Back in the early days of video games, a single person could often handle everything, designing, coding, creating art, and even the sound. Fast forward to today, and games have grown into massive productions, closer in scale to making a blockbuster film. That means building a game now takes a whole team of specialists, each with their own role to play. I’ve pulled together a few of the most common roles in the industry to explore.
Game Designer
According to game designer and author Tracy Fullerton, the role of the Game Designer is to be an advocate for the player.
What exactly is an “advocate for the player”? The game designer needs to ensure that everything implemented in the game meets the needs and expectations of its intended players. Sounds easy enough, right?
While everyone on the game production team should think like a game designer, the actual title of the game designer is usually reserved for one or two individuals who are responsible for conceiving the main idea of the game.
Game designers’ tasks include:
- Brainstorm and refine game ideas
- Creating game prototypes
- Preparing all documentation on the project and updates
- Making decisions on the direction of the game
- Playtesting and revising each iteration of the game
- Creating game levels or working closely with level designers
- Communicates the vision of the game and ensures the entire team works towards
Game Design, Production, and Development
While they are often used synonymously, it’s important to recognize the differences between the terms game design, game development, and game production. Game design is the plan for the player’s experience, game production manages the process to bring that plan to life, and game development applies the plan through tools, art, and code to create the playable game.
Think Like a Game Designer
Everyone working on a game production team should think like a game designer when it comes to being an advocate for the player.
Everyone is a Game Designer
It’s worth noting that while the title Game Designer is often assigned to a single person on a project, the term designer can actually apply to many roles. As highlighted in the Extra Credits video on the four types of game designers, design work takes many forms. In fact, Richard Lemarchand points out in “A Playful Production Process” that everyone on the team is, in some sense, a game designer. Artists, programmers, sound designers, animators, and others all make choices that shape how the game plays and how players experience it.
Game Director
Some of the tasks originally assigned to the game designer have recently been given to the more recent role of the game director. You may have heard of the titles of production manager or producer, and the game director takes on all the same responsibilities; however, they are often far more involved in the development process than a traditional producer would be.
The main task of the game director is to keep the flow of communication within the development team, ensure that everyone is working towards the main vision of the game, and know the production in terms of deadlines and budget.
Game directors often have previous experience as game designers and take their expertise with them as they work with a new team on the development of the next big project.
Level Designer
A level designer, as the title implies, is responsible for creating the level. This entails everything from the goals of the level, the challenges the player faces in the level, the size and length of the level, and the behavior of the resources in the level.
Often, the game designer takes on the role of lead level designer or sole level designer in smaller productions.
Game Programmer
The game programmer is responsible for implementing all the technical aspects of the game. In many cases, you might have a designated programmer for, say, the weapons system, while another one might be focusing on character controls and behaviors.
While the tasks might be different among programmers, they all should work together, ensuring each system is compatible with the others and adhering to a set standard when it comes to documenting their code.
Visual Artists
All the visuals in the game, from characters, world objects, menu graphics, cut scenes, and cinematics, all fall under the responsibility of the visual artist.
Many titles fall under this role, anything from environmental artist, character designer, animator, 3d modeler, and graphic artist, just to name a few. Regardless of their official title or how many are on a specific development team, they all need to work together to ensure a consistent style throughout the game.
A few years ago, Riot Games put together a 10-part video series on art for video games, breaking down the many roles that fall under visual art. Below is the first video in the series, which gives an overview of what game art actually consists of.
UX Designers
Early video game developers gave little thought to the overall user experience (i.e., UX). Granted, there was little to think about; after all, you had a start screen and maybe a few dialog boxes to read through.
However, in today’s immersive and vast game worlds, players must keep track of inventories, quests, weapons, health, and so much more. Having a system in place that is both simple and intuitive to use can make or break a game.
Thus comes the role of the UX designer, they are responsible for ensuring a smooth user experience for the player. This means they need to identify the best placement, order, and functionality for all elements that the player must interact with. There is a lot of player psychology and playtesting that goes into good UX design.
Furthermore, UX designers are not to be confused with user interface or UI designers. UI designers simply design the graphics used in the interface of the game, the menu buttons, health bars, etc. Often, UI design is either assigned as a task to visual artists or one of the responsibilities of the UX designer.
Quality Assurance Engineers
When you were younger, did you dream of getting a job as a game tester? Aw, the life to be paid to play games.
The stereotype of the 20-something making money playing games is far from reality. Typically, if there is a beta test call for a game, the game has been tested long before it ever gets to that stage.
Quality Assurance Engineers or QA Engineers are more than just game players; they not only play the games, but they also try to break them, documenting every detail as to what the player actions are, what the game is doing, any bugs they might encounter, and possible causes for the issue. QA engineers need to have a basic understanding of the game mechanics to diagnose any problems.
Some companies solely focus on QA for game production and work with game studios for testing throughout the game production.
Regardless of whether there is a dedicated QA engineer on the team or not, all members of the game production team should be testing the game throughout the production process.
Specialized Media
Game production can be a massive undertaking, and depending on the size of the game, it may require an even larger team to develop.
Depending on the type of game you are making, you might also require:
- Writers to create rich narratives, scripts, and or quests
- Audio / Video Specialist to create custom soundtracks, record voice-overs, film cuteness, or motion capture.
- Field masters to share detailed information about a subject. For example, if you are making a cooking game and know nothing about cooking, you might bring in a chef to share their knowledge.
Modern game development involves a wide range of roles, far more than a single person could ever handle alone. From designers and programmers to artists and QA testers, each role contributes a vital piece to the larger puzzle. And even with all these examples, we’ve only just scratched the surface of the many specialties that exist in the industry. The bigger the project, the more specialized the roles become, which is part of what makes game development such a collaborative and fascinating field.