Creative Development

Game designer

• A game designer is someone who is responsible for the overall design and creation of a game. These can range from concept artists to 3D modellers.

• Keith Schuler, a game designer for Borderlands 2, is the lead designer for many of Gearbox’s games, including Borderlands, Borderlands 2, and Borderlands: the Pre-sequel as well as others that include Max Payne Series, Shadow Warrior, and others from the 90’s era. He is also a skilled concept artist, and has been, once, a lead artist for a discontinued project.

Level Editor• “A level editor (Also known as a Scenario, Campaign or Map editor)

is a software tool used to design levels, maps, campaigns, etcetera, and virtual worlds for a video game. An individual involved with the creation and editing of a game and levels is a level designer or mapper.”

-Wikipedia-

• A Lead (Development) Artist is responsible for the overall look of the game, and its graphics and image. They are also responsible for devising the game’s visual style and directing the production of all visual material throughout the game’s development. Lastly, they are in charge of the managing of the art and animation teams.

• Lead concept artist for the video game Dragon Age: Inquisition, Matt Rhodes, has created numerous concept arts and designs for various video games as both lead artist and concept artist alike.

• This is some of his work for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Lead Artist

Technical Artist• These specific artists act as a bridge of sorts between the artist world and

technical programming side of video games. • They ensure art assets can easily be integrated within a game without

sacrificing either artistic views and visions, or exceeding of the platform’s technical limits.

• They investigate new techniques, implementing them into the training of their team.

Casey Hudson, the now executive producer of Bioware’s Mass Effect series, was once the Technical Artist for their video game, Neverwinter Nights; he was then bumped up to something different in a different game of which then began to create. He has now left Bioware, but is moving on to a ‘new stage’ of his career.

Artist• A video game artist is responsible for

the creation of the game, such as characters, scenery, objects, surface textures, clothing, etcetera.

• For creating concept art and storyboards that help communicate the proposed visual elements.

• Kevin Cloud is a video game animator and artist, creating some concept art for various games and helping with the smaller animation issues. He is now the co-writer and lead artist of a magazine called ‘Commodore 64 disk magazine: Loadstar’.

Animator• They are responsible for the portrayal of movement and behaviour within

a game, making best use of the game engine’s technology, within the platform limitations.

• Clove Roy, a video game animator for Bioware’s video game Dragon Age: Origins, created many different animations for both the characters and other moving components, both in-game and those that were scrapped.

Audio Engineer

• Mainly in charge of creating the soundtrack of a game, including music, character voices, sound effects, spoken instruction and ambient effects.

• Audio Engineers also work for specialist outsourcing companies and localisation services that re-version games for different territories.

• The Audio Engineer will sometimes also audition and record any actors that are needed - in other languages if the game is being re-versioned - and this might invo5lve lip syncing to animation.

Technical Development

Game Programmer

• Designing and writing the computer code that runs and controls a game.

• David Falkner is the video game programmer for the Bioware video game Mass Effect. He has been their programmer throughout the game franchise, and is invaluable.

Lead Game Programmer• Leading the programming team responsible for creating all

the computer code which runs and controls a game.• Producing the technical specification of the game and

managing the overall code development process.

Project Manager/producer

• They ensure the successful delivery of a game, on time and within budget.

• They oversee all aspects of a game’s development and delivery.

• They control the financial and other resources needed for a project and co-ordinate the work of the production team, making sure that the quality and vision of the game is maintained, whatever problems may arise.

Assistant Producer

• They work with a game’s production team, and ensure the timely delivery of the highest quality product possible.

• Assistant Producers are employed by publishers as well as development studios. Working within a development studio often involves managing communications between different teams such as design, art and programming.

• In a publisher environment, Assistant Producers will focus on liaising between sales and marketing departments and the developer, and supporting the work of the publisher's External Producer.

External Producer

• They ensure successful delivery of a game, while working externally from the game development team.

• They make sure the publisher has all the relevant information required to make the game as commercially successful as possible.

• External Producers are almost always employed by a game publisher. Working out of the publisher's head office, they liaise between the publisher's sales and marketing departments and the game developer, which may be located hundreds of miles away.

Creative Director

• They are responsible for the overall look and feel of a video game.

• They oversee any high-level decisions that affect how the game plays, looks or sounds.

• Ensuring the quality and style of the gameplay, artwork, music and audio assets.

• Where the position is used, each game development team has its own Creative Director. Some highly experienced and talented Creative Directors oversee multiple projects.

Quality Assurance

QA Tester

• They test, tune and debug a game and suggest refinements that ensure its quality and playability.

• They assure quality in a game and find its flaws before it goes public.

• They test for bugs in the software, from complete crashes to minor glitches in the programme. They also act as the game’s first audience, reporting on its playability and identifying any aspects which could be improved.

Business Development

Public relations

• Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a non-profit organization) and the public.[1] Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment.

• Public relations are those internal and external to the company that handle the media and reviews, as well as the release.

• They oversee the media and their reviews on games, and relay the info directly back to the developers before the info becomes public.

Product manager

• They help create and implement marketing campaigns to maximise sales of games.

• The Product Manager's role is to help create and implement marketing campaigns to maximise the sales of the games they are working on.

• Working in the marketing team, they support the senior marketing managers who organise international or global campaigns.

Marketing Executive

• They Work with internal leads to develop marketing around their products.

• Develop a strong partnership with internal game teams.• Manage digital agency relationships.