Bit by Bit: The Rewards and Challeges of a Video Game Design Career
by Paul D. Rosevear
Interested in exploring
Game Design Schools
? Dante Anderson, VP, Product Development at Kuma Reality Games, a cutting edge game design company, lays out the realities of a game design career -- bit by bit.
"Many people outside a game design career confuse a game concept with game design," he says. "Simply saying 'a game where the player assumes the role of a chef made of iron in a virtual kitchen with cooking implements and ingredients that progresses by carefully following and even improvising on recipes supplied by the game would be fun' is not game design, but merely stating a concept."
Game design schools equip students with the technical know-how to translate their creativity into actual programs. But game design schools can't give you original, details, and practical ideas for game design -- which are increasingly hard to find. "There are lots of good concepts floating around, but a good game designer is relatively rare," says Anderson. "A game designer must take those concepts and flesh them out into a very detailed description of the game in a way that proves its merit to professionals in the business."
A skill that you'll need beyond those taught at game design schools is the ability to sell your pitch. "Game designers often must pitch their ideas to management in hopes of getting funding for the project," says Anderson. "Most importantly, the designer must guide the development team on a daily basis to ensure that the vision for the game is maintained, with the ultimate goal of making something new and fun, a process which can take months to years to complete."
Once you've been trained at game design schools, game designers often find themselves in other related fields in the industry, sometimes taking on a more managerial role. "As the head of development at Kuma, I spend a lot of time gathering input and maintaining consensus on the design of the various episodes in production," explains Anderson. "We release a new episode almost every week, which keeps us on our toes."
As for job outlook, training from game design schools can yield plenty of opportunity and earnings. In 2002, 256,000 people were employed in software publishing, of which game design is a part, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the growth of software publishing will expand by 67.9% between 2002 and 2012. As far as salary goes, the Bureau's Occupational Outlook Handbook published a survey of placement agencies finding that the average salary for game designers is between $35,000 and $75,000.
Bit by bit, course by course -- take it from Dante, the game design field is growing but so is competition. Game design schools are the first level to beginning your career in this ever-growing field.
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