Are you interested in computer game programming? If your answer is yes, then welcome to one of the most exciting as well as challenging types of programming. If you become a computer game programmer, you will also enjoy the fiscal benefits. If you are genuinely interested and feel you have the talent, then you are in the right career path. This is one the fields where you can start earning around $40,000 per year for doing something you enjoy. If your teacher or parent once told you that you will never make it due to playing computer games, here is a chance to prove them wrong.

If you want to be a game programmer, you only have one way to get into the industry and that’s by writing a game demo. Today, a commercial game can cost millions of dollars and usually take a couple of years develop which consists of a few hundred thousand to a couple of  million lines of C++ code. Being a neophyte programmer this is too much for you to handle. Nevertheless, you can use your talent and knowledge to create a unique game with approximately 10,000 C++ lines of codes. Many game companies will not look at your resume, instead they look at your work. Instead of sending resumes to numerous gaming companies, just write a game demo and save it somewhere, then send it to your potential employer. If you come up with something interesting, they might end up calling you. There are some great books and free or paid software to get you started, I’ll list those later on.

Choosing a college

Is it necessary to possess a college education to obtain a career as a programer? Certainly not, however, situations are shifting as the industry develops. You can land a job by developing a drop-dead  demo. However, many employers happen to be searching for employees that have developed good video games and also have college or university degrees. After all, college is a place that enables you to obtain the foundation practical knowledge you need to be a cut-throat game programmer.

Even with the talent, creativity and will, you still need a computer science degree in order to start your journey as a game programmer. There are many institutions offering this and you may be confused when choosing one to attend. Look through online sources for the best college in your state and apply. Make sure that the college of your choice is reputable and has a good education system. Check the course catalog where you will find the courses available and ensure the most important are included. Try to get information from students who are learning in the institutions or the alumni. If the faculty and the students are friendly and offer good information, you can settle on the University.

Research and Education

There are basically two types of schools which are research oriented and non-research oriented and therefore you have to decide which one to attend. In research schools, the faculty is usually smart and usually has its focus on research at most of the time. Due to this reason, they may not offer you the best education to kick start your game programming career. There are very low chances of you meeting with professors in this kind of school. In fact, you may only meet experienced professors only at your senior years. Nevertheless, you can still get the best out of the school if you are able to capture these professors’ attention. On the other hand a non- research school has a good faculty that spends time with the students.

The Courses to Take

Computer game programs are not many in Universities. Nevertheless, below are the courses that you will need for a good background in computer/game programming.

• Programming: In order for your games to be portable, you need to program them in a top notch language. The most used are C ++ and C. You should make sure to not neglect other languages as you will need them later on in your career as a programmer.
• Assembly level programming: You will need this because core code and device drivers may need to be programmed in Assembly. You need to learn the basics of assembly level programming and then later take some advance level courses.
• Computer Architecture: To ensure your games are good in speed, you need to use highly developed hardware features. Some of the things you need to know are superscalar design, RISC, bus architecture, interrupts, DMA, cache design, clocking and peripherals among others.
• Software engineering: In this course, you will learn how to handle massive software projects. During your learning period, ensure that you get the needed experience for expanding old codes as well as working in a group.
• Computer graphics: The things you need to know in this course include 3D material that includes texture mapping, shading and polygon mesh. You should also learn 2D material.
• Data structures: This course should leave you with a lot of knowledge in typical data structures, how they function, and comes in handy in order to avoid reinventing the wheel sort-of-speak.
• Algorithms: Algorithm can affect your game’s speed even if everything else is built to perfection. In this course, you will learn about designing and analyzing the best algorithms for virtually any problem.
• Communication networks: If you intend to create multiplayer games, you should make sure you have good knowledge of communication networks.
• Al and Expert systems: If you planning on creating a single player game, then you need to have good knowledge in these areas so that you can create challenging opponents.
• Human factors: This will help you develop a  user-friendly interface.
• Mathematics: Mathematics is not a course that game programmers should neglect or be afraid of. You should also consider adding linear algebra to the normal mathematics prerequisites. This will aid you when designing polygon mesh games. For a better experience with polygon mesh, you might consider taking vector calculus.
• Physics: Physics will come in handy when you are creating a virtual universe for your game, so learning about the law of physics that make the universe function is a must.

Conclusion

You determine the quality of your education. It’s not uncommon for students to get carried away in crowds especially in state colleges. In order to come out successful, you need to ensure that your education is in your hands and protect it, by consulting the best professor and also going beyond what you get in class. In college they do not spoon feed anybody as they assume you are grown enough to know right from wrong. If you go there waiting for such kind of treatment, you will end up losing tuition fees.

Do not put your hopes to the roof and think that after graduating you will be an expert in computer programming. The things you will learn here include basics of computer science and its essential concepts. You will also be able to acquire great skills in order to have a good background in computers. There is a lot of information about computers in many books that can help you. Nevertheless, you need a computer science degree to develop your computing skills as well as keep up with the trends in the computing world. You should know that the computer industry changes at a rapid rate, dedicating time and commitment to stay up to date will be a never ending phase. A computer science degree is a good place to start.

This infographic by Big Fish offers a glance at the top schools, salaries, and studios in the video gaming industry. It appeals to aspiring game developers and those already knee-deep in their career, breaking out how much game developers can anticipate to make at a given stage of their career depending on their area of expertise.

Source: Big Fish Games

Source

It’s a bit difficult to give accurate data on just how much a certain disciplines average salary is. The avarage salary for any discipline can be largely dependent on the size and company/developer they work for. There are reputable sources (Gamedeveloper) who interview thousands of video game employees throughout the industry and some of their averages are:

Average Game Developer Salary

3 Years or Less:

• Programmers: 55,000
• Game Designers: 53,000
• Artists and Animators: 45,000
• QA Game Testers: 31,000
• Audio Developers: 59,000

We all love to play games but do you know how much effort it takes to make one? Check out our other articles on video game design, game programming and video game tester.

Publishers are mainly the ones financing the development and taking most, if not all the risk involved, to minimize these risks they set up a staff of producers and or project leads to maintain the creative vision of the video games development and ensure the development team is to set out to build a high quality game on time and within budget. Game publishers who contract external developers fund the project by advancing money throughout the development process of the game. Don’t mistake this for a loan, think of it as advancing money to a contractor so he can buy the materials for construction. likewise the publisher advances money to the developer to begin their work.

Insider Break Down: Advances aren’t debt owned back to the publisher, if for some reason a publisher doesn’t publish the game at all the devs don’t have to pay back any of the advances back. In a similar situation, if the game does sub-par financially and doesn’t recoup back all the advances from sales the developer doesn’t have to pay back the difference lost.

Milestones

Advances aren’t all paid in one go, but rather spread out throughout the projects development. these advances will be payed once the developer reaches a certain stage of the development, Which are called milestones, These are days where certain features of a game must be already implemented. This is one of the most sensitive areas in publisher to Dev contracts. publisher and Devs can disagree if a feature is actually implemented correctly or not, if the publisher doesn’t agree then they can withhold advances until they are satisfied, This however can potentially kill a developer if they are dependent on the money. Some publishers still continue advance since they can’t afford to lose their investment or let the developer go out of business.

Royalties

Royalties is another major part of a contract between publishers and developers, The contracted developer will get royalties from the wholesales of the product, don’t get this confused with retailer to consumer sales, this is a percent of the money the publisher makes from selling to retailers. this can vary wildly depending on a variety of factors, it can range from low 8 to 10 percent to a more common range 12 to 20 percent, to rare high of 30 to 40 percent.

Insider Break Down: One major factor affecting the percent if the track record of the developer, if one developer has a few heavy hitters under their belt then they can negotiate a higher percentage in return.

Publishers won’t start to pay outright from the first sales of the game, since they funded the project they need to recoup their advances first. The publisher will keep all money the from the games sales until the amount of royalties earned matches the advanced they funded the developers. Once this happens, developers will start to receive royalty payments.

Insider Break Down: Most projects never recoup their advances and developers don’t see any royalty payments at all. There are quite a few devs who survive year to year on contracts but don’t see any royalty payments at all.

Top Video Game Publishers of 2011

Top video game publishers ranked by their best to worst games released in 2011, by Metacritic.

1. Microsoft
2. Nintendo
3. Sony
4. EA
5. Square Enix
6. Ubisoft
7. Sega
8. THQ
9. Namco Bandai
10. Konami

We all love to play games but do you know how much effort it takes to make one? Check out our other articles on video game design, game programming and video game tester.

As you can see salaries vary wildly, and region is one major factor (Going by US). The west region being the highest can earn as much as $13,000 more than the northeast region and as much as 16,000 compared to south. Salaries can also vary wildly from city to city in the same state. so take that information with a grain of salt.

Game Designer Salary

According to IGDA (International Game Developers Association) the lowest paying designer with around one to two years of experience can expect to earn $50,000 and upper levels earning around 80,000, this includes senior designer, lead designer, and creative directors with around 6 year or more of experience. Their average is $57,500 and highest can reach up to $200,000. Another reputable source is GD (Game Developer Mag) who conduct their own research and interview thousands of video game industry workers across all disciplines, which their average Video game designer salary came up to $62,000.

the chart above is my calculated earned income ranging from low <3, mid 3 – 6, and high >6 Years, I rounded to the nearest thousand. I didn’t  pull this info out of my you know what, it’s a calculated average consisting of multiple reputable source like I mentioned above. As one can see the salary earned depends on a multitude of factors such as the type of designer, the company they work for, and location will all effect the earned wage.

We all love to play games but do you know how much effort it takes to make one? Check out our other articles on video game design, game programming and video game tester.

Insider Break Down:
keep in mind that this industry’s job titles and responsibilities can vary considerably from company to company, publishers to publishers etc.

If a project is big enough to have a lead designer appointed then he would be responsible for managing the other game designers working on the current project and coordinates the development with the other leads in their departments to achieve the projects overall goals and vision. If the current project isn’t movie title adaptation or defined by the publisher, a lead designer might have been the one who “invented” the games idea.

A lead designer responsibilities can include how the current project is documented, implement the rules of a game, levels and other large scale ideas that will shape the game, or they can simply assign these task to a group or a single designer to implement. In conclusion the lead will have the decision making power to the overall design, that is if the publisher or producer don’t step in and a conflict of ideas will slow the games development.

Fiction Writer or Scriptwriter

If you ever enjoyed a good back story or lore of a game then you have fiction Writers or scriptwriters to thank. Although there isn’t “designer” in their name, Game writers “design” or create the scrip of the game, which can include the voice overs, dialogue, and scenes for intros or cut-scenes, This of course depends and what type of game they are working on. scriptwriters work very close with designers throughout the project because the scope and style vary from game to game and maintaining proper pacing and balance throughout any potential game path is crucial. Most game writers are contracted for each new project.

Level Designer

If you ever experimented  around with Neverwinter Nights design modules, then you have first hand experience of what a level designer does. They create the terrain, script the enemy’s behavior, and skills utilizing the elements and mechanics the designers have created  using the games editor to build, arrange, and balance that segment of the game.

Insider Break Down:
There are different types of level designers that specialize in different game genres. Each type requires in-dept knowledge within those games play-style.

UI Designer

Anyone remember Lair for the PS3? That is a perfect example of complete and utter UI Design failure. Shortly after released they quickly made a patch available for download to include joystick support. No matter how fascinating a game concept, high production values and audio are, if the UI or User Interface is unresponsive and badly designed, you can bet that game will fail. UI designers make the connection between the player and the game world. To make it as natural and smooth as possible to use. To be truly immersed in the game world and not be bothered by unresponsive and cumbersome feedback.

Other Designers

Junior designers usually work close with experienced designers or senior designers. Senior designers on the other hand can have the same responsibilities as a lead designer and are usually synonymous in most companies.

Insider Break Down:
Depending on the the company, size and type of project, there may only be one game designer to a few involved working on the project.

We all love to play games but do you know how much effort it takes to make one? Check out our other articles on video game design, game programming and video game tester.

Information and reviews have become more readily available thanks to the growing industry and the internet, There is also more choices which translate to more competition for the publishers/devs side. As consumers our expectation for a smooth quality playing experience from double to triple-A titles over the years has increased, one can easily see the problems game breaking bugs can cause and how video game testing is more important than ever and is no longer optional.

Whats It Like to be a Video Game Tester?

On The Bug Hunt

The Primary roles of game testers is to basically brake the game in anyway possible, how do they do this? Testing, testing, and months of eye straining, stiff thumb inducing testing… The typical game testing cycle would involve playing through the game not in a traditional way a gamer would, but with a mindset of trying to break the game. Example: They would run into every wall from every possible angle, Jump over obstacles from every possible angle, run into enemies from every angle possible. This would have to be repeated in every room, environment and object in the game dozens of times over, one can get a general idea from this.

One thing to keep in mind is that there are various types of testers, some are more involved with the developers so their tasks and responsibilities vary. For simplicities sake I’ll divide them into two groups: The first group are the testers hired by the development team and the others by the publishers. The ones hired by the devs usually work on site with the rest of the team together and aren’t contracted or seasonal testers. The testers hired on the publishers side through third party agencies or their own adverts are the ones doing their tasks at home, which may be out of state or a different country.

A Day in The Life of a Video Game Tester

• show up to work on time or wake up if you’re at home, check email since most of the communication is done this way
• Check for any new instructions from the QA lead or bug data base to see which bugs have been fixed or if a new build is ready for testing
• follow QA Lead instructions or newly assigned tasks
• once in the testing phase, take note of any new bugs encounter and verify if past bugs have been fixed.
• Once instructions are completed and new ones aren’t assigned play the game like it’s meant to be played until the testing cycle is over or new instructions are given by lead

It’s important to have very good written and oral communication skills since reports will have to be written and submitted regularly, tagging the severity of bugs is one example, suggestion improvements and feedback to the dev team is also important. Generic is bad be specific.

Video Game Tester Average Pay/Salary

This discipline is one of the lowest paying in the industry and offers little to no benefits depending on the type of tester. it’s really a shame since they are such a vital part of the development cycle. The workload and payout is the reason why there’s such a high turn over rate and it’s usually used as a stepping stone into more lucrative disciplines in this industry.

A testing cycle can last between three to six months and 40-50 hour work week on crunch (close to deadline) time this can extend up to 70 hours a week, the pay for entry level testers is 9-11 dollars an hour. More experienced testers earn more.

Summery

Video game testing is by far the easiest way to enter this industry. Quite a few game designers, artist, programmers and a slew of others started this way, one can start with only a high school diploma and if they can stand the repetitiveness and close to minimum wage-pay of this job they’ll be in high demand by publishers and devs. It’s a great way to get your foot in the door and a great stepping-stone career path.

We all love to play games but do you know how much effort it takes to make one? Check out our other articles on video game design, game programming and video game tester.

Video Game designers formulate ideas and are creative decision makers, but like mentioned earlier there are many professions that fall under this term, design tittles are just what they sound like and tend to do exactly what the job entails to. a character designer flesh out what type of main characters, protagonist, villains, and supporting cast will be. Background  and level designers build the terrain, levels, place critters and objects using the editor. Lead Designers or design lead oversees and coordinates the entire design team and works together with the other heads of their departments

What Does a Game Designer Need to Know?

First thing to know is that Design candidates are first judged on their resume and portfolio (sample work), and personality a strong second. If this is what your aiming for prepare to fight your way into this field, seasoned industry workers like programmers, artist, and QA will try to fight,  kick, and gnaw their way in once a game design job is open and approved.  This leaves inexperienced graduates at a huge disadvantage.  Although some graduates do land a job out of college it’s still extremely rare, the majority of game designers worked their way through other disciplines.

If one wants to really pursue this lucrative job one should expand their horizons in every possible way, game design requires a multitude of elements from various subjects, any studies or experience will can in handy. Aspiring game designers should immerse themselves in literature, philosophy, history, and art. They draw inspiration from every facet of their lives. To say the least video game designers have the most abstract jobs in the industry.

One of the best qualities a game designer should have are strong communication and organization skills. Good writing skills are fundamental for any successful video game designer. In fact great communication skills whether oral or written are a prerequisite to this industry, even more so for the designers. Conveying Their thoughts on paper effectively is imperative. They need the rest of the team to comprehend and envision what they see in their head.

Video Game Designer Education

There are a number of institutions offering video game designer information, classes and philosophy (I will touch on this further later on) but as dynamic and unpredictable this job can be, no school will fully prepare candidates with the core tenets from such a constantly changing environment. Book learning alone will not prepare anyone for this job. To put it bluntly video game design does not require specialized skills like the other departments in this industry (programming and art). Most designers have a few years of college from a variety of classes. Some designers have a four year undergraduate degree.