possible experience for players.

Skills and Education Required

More institutions are developing programs to promote careers in video game design as the industry grows. Typically, these courses are given through computer science or media departments. A bachelor’s degree in game design, computer engineering, or computer science, which takes four to five years to complete, is usual for video game designers. Project management, integrated video design and technology, game prototyping, and level design are some of the topics covered in a game design degree program.

On a video game project, game designers generally serve as project managers, assisting in the management of budgets, work schedules, and project timeframes. Attention to detail, as well as excellent writing and communication abilities, as well as excitement for and knowledge of the video game industry, are essential.

Educational Requirements

A degree is not necessarily required to become a game designer, the majority of game designers do. Games-specific degrees are especially beneficial but typically, sample projects are required to enroll. Computer games art, computer games design, computer games development, computer games technology, Mathematics, Computer science, computer engineering, and interactive media are all relevant areas of study for a game design career. A social sciences or arts and humanities degree can also be used to break into the sector. Employers are particularly interested in applicable experience and game knowledge.

Although a postgraduate degree isn’t required, it may be beneficial, especially if your initial degree did not include a games specialization. Make sure the courses you’re considering are a good fit for your job goals. Online tutorials are also a fantastic place to start, but if you want to improve your abilities to a professional level and get feedback from an industry expert who knows what companies want, look into more formal game design and game development courses.

Mentors from within the industry teach 1010 Coding classes, which offer a career-focused curriculum to help you prepare for a successful career in the industry. Our certificates and certifications in programming languages are also useful.

Skills

Hard skills

• Knowledge of computer systems and languages. Familiarity with a variety of programming languages, software technologies, and packages like C#, C++, and Python scripting, as well as design skills utilizing applications like Blueprint and Unreal Engine 4’s Visual Scripting (UE4).
• A desire to play games and an awareness of the many hardware platforms on which they can be played
• Ability to test apps and games across a variety of hardware platforms in order to find and report bugs
• Technical skills such as version control software, project management abilities, especially knowledge with Agile development and Scrum
• Mathematical and analytical skills
• Project management skills

Soft Skills

• Communication skills, both verbal and written, to fully express your ideas to other team members
• To build the full game, you’ll need teamwork skills and the capacity to collaborate with others.
• A fresh perspective on game creation and the capacity to creatively come up with new concepts
• A willingness and aptitude to learn
• Confidence and influencing skills to present your ideas and pitch
• Problem-solving abilities
• Commitment and focus to accomplish every task to a high standard 
• Understanding a flexible attitude to work in order to adjust your ideas and fulfill deadlines

So Where Can You Start?

Getting a fantastic position in the industry necessitates a lot of effort and commitment. Of course, the rewards of being able to produce video games for a living are enormous. Here are some pointers to help you get started:

Understand the procedure 

Games that are built using a method have a lot better chance of succeeding than ones that are thrown together at random. You will be far more likely to create a fantastic product and achieve success in the market if you grasp the tools (for example high process-driven and extensive paperwork needs) as well as the general design process and the big picture of game design.

Start learning as much as you can about the game production pipeline, the many stages, and how the procedures fluctuate depending on genre, platform, and team size. Learn how to create documentation and prototypes, as well as how to move from an idea to a prototype and beyond.

Keep up with the latest trends

Every platform, genre, and type of game has its own set of rules and criteria, which range from completely different to somewhat different. Play a variety of games, subscribe to industry news and read reviews to familiarize yourself with the intricacies. Take advantage of the content accessible on YouTube and Twitch as well. You’ll need to keep up with current gaming trends across all platforms and enjoy both playing and creating games.

Networking and attending events will be beneficial to your career development.

Have a fantastic demo reel

Your demo reel is your ticket into the business. Choose a few ideas and get to work to create for your demo reel and polish them as much as you can. Demonstrate your variety as well as your method. As you gain experience with the many sorts of game creation, you may discover that you’re more drawn to creating a particular type or world. Focus on projects that reflect your key interests.

Enroll for Coding Classes

Consider enrolling for coding classes using the Scratch programming language to help you get started. The game designer jobs market is competitive, therefore you’ll need ample exposure and experience. Employers often want game designers to have industry experience. Participating in game design competitions is one approach to get experience. The goal of these game design competitions is for people to work together to plan, design, and build a game in a short amount of time and it’s a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate your abilities, gather evidence for your portfolio, and network with others.

During or after your training, you could also apply for an internship or placement with a games company. The ideal experience however is to really develop your own game by putting together the storyboard, prototype, and demo, regardless of how you do it. This can then be added to your online portfolio. They give you valuable insight into how the company runs and how a game is created. To demonstrate your games design talents and experience, you should create an online portfolio of your projects and any work you’ve performed.

It’s important for potential employers to be able to try out your work, so make sure the demo is available for download or, at the very least, video footage of the game in action. 

Famous People to Follow

Emmanuel Omene

Emmanuel is a Nigerian (living in The Netherlands) well known for developing Games/Applications for a variety of platforms. Emmanuel has a top-rated Upwork profile as a skilled Unity game developer. He has a 92 percent job success rate, having completed 49 tasks totaling 1685 hours of work through the site. Emmanuel Omene began his professional life as a web developer. While seeing his older brother code in high school, he developed an interest in web programming.

He became interested in the game development process at some time. With only a basic understanding of HTML and CSS, Emmanuel quickly realized that he’d have to master other programming languages and talents in order to create a game. As a result, he set out on a quest to learn everything he could about game production. Emmanuel continued to refine his talents with the support of YouTube videos. Emmanuel then decided at the conclusion of his service year, to build a game from the ground up, and the result was a 3D runner he called Sango Run before he went on to collaborate with a friend to launch Gamfari, a gaming platform that centered on monetizing games and betting.

Roberta Williams 

Roberta Williams is a co-founder of Sierra Entertainment, a computer game development firm. She is well-known in the field of graphic adventures and is widely regarded as one of the most prominent PC game designers of the 1990s. She is proficient in Java, HTML, C, Maya, C#, and JavaScript. She has generated over twenty games over her career and retired in 1999. She’s also been dubbed one of the most recognizable faces in adventure gaming.

Dylan Sprouse

Dylan studied Game Design at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and graduated with a four-year degree in 2015. He has since then written and produced several video games. If you’re a big player, you’ve probably heard his voice on games including Total War: Warhammer II but, more often than not, he captures some really explosive scenes.

Markus Persson

Markus Persson is a video game developer from Sweden. In 2010, he also launched Mojang, a game firm that was acquired by Microsoft in September 2014. He is most known for inventing the video game Minecraft, which has grown in popularity since its release in 2009. He also produced a number of additional games, including Scrolls and 0x10c, and has received numerous honors for his contributions to the gaming industry.

Will Wright

William Wright is an American game creator and co-founder of Maxis, which is now owned by Electronic Arts. His debut game, Raid on Bungeling Bay, was released in 1984, and he rose to prominence as the creator of The Sims video game franchise. Later that year, he released Spore, which went on to sell over 400,000 copies. In 2005, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from PC Magazine. He was also named the most significant person in the entertainment and technology sector by Entertainment Weekly and Time Magazine.

Ed Boon 

Ed Boon is a well-known American programmer who has been working on games for the past 15 years. He currently works as Vice President, Creative Director at NetherRealm / Warner Bros. Entertainment. and is well known for creating the Mortal Combat video game series. Guinness World Records recognized him as the longest-serving video game voice actor in 2008. He is also the director of the Batman video game franchise and Mortal Combat X, which was released in 2015.

Sid Meier

Sid Meier is a well-known Canadian game creator who specializes in simulation video games. In 1982, he co-founded MicroProse, which he still owns today. Silent Service and F-19 Stealth Fighter are two of his early games. Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon is his most well-known game series. For his services to the game business, he has received numerous honors, including Top Game Creators of All Time.

Salary Comparison

The average game designer income is £30,000, however, they can make up to £45,000. You may make up to £65,000 as a  lead or senior game designer. Salaries vary widely depending on qualifications and experience, region, size of the firm or studio you work for, the type of game you work on, and industry. Salaries for entry-level jobs, such as junior/intern, typically range from £17,000 to £18,000 per year. Another typical path into games design is as a quality assurance (QA) tester, with salaries ranging from £18,000 to £22,000. Level designers can expect to earn between £20,000 and £35,000 per year.

Benefits can be very generous, especially with larger organizations. Relocation packages, access to game rooms, fitness/gym membership, private healthcare, and store discounts are just a few examples.

Expected Future Growth

In terms of security and earning power, a career in game creation is a wise choice—video games produced over $35 billion in sales in the United States in 2019. The gaming business is strong and growing year after year, with an estimated 2.5 billion gamers globally. Global market revenue is predicted to reach $152.1 billion in 2019 (up 9.6% from 2018), according to market research firm Newzoo.

Over the years, industry patterns have altered considerably. Indie games, casual games, social networking games, and mobile games have all grown in importance and continue to do so, complementing the vast presence of consoles and personal computers. The hurdles to making, publishing, and distributing games digitally have been greatly reduced as a result of this shift in recent years, allowing for astounding levels of inventiveness and the ability to reach the masses via the internet.

It’s difficult to foresee what will happen next in a trend-driven sector that is always evolving. Today’s technology, on the other hand, has made gaming more accessible to people all over the world, as well as giving them more possibilities than ever to make and release their own games.

It’s a thriving business that shows no signs of slowing down.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, game designers are set to be part of a fast-growing profession as video game makers struggle to meet an almost infinite demand. The software development business, of which video games are a component, is seeing tremendous growth due to the widespread use of internet technologies. The takeaway here is that games must be developed, coded, tested, and sold regardless of the circumstances. There is room for elite talent with strong, proven track records.

Promotion is often earned through experience and as opportunities emerge, and is dependent to some extent on the size of the organization as well as your ability to pick up new abilities quickly. Successful game designers can advance to senior and then lead designer roles after several years of expertise. The role of the lead designer is more of a managerial one with fewer creative design features. Specializing in areas like mobile gaming or virtual reality can help you get a better job. If you want to go on from game creation, you may work as a game design consultant or instructor, or you could work in other fields of interactive media and entertainment. Alternatively, you might want to consider starting your own gaming studio.

Conclusion

In the process of creating a new game, game designers are at the epicenter of innovation. You’ll bring ideas, build prototypes, provide interactive narration, and develop the game’s mechanics as a game designer. You’ll also create systems that are simple to manage, expand, and use, all while making the user experience enjoyable made available in a variety of formats and platforms, including mobile, virtual and augmented reality, console, and PC, and you’ll need to imagine, test, and develop your ideas using a variety of technical and creative abilities.

Game designers collaborate with game developers, programmers, game artists, animators, and quality assurance testers as part of a multidisciplinary team. Although a game designer is typically a well-defined professional title, at smaller companies you may be involved in part of the art of programming. Level designer, content designer, and interface designer are all subfields of game design.

Because the games design industry is so fast-paced, it’s critical to keep your technical abilities and expertise up to date in order to stay ahead of the competition. This can be accomplished through training, short courses, and self-study to build your own skillset. You’ll need some technical skills and artistic ability, as well as an awareness of how to develop something that’s exciting, appealing, and monetizable to players and 1010 Coding provides a platform to do just that. There are a variety of opportunities to explore and pick from as a game designer, and with technology growing at such a rapid pace, new jobs are constantly being developed.