Of the many computer science careers, video game designing and software engineering are two major fields in the industry.
To become a financially successful and widely respected video game designer, one should be skilled in programming, computer engineering, computer graphics, animation, and software development due to the various tasks required to create a fun and interesting game. The software is used to make the game run with user input, such as mouse clicks and button presses, while the computer graphics and animations display the characters in a lively and attractive manner. One should have at least an associates degree, if not a bachelor’s in a related field. Video game designers should also play games and follow current games often to have knowledge on the game development market. These designers generally have a salary between $57,500 and $200,000 depending on where you work, for whom you work, and what level of work such as being a lead designer (coordinator of other designers , decision-maker, and ensurer of team communication), a game mechanics designer (game rules designer and rules tester for balancing), or a level designer (level, environment, and mission designer).
Video game designers work cooperatively with teams of others on different elements of the game with the proposed game concept in mind. A video game designer’s job description usually includes outlining the desired game design such as the rules, the plot, the characters, the setting, and the user interface of the game.
As a designer, one can work on one of the many components of the game: world design, system design, content design, level design, user interface design, and audio design. World design includes making the story, setting, and theme for the game. System design includes the making the game rules. Content design involves the development of the characters, items, missions, and puzzles of the game. Level design includes the making of the game levels and its details. User interface design includes the creation of the user interactions and feedback interface. Audio design is the development of the game such as voice acting or sound effects.
This career is great for up-and-coming, passionate, imaginative programmers who are also gamers. By knowing what a gamer truly wants to see within a game, one can help design a successful game.
To become a software engineer, one must have at least an undergraduate degree in software engineering. The starting salary for a software engineer ranges from $78,000 to $120,000. A software engineer can work in almost any computing field because programs (software) are required for pretty much anything computing-related.
Usually working with other programmers, a software engineer can work in ten sub-fields: software requirements, software testing, software maintenance, software design, software construction, software configuration management, software engineering management, software quality, software engineering tools and methods, and software engineering process. The software requirements field involves elicitation (the grouping of requirements of stakeholders), analysis, specification, and management of the requirements of the software. Software testing includes validating and verifying that the software meets certain requirements, works as intended, can be implemented with similar attributes, and satisfies the needs of stakeholders. Software maintenance is the alteration of software to correct faults or improve performance. Software design involves problem solving and planning in the form of software. Software construction is the creation of useful software through coding, verification, testing, and debugging. Software configuration management is the task of controlling and tracking changes in software. Software engineering management is management ensuring the efficient and effective development and maintenance of software. Software quality is exactly what it sounds, software engineering process, and software engineering tools and methods are exactly what their names imply.
As a software engineer, one can be involved in many fields since one’s general knowledge can be applied throughout the software industry; many tasks are necessary for the correct development and maintenance of software. This career is great for problem-solvers who just want to code in general!
Sources:
http://vikipedio.org/video-game-designer-salary-and-job-description/
http://work.chron.com/average-salary-entry-level-software-engineers-6838.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering#Certification
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Lol. I clicked on the link to your blog for this assignment and was like, “Whoa, Girl’s Generation! Also, burritos!” I was also jealous of the fact that you used pictures in your blog posts and that I had never thought to do that before. Oh well. Anyway, on to the actual content of this post.
Your descriptions are very technical and informative, and that’s good. But I feel like you don’t exactly leave a strong impression with the reader on how cool being a video game software engineer or designer can be! It’s nice to know what kind of pay you get, what specific positions you can have, and all that other stuff, but I want to know why else the job might be appealing to me. You should emphasize the fact that you get to make games like Skyrim, Halo, Minecraft, Super Smash Brothers, Banjo and Kazooie (a personal favorite) and more, and how you get to define the childhood of entire generations! You wield great influence in the imaginations of many members of the young adult population today as a centerpiece of popular youth culture, and are at the heart of a still growing and lucrative industry that craves creative programmers and feeds off of fresh sources of imagination. Get what I’m saying?
There’s just so much more to the job besides the work and the pay. Aesthetics, fringe benefits, and the “fun/cool factor” are all important considerations as well. Otherwise, this was a very detailed and useful post. Thanks for sharing!
Haha, thanks for the criticism! Generally, I assume if someone wants to devote their time and efforts to a job, they should be doing so because they are interested and passionate about what they do! In this post, I tried to stick to the technical information to help inform people about the field they’re focusing or planning to focus on.
well my entire blog looks like crap now wish i hadn’t found this yours. but its true, breakfast burritos is srs bsns.
anywhoo I liked your post because I’d really like to get into indie game development, and these are things that I’ve thought about and really want to pursue. One of the reasons I like indie design is that it would allow me and my team to have control over each aspect of the game, where at a big company i’d end up coding for months to make one tiny aspect of the larger game production function properly. A good point you made is the animation styles and artwork in games, which I think most people forget. Honestly, I think that the programming of a game isn’t even as important as the artwork, because that is what pulls people in, and tells the story. I think I’m going to join the video game development club next quarter to get some more experience in the field.
Thank you for writing a post with so many specific information on video game designers and software engineers. Personally, I am very interested in becoming a video game designer. Although I am still not 100% sure if I am going to stay as a computer science major, I still want to learn about computer graphic and animation. After reading this post, I became more educated about video game designers and I am now more motivated to learn computer programming. This post is not only very informative, but inspiration as well!
I’m glad I could help! Whether or not you stick to computer science, I hope you continue to follow your interests in computer graphics in some way or another.
I think that there’s definitely a lot of very good technical information and the very specific information on video game development was interesting. Even as a gamer. I never really saw video game development as anything other than just another subset of software engineering. The team efforts and the wide variety of different jobs required to make video games just never crossed my mind before. I had always just assumed that video game developer was just a singular job, having never really wanted to create them I never really researched more on the subject. Now I’m actually quite interested in different possibilities.
The one thing that i really like about your post is that it really emphasizes the options and different variety of jobs that you can do with this common skill set which is probably the main reason that I became a computer science major. The fact that even if I was working on a certain job for years, there’s the flexibility to change jobs and still use your the skills that you learned through work and school.