Game maker as a carreer?

Question

Hello yahoo people. i was wondering if anyone can tell me about the profession in the work field of game making. Now i thought to myself that i could be a game designer, or anything involving games, but i'm sure that their are a lot of jobs in order to complete a project. (game) Does anyone know how a game is made?The steps from being to end?What types of people are hired and how many do you need?I wanted to make games, create the ideas, story line, and designs of how games looks, how a person plays,how the game works ,etc. What job would most fit my description?

Answer 1

Well I think to see what jobs are available you'd need to ask the company itself. Most require Art jobs like Environmental artists texture artists 3D and 2D artists other require sound like music or in-game audio effects. Special effects but that may be done by some other. Programmers are very important, and that's some for starters. Plus you have the story writers and pretty much every little "sub-job" has  a lead person like Lead Artist or Lead Programmer.

I don't exactly know the steps but I know the group making the game gets together and makes a little sample then shows the idea or demo to the producer which is like Microsoft and stuff, not the game devolper the Publisher who provides the money to make the game, and then if they get the green light and the money they start making the game... I'm sure some steps vary depending on the game and the company though.

There are Game Devolpment schools out there, just google game devolpment schools and you'll find some.

Answer 2

wow that is quite the question :).

well, i cant exactly tell you all you need to know. but i can tell you where to start.

look into buying a 3D modeling software. this is how game makers design characters etc.

as great as that sounds, this is NOT an easy process for these reasons

1. they are expensive

2. they are f*cking difficult to get your head around at first

3. say goodbye to fresh air , because these type of things take a lot of time and patience.

just follow tutorials and start out small. dont jump straight into the deep end. i did and it just slows you down.

all the best  

edit - just realized 3 isn't really a reason, so much as a statement. but you see my point.

Answer 3

There are four basic areas of the development team: design, programming, art, and level building, which are supported by production, Quality Assurance, customer service, sound design, marketing, business development, etc.  Designers write up the details of every tiny aspect of the game and come up with the math to support it.  Programmers take the written details from the designers and implement it using programming languages like C++ and/or in-house tools.  Artists create the 3D art, animations, textures, etc for everything in the game.  And level builders take assets created by the artists and create the physical layout of the world.  Producers manage the entire project and keep everyone on schedule and on budget.  Quality Assurance tests the game for bugs, and reports those back to development.

What you’ve described falls mostly under the Design department, except for how the game looks – that’s typically handled by the Art department.  Sometimes writers are brought in to handle plot and dialogue, but on a lot of games the designers handle that as well.

As for the steps in the development process, there are a lot and they vary a great deal depending on what type of game you’re making, for what platform, and what type of funding you need for it.  Typically a game starts out as an idea, either from the Lead Designer, the CEO, investors in the company, or someone similarly high up the food chain.  The Lead Designer then starts to flesh the idea out, creating initially a single page “executive overview” of the game, and eventually a multiple page Design Overview.

At this point, the rest of the design team typically comes in, and starts fleshing out the various areas of the game (combat, character creation, item system, etc etc).  A prototype may be made at this point, depending on how complex the game is.  Design docs are produced, down to the tiniest detail of the gameplay, and the math to balance it all.  As they’re finished, the design docs are turned over the art and programming teams, to start the implementation.

After that it usually goes into implementation and testing, adding more items and levels and NPCs to the game, fleshing it out, and balancing it, though all of that depends a lot on the type of game you’re making.  Eventually the game will hit “alpha” which is usually the first semi-complete version of the game, with things missing and bugs still outstanding.  Then comes beta, with fewer bugs and things missing, but still not complete.  Then gold master, which is the version that gets sent off to the CD or DVD press to be put in the box.

Obviously there’s a lot more intricacies to game development, but each game is different.  If you want to learn about it from the inside, look into getting a job in Quality Assurance.  You’ll work directly with the development team and see the process up close.  It’s invaluable experience.  And most game designers start out in QA or customer service, and work their way into design from there.