Video Game Design Career Essay

I was a kid, maybe six or seven years old when I first played one of those small portable video games, the famous Nintendo gameboy advance. Since that day I became a lover of video games, dreaming of becoming a creator or game designer, as it is called today. As I play more games, more grew in me the dream not only to play the game, but Also to create them; in fact I have come up with many nice thoughts about video games from what I have played and I believed one day my dream will come true when I will create my own game, hoping such game will become a famous game. After doing researches, I found that in fact, the video game industry it is a huge business managing billions of dollars, and that in order to create video game from just the game’s idea until the end step, a lot of different People with different educational background and training is needed. So, the questions now are, what part of this long chain of different positions I am interested for? What position within this multi-billions of industry will give me a major satisfaction? What position will give me the better income? Are universities or colleges in Puerto Rico offering courses for all these positions? Well, I think that I will only find answers researching more about the video games industry and those college in Puerto Rico teaching related course of study. I hope the next paragraphs will provide more information that helps to find answers about doubts in this field of video games.

The industry as already stablished a three major steps in all video game creation as a part of a game development process; these are preproduction, production, and postproduction. The length of this process is determined at the beginning of the preproduction phase and depends on a game’s size, complexity (game features), and programming needs depending on the equipment to be play. As I said the video games industry is composed of persons working on different positions in order to create a video game, so let’s start firstly with the positions on the preproduction process.

Preproduction work create the bases for the game to be built. In this phase, the lead designers outline a game concept or idea with the help of lead artists and programmers, mainly. Lead designers also might introduce a new feature, such as an innovative gameplay element or powerful graphics, which makes the game unique. Then, all designers working as a team compile all ideas to be part of the game in a game design document to be use by the computer programmers in order to create a game prototype. These game’s prototype serves two uses; provide feedback to the designer’s team on the game features, and at the same time it’s presenting to potential publishers looking for production financing, if needed. Once financing it is obtained or identified, the next phases begins; the production.

The production phase take place when different work teams (artist, designers, programmers, engineers) collaborates together joining their expertise in order to create the game. In these phase is when an engineer or team of engineers transform the design document provided by previous work teams into a game for the first time. Once practically the production process is completed, it’s time now to test the game; now it’s the time when the postproduction process begin.

The postproduction it’s a quality control process that focuses on playing the game to test it for errors, called bugs, and on tweaking it to eliminate unwanted elements. The quality assurance staff tests the game by playing it and attempting to do things the development staff never considered. As the game testers find bugs, they document the errors and assign them to a programmer, designer, or artist to fix. Testers might also find that parts of the game are inconsistent or imbalanced. When all bugs, inconsistencies and unwanted imbalance are finally corrected; the game is ready to be released, and distributed for sale to players; sometimes however, the work does not end with the release of the game because some games often need patches, which are frequent updates that might include bug fixes, tweaks to the game’s balance, and on successful games expansion of the game can be created. The creation of a game is not an easy task and required a lot of different people to make it happen, so more opportunities exist for those who wants to be part of this big industry. But what are the educational background required in order to be part of any of these teams? What are the starting pay range in the video game industry?

A video game developer need specific skills and training to their job tasks, they need to have a positive aptitude, must like to work on a team environment and being able to articulate his or her ideas clearly to others team members. Most workers also should be adaptable to making changes and work well under pressure. And those in leadership roles may benefit from having basic business skills in management, budgeting, and scheduling. There are no educational requirements for video game designers, but a college degree in game design, game development, or computer science is helpful. Game designers also need some background in computer programming and knowledge of scripting languages, especially Lua and Python and on 3D modeling programs for multi-level games. A programmers almost all programmers must have a bachelor’s degree in computer science or computer engineering. Some colleges and universities have specialized programs that focus on video game programming. Artists’ educational requirements for video game vary, but most artists have attended art school. They also need to understand modern artmaking tools, such as modeling and editing software. But an artist’s most important asset is his or her portfolio, which showcases his or her experience and talent.

I just mentioned the professional careers that must closely work in the creation of a video game, but a lot of other occupations exist in the industry and are diverse, so their educational requirements vary totally. For example, Audio workers need technical training, which can require an associate’s or bachelor’s degree; Executives and producers usually need at least a bachelor’s degree. And quality assurance testers sometimes need no more than a high school diploma. Without a doubt an industry that required such amount of professionals and skill workers must offer good or excellent remunerations.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not collect data specifically about the salaries and benefits on the video game industry, but according to Game Developer magazine average salaries for video game development workers are above median annual wage. The average salary for a game developer in 2013 was about $83,000 but this vary based on educational background, occupation, experience, and location. Programmers continue to be among the highest-paid in the game industry. The average U.S. programmer’s salary in 2013 was $93,251. Visual artists are the people who make video games appealing to our eyeballs. On average, game artists in the U.S. made $74,349 in 2013. A good audio person can turn a good game into a great one. A full-time audio professionals in the U.S. earn an average of $95,682. While a game programmer engineer starting salary begin around $72,000 and a lead engineer with over 3 yrs. experience $95,000. The video game industry offer very attractive salaries, but satisfaction is maybe the best incentive in the industry.

After having researched the video game industry I asked myself what activities or class during years of school have helped me build skill needed for any of career mentioned. I understand that the math classes helped me to build an analytical mind and gave me knowledge in the math field. The art class helped me to develop my art and paint skill that can be used in future art studies. Other activities that school in some way gave me the opportunity to learn was to use the computer at home thru all homework and special projects that required its use. I would have liked to have taken computer classes in all years of study in high school in order to have more knowledge in the field.

Indeed, in Puerto Rico there is only one university that today is offering a course at the undergraduate level to design video games, and it’s the Inter-American University in its campus in Bayamon. Another university that is about to start undergraduate courses in video game design is the Sacred Heart University. Currently they are preparing classrooms where this course will be taught; they are expecting to start the courses very soon. Beside these two universities; American University is not offering a complete course of study in video game design, they have some classes that can be helpful to those student that are planning to study a career in video game design. The majority of the universities in Puerto Rico offer undergraduate courses in computer science programming and computer engineering that definitely are uses in the industry of video games. The Eastern University offer graphic design undergraduate course that can help artist seeking job in the industry of video game. The College of Art and Technology offers a course in audio engineering it can definitely help you get a job in the video game industry.

In conclusion, the video game designer career is quite extensive for offering multiple job opportunities requiring a large number of professionals and technicians. This variety in jobs offers expands the possibilities to graduated students to obtain employment, and once already in the video game industry get varied experiences to help the employee to move up to other better paid positions and of greater personal satisfaction. A job in the video game industry for those who are video games lovers is more than just a job, it is a rich experience of great satisfaction and fun.