Category Archives: Career Advice
What Jobs Are There At A Game Development Company?
A game development company, also called a game developer or game studio, is a company that makes games. Although that may seem obvious, it is distinct from a game publishing company, which funds, markets, manufactures and sells games. Some game studios are owned by game publishers; an example of this would be Infinity Ward, which is owned by Activision. Others, such as Naughty Dog, are independently owned companies that may work for several publishers. Other developers are individuals or a group of individuals, called “indies”, who work freelance.
Most of the employees at a game studio work on one or more development team. A development team is managed by a development director (also called a producer, project manager, or team lead) who is responsible for assigning team members their work tasks, monitoring work progress, and providing them with what they need for doing their work. Large teams may have a number of production people involved in project management.
The rest of the team is comprised of people working in one of these three disciplines:
- Design: Responsible for determining the game premise, rules, objectives, obstacles, resources, story and other play elements. Large teams may be comprised of a lead designer overseeing system designers, user interface designers, technical designers, content designers, level designers and writers.
- Artist: Responsible for creating the game’s art. Large teams may be comprised of a lead artist or art director overseeing concept artists, user interface artists, 2D or sprite artists, 3D modelers, riggers, animators, and environmental artists.
- Programmer: Responsible for implementing the game design, art and other assets on the game platform. Large teams may be comprised of a lead programmer or technical director overseeing engine programmers, system programmers, user interface programmers, audio programmers, artificial intelligence programmers, multiplayer programmers, tool programmers and scripters.
Some development personnel may not be needed throughout the entire project and therefore work outside of the team structure so that they can assist multiple teams at the times when they are needed. These include:
- Middleware programmers: Responsible for developing tools that will be used on multiple projects.
- Audio team: Responsible for creating the game’s music, sound effects, and voice-over.
- Quality Assurance: Responsible for testing the game to make sure that the game is fun play along all player choices and that everything has been successfully implemented.
If the game’s scope is larger than the studio’s staff can handle or requires specialized skills, then the studio may outsource some of the work to third-party companies responsible for such tasks as additional artwork, cut scenes, motion capture or foreign language localization.
Finally, there are employees who handle the functions all companies need:
- Office manager: Responsible for ensuring that everyone has the supplies and resources they need to do their jobs.
- Accountant: Responsible for paying bills and handling payroll.
- Human Resources: Responsible for employee benefits and assisting in the hiring (and firing) of employees.
- Information Technology: Responsible for ensuring that employees’ technical needs, such as internet access and email, are met.
- Business Development: Responsible for finding new business opportunities and clients to work for, and keeping current clients happy.
Then there are the employees who work at a game publisher, but that’s another post for another day.
Wanted: More Female Game Developers
When I greeted my game production class a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised. The group was racially and ethnically diverse, but there was not a single woman among the fifteen students. Last weekend I attended my first open house at The Los Angeles Film School, I was disappointed that there was only one woman among the prospective students who came to hear about the school’s Game Production Program. There appeared to be many women taking tours of the Film and Recording Programs, but those of us in the Computer Lab were visited by this one Russian woman who was interested in a career in game programming. Needless to say, the other faculty members and I tried very hard to persuade her into enrolling in our program.
When I later inquired into the school’s history with female students in Game Production program, I was told that there have been only a handful of women among the hundreds of the program’s graduates.
While the Game Industry has always had a reputation for women being a tiny minority among its ranks, my own experience is that I’ve always worked with women throughout my career, and not just women who worked in Marketing or the Art Department.
At the first game company I worked at in the early 1980s, EduWare, there were two women programmers. Later, when I joined The Walt Disney Company in the late 1980s, my immediate supervisor was a woman, as was one of my fellow producers and the Vice President of our division. When I went on to work for a CD-I developer (I know, I know), the two production executives we dealt with at our publisher, Philips Interactive Media of America, were women. Years later, when I joined The 3DO Company to produce the Heroes of Might & Magic Series, my lead level designer was a woman, and I later promoted her to Assistant Designer. At Activision, our president, Kathy Vabrek, was obviously a women; and when I joined the Spin Master toy company, my immediate supervisor, my assistant producer, and a programmer on my development team were women. So, women having programmer, producer, and production roles has been a constant throughout my thirty-year career, the question for me is: “why aren’t there more of them?”
Is it a demand problem? Are there so many hiring managers in the game industry who have a hiring bias against women? I find that hard to believe. If any of my past colleagues have gender bias, they’ve done a very good job of hiding it from me.
Or is it a supply problem? Are there too few women interested in being game developers? According to 2010 ESRB study, forty percent of all gamers are female, so I also find it hard to believe that very few women are interested in being game developers.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know one thing. I would love to have more female students in my class. And I’m always on the look out for good designers, programmers and producers to hire; all I care about is your talent.
David Mullich 