With so many incredible advancements in technology, high quality online games have been in demand. Now a multi-million dollar industry, big gaming platforms and consoles are investing in their games in order to offer the best there is and compete with others in a very saturated industry. Online game making requires an incredibly talented group of people to make it all happen. Want to make your own? Here are the roles that you’ll need to hire.
Game designer
The game designer has an incredibly foundational role when it comes to making a game. They have all kinds of important duties including designing characters, plots and storylines as well as user-interface, in-game scenarios and objectives and more. They’re the first point of contact when it comes to the overarching narrative and purpose of a game.
Game developer
The game developer is the person (or more likely, people) that are responsible for the coding behind the game — the actual build of the game itself. Working closely with the design team, game developers create the games entities’ behaviour and logic that fuels game play, as well as any tools that will be used in the process. Think of it as the mechanicals behind the game!
Rendering Engineer
Also known as a graphics programmer, a rendering engineer is a technical expert who develops specialised programmes and are responsible for creating believable graphics characters and animations. They need to be able to optimise the visual quality and performance, which is no easy task when you’re trying to create a high quality experience.
Concept Artist
Before the game making really begins, the concept artist has to come up with, well, the concept art. This includes what they believe the look and feel of the game should be, working together with game designers who have built the story line. Concept artists will continue to be important through out the game making process, constantly ensuring that the animators and artists are being consistent with the core visual strategy.
Texture Artist
When it comes to high quality graphics, texture is key. In modern games, there a vast amount of textures that can be used that can increase the look and feel of a game’s visuals. Some textures can be applied automatically, but others may be needed to be painted manually to look good when scaled and transformed. Your average ame will have thousands of textures — which makes having an experienced texture artist on board a non-negotiable.
3D Artist
Many games these days now employ 3D elements — and even 2D games use 3D models as their source material. Having good 3D model can really make or break a game, which is where 3D artists come into play. They have to be aware of all the conditions in a game in which 3D models are used, including the final rendered objects and camera angles. This also feeds into game optimisation which, as we already mentioned, is part of the rendering.
3D Animator
Complex 3D illustrations need a 3D animator to make them work. If your game requires 3D animation, then you’ll have to have a 3D animator as part of the team to bring the characters to life.
Sound Engineer
Great sound, including sound effects and music, are some of the top ways you can really up-the-ante in terms of game quality. Think: environmental and ambient sounds, explosions, character voices and more. It sounds straightforward, but it’s a tough job to know how exactly to make things sound. Sound engineers are also responsible for mastering the sound file and can create sounds for objects that don’t exist in real life.
Music Engineer
On top of having a sound engineer, many games require an incredible soundtrack — the best ones out there have even won big awards for it. Music can completely change the atmosphere of game play, following plot tensions and changing as the game goes along. A music engineer — really a composer — is a key player to have on your team if you want to create one of the best games out there.
Story designer
Apart from having a plotline from the game designer, the story designer is the one who works out the storyline — from the challenges the characters to face, to more in depth backstories, to how the game progresses in real time, to the game world itself.
Level designer
If your game has multiple levels (which most do), you’ll need a level designer. They help deal with the different level of mechanics, the progression of difficulty increase and more.
Release Manager
Release Managers are the people who organise the release of the game through digital distributors like Steam, AppStore, PlayStation Network, Googleplay and the likes. This requires a lot of paperwork for the release process, as many publishers have strict timelines. They are likely to have a say in the price of the game when it goes on sale and any special offers that go with it. With the gambling industry being so competitive, getting the bonuses right can be vital to ensuring a game stands out from the crowd, so when you see slots free spins, it will have been given the go ahead by the release manager.
Unlike the more creative roles, the release manager has to be great at admin and keeping on tracks of all the different elements that go into releasing a high quality game.
Project Manager
You’ve hired all the most talented people to fill the roles you need to make a great game. But you also need a project manager to keep everyone organised and get the project moving along smoothly. Monitoring budgets, keeping teams synchronised and sticking to important deadlines is exactly what a project manager does. It may be one of the biggest responsibilities as part of a game making team — otherwise, everything else just falls apart.