It seems like an incredible prospect to turn your love of video games into a career. While making video games is a very exciting prospect for many people, some don’t know that there is a big difference between game development and game design. While video game designers are involved in all creative aspects of creating a game, game developers or programmers are responsible for the actual coding and technical aspects of putting together a game. Game designers need to be able to visualize new ideas and concepts so that they can develop designs for new games.
The average salary of game developers is likely to rise, and the salary opportunities for all IT professionals involved in the video game industry are likely to skyrocket as well. Like programming, we all know what the artist is responsible for, but the art department is in some ways more divided than programming. Within the art department of a game company, there may be character artists, environmental artists, weapon artists, technical artists, user interface artists, 3D artists, and animators. Although the department may be separate, it is the job of the art director to oversee everything and ensure collaboration between everyone.
Video game designers start with a list of concepts, narrowed down by a large team of developers to the best. Teamwork is essential in this area, as designers collaborate with role-playing mechanics, storytelling, character development, graphics, and everything in between. The main difference between game designers and game programmers is that game designers work on the creative side, while game programmers develop code and address the technical how to become video game concept artist aspects of video games. When the development of the game began, the artists of the game were also the programmers, so often very old games like Pong lack any kind of creativity and were very minimalistic. It wasn’t until the early 1980s that art began to become more complicated in development. One of the first video game artists to bring more form and two-dimensional characters was Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Mario and Donkey Kong.
The work of the team of artists begins at the level of conceptual art and finds its way until the models are fully structured, manipulated and animated. Research what types of artwork companies release to fully understand the expectations of a specific listing. Game designers must have a certain level of creative genius to create new concepts and game plans.
If the team does not have individual specialists responsible for quality assurance, the developers take over the testing tasks. If you’re interested in analog games (board games, card games, escape rooms), the billion-dollar board game industry offers opportunities to work as a game producer, game designer, 3D sculptor, or production artist. “A game art program is not for the hardcore computer engineer,” says Dr. Zachary Walter, president of the new BFA Game Arts at the California College of the Arts.