Publishers - What do they do?
Publishers are companies which fund projects developers put forward to them. There are many ways they fund their projects, producers will put money initially into the development of the game itself and market research to ensure the game is profitable. Publishers are sort of the overseers of the games industry in the sense that they watch over the developers and make sure their productions are running smoothly and will be profitable Activision interfere a little more than other games publishers in the sense that they make sure their product will 100% sell, they mostly just make sequels lately and have lost their originality over time. Publishers also put out ads and market the product the developers are creating, Microsoft marketed Halo 3 on release with TV ads although some other developers will use youtube to make people aware of the release of their product. Another responsibility for publishers is the distribution of the product; large production companies will distribute products themselves whereas smaller production companies will hire other distribution companies to distribute their products.
Developers - What are the different types of developers? What do they do?
There are hundreds of development companies around and all of these companies are a little different. These development companies are split into 3 categories. There are 1st party developers who produce games exclusively for one publisher, 3rd party developers who produce games for publishers to openly buy them and independent developers who develop and publish their own games. Independent developers are few and far between although they do release some gems occasionally. Bungie who started as an independent developer signed with Microsoft to expand the Halo franchise into the video games industry. They then became 1st party developers for Microsoft before they moved on to join Infinity Ward and Treyarch under Activision. Infinity Ward is best known for the Call Of Duty franchise along with Treyarch.
Independent developers such as Jagex develop and publish their own game, Runescape. Quite a few gaming gems have come from independent games developers. Runescape for instance has been around online for over 10 years and is still played by a large community of loyal players.
The Dispute – Developers vs Publishers
General disputing publishers and developers has always happened since the start of video games design. The reason for this is that although both parties share the same goal of releasing great games they also have different goals to reach. Developers want to come up with new ideas and create fresh games all the time that they would enjoy to play and they would enjoy making. Publishers want money from the game that the developers make. Often times this will result in compromise to get a great game released. Sometimes however Publishers won’t respect the creativity and knowledge of games that the developers possess and will look at games purely from a marketing perspective.
Activision and Infinity Ward have a big dispute issue within the Call of Duty franchise. Activision want to keep pumping out the same title with minor tweaks because it’s proven to be profitable and the game has generated a lot of success whereas the developers of Call of Duty would rather make a lot of drastic changes to really evolve the game and unleash their creative freedom on an already successful title.
Gaming Industry Roles
Producers Average pay: $82,905.
The responsibilities of the producers are to ensure the game meets the standards of the publisher distributing the game. Since most development teams are 3rd party developers working with publishers to get their games released the publisher will often assign an executive producer to a specific title to handle contract negotiations including licensing deals. The producers act very much as liaisons between the development team and the publishers to ensure a good relationship and make sure everyone are getting what they want from the titles release. The biggest job I would say a producer has though is managing how time and resources are spent within a project. Their main job is to maintain budgets and schedules to optimise productivity while also overseeing the technical and creative development of the title. The time management is all based around getting the developers to reach their milestones on time for alpha and beta testing with the quality assurance team. Producers are also responsible for arranging focus groups and localization which is the process in which the software is given different languages or regional differences to fit the target audience. There’s no point in having a game work in American NTSC format if it’s going to be published in Europe on a PAL format.
Games Designers Average Salary: $55,600
Game designers are usually the people who come up with the initial idea for the game, they decide how the game plays and what it consists of. Combinations of skills are required for games design because it is such a complex activity. These skills consist of –management, design, scheduling and research etc. Designers also require an understanding of all of the games aspects. Documenting their vision and being able to communicate it with the members of the development team is another skill required.
Usually games are large projects in which a number of people share responsibilities for a section of the game or ‘level’. Allocating level designs to team members is one of many responsibilities for game designers.
Mapping, detailed layout and building of the environment are all processes within the Level Design process. Placement of interactive objects and assets within the environment are also a part of Level Design, another responsibility of Games Designers. The majority of modern games are 3D meaning Designers work with 3D modelling software in mind to ensure the Artists are able to develop the models required to make the game aesthetically pleasing.
For larger projects there will be multiple Games Designers within the team with each designer being responsible for their own part of the game, a Lead Designer or Creative Director takes overall responsibility and will allocate designers with tasks to complete or ‘milestones’.
Animators Average Salary: $46,700
Animators take 3d models and add motion; they give the models life and work within animation software such as Maya, 3Ds Max Flash to create animations. Animations are created using key frames to create fluid and life-like animations for the video game. Theatrical ability is essential as an animator because you need to be aware of the sort of movements characters would make in certain situations. Knowing how people talk with their hands etc.
Storyboarding is another responsibility of the animators since they need to plan out what they’re going to do before starting as well as express their ideas to the rest of the animation team.
Concept Artists Average Salary: $41,000
Concept Artists come up with ideas and draw them. The responsibilities of the artists are to take what’s in their head and put it on paper, usually using traditional materials as opposed to software. Sharing their ideas with the rest of the games development team is their main responsibilities. They are responsible for sketching ideas for environments, characters, vehicles, clothing, furniture and other content within the game. They also suggest how the game would feel to play in specific colour schemes. The ideas of the concept artists determine a lot of how many of the aspects within the game will look aesthetically although they’re not really involved in the actual creation of the game art.
Programmers Average Salary: $50,000
This seems the most mysterious. From the outside, of all the game development areas Programming is the most misunderstood. Programming is the heart of the development process. The programming team are the people who write all the code which makes the game mechanics playable. It’s all fine and good having pretty graphics but without programmers those visuals would be just that, visuals.
Programmers are separated into numerous sub-categories within the department of programming. These disciplines include character control, artificial intelligence, graphic rendering engine development, middleware tools development and gameplay programming. All disciplines are more often than not monitored by a Lead Programmer who is responsible for keeping the team on the same page regarding the out-come of the game they’re creating. The Lead Programmer strategically manages the code development process. In order to create great mechanics and make things work the way they’re supposed to, programmers require good problem solving skills, strong team-work skills and communication skills on top of programming ability.
Publishers are companies which fund projects developers put forward to them. There are many ways they fund their projects, producers will put money initially into the development of the game itself and market research to ensure the game is profitable. Publishers are sort of the overseers of the games industry in the sense that they watch over the developers and make sure their productions are running smoothly and will be profitable Activision interfere a little more than other games publishers in the sense that they make sure their product will 100% sell, they mostly just make sequels lately and have lost their originality over time. Publishers also put out ads and market the product the developers are creating, Microsoft marketed Halo 3 on release with TV ads although some other developers will use youtube to make people aware of the release of their product. Another responsibility for publishers is the distribution of the product; large production companies will distribute products themselves whereas smaller production companies will hire other distribution companies to distribute their products.
Developers - What are the different types of developers? What do they do?
There are hundreds of development companies around and all of these companies are a little different. These development companies are split into 3 categories. There are 1st party developers who produce games exclusively for one publisher, 3rd party developers who produce games for publishers to openly buy them and independent developers who develop and publish their own games. Independent developers are few and far between although they do release some gems occasionally. Bungie who started as an independent developer signed with Microsoft to expand the Halo franchise into the video games industry. They then became 1st party developers for Microsoft before they moved on to join Infinity Ward and Treyarch under Activision. Infinity Ward is best known for the Call Of Duty franchise along with Treyarch.
Independent developers such as Jagex develop and publish their own game, Runescape. Quite a few gaming gems have come from independent games developers. Runescape for instance has been around online for over 10 years and is still played by a large community of loyal players.
The Dispute – Developers vs Publishers
General disputing publishers and developers has always happened since the start of video games design. The reason for this is that although both parties share the same goal of releasing great games they also have different goals to reach. Developers want to come up with new ideas and create fresh games all the time that they would enjoy to play and they would enjoy making. Publishers want money from the game that the developers make. Often times this will result in compromise to get a great game released. Sometimes however Publishers won’t respect the creativity and knowledge of games that the developers possess and will look at games purely from a marketing perspective.
Activision and Infinity Ward have a big dispute issue within the Call of Duty franchise. Activision want to keep pumping out the same title with minor tweaks because it’s proven to be profitable and the game has generated a lot of success whereas the developers of Call of Duty would rather make a lot of drastic changes to really evolve the game and unleash their creative freedom on an already successful title.
Gaming Industry Roles
Producers Average pay: $82,905.
The responsibilities of the producers are to ensure the game meets the standards of the publisher distributing the game. Since most development teams are 3rd party developers working with publishers to get their games released the publisher will often assign an executive producer to a specific title to handle contract negotiations including licensing deals. The producers act very much as liaisons between the development team and the publishers to ensure a good relationship and make sure everyone are getting what they want from the titles release. The biggest job I would say a producer has though is managing how time and resources are spent within a project. Their main job is to maintain budgets and schedules to optimise productivity while also overseeing the technical and creative development of the title. The time management is all based around getting the developers to reach their milestones on time for alpha and beta testing with the quality assurance team. Producers are also responsible for arranging focus groups and localization which is the process in which the software is given different languages or regional differences to fit the target audience. There’s no point in having a game work in American NTSC format if it’s going to be published in Europe on a PAL format.
Games Designers Average Salary: $55,600
Game designers are usually the people who come up with the initial idea for the game, they decide how the game plays and what it consists of. Combinations of skills are required for games design because it is such a complex activity. These skills consist of –management, design, scheduling and research etc. Designers also require an understanding of all of the games aspects. Documenting their vision and being able to communicate it with the members of the development team is another skill required.
Usually games are large projects in which a number of people share responsibilities for a section of the game or ‘level’. Allocating level designs to team members is one of many responsibilities for game designers.
Mapping, detailed layout and building of the environment are all processes within the Level Design process. Placement of interactive objects and assets within the environment are also a part of Level Design, another responsibility of Games Designers. The majority of modern games are 3D meaning Designers work with 3D modelling software in mind to ensure the Artists are able to develop the models required to make the game aesthetically pleasing.
For larger projects there will be multiple Games Designers within the team with each designer being responsible for their own part of the game, a Lead Designer or Creative Director takes overall responsibility and will allocate designers with tasks to complete or ‘milestones’.
Animators Average Salary: $46,700
Animators take 3d models and add motion; they give the models life and work within animation software such as Maya, 3Ds Max Flash to create animations. Animations are created using key frames to create fluid and life-like animations for the video game. Theatrical ability is essential as an animator because you need to be aware of the sort of movements characters would make in certain situations. Knowing how people talk with their hands etc.
Storyboarding is another responsibility of the animators since they need to plan out what they’re going to do before starting as well as express their ideas to the rest of the animation team.
Concept Artists Average Salary: $41,000
Concept Artists come up with ideas and draw them. The responsibilities of the artists are to take what’s in their head and put it on paper, usually using traditional materials as opposed to software. Sharing their ideas with the rest of the games development team is their main responsibilities. They are responsible for sketching ideas for environments, characters, vehicles, clothing, furniture and other content within the game. They also suggest how the game would feel to play in specific colour schemes. The ideas of the concept artists determine a lot of how many of the aspects within the game will look aesthetically although they’re not really involved in the actual creation of the game art.
Programmers Average Salary: $50,000
This seems the most mysterious. From the outside, of all the game development areas Programming is the most misunderstood. Programming is the heart of the development process. The programming team are the people who write all the code which makes the game mechanics playable. It’s all fine and good having pretty graphics but without programmers those visuals would be just that, visuals.
Programmers are separated into numerous sub-categories within the department of programming. These disciplines include character control, artificial intelligence, graphic rendering engine development, middleware tools development and gameplay programming. All disciplines are more often than not monitored by a Lead Programmer who is responsible for keeping the team on the same page regarding the out-come of the game they’re creating. The Lead Programmer strategically manages the code development process. In order to create great mechanics and make things work the way they’re supposed to, programmers require good problem solving skills, strong team-work skills and communication skills on top of programming ability.
Sound Engineers
Sound engineers are responsible for the sounds you would hear within a game. They record foley sounds to be used within the world. Things like footsteps on various surfaces need to be recorded in high quality on top of multiple other real world sounds. Sound engineers will oversee the recording of music and voiceovers too since they are the most knowledgeable and have extensive experience with both the hardware and software used in industry.
Quality Assurance
Games testers or quality assurance specialists only need limited knowledgeable of the games design process because their job is literally just to find glitches. Quality assurance within the games industry requires patience due to the tedious nature of the work. Games testers also work with the design team to change mechanics in order to make them function correctly or balance them properly with the rest of the game.
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