Indeed, gaming has come a long way. Today it has placed itself as a fast-evolving industry with over 2.34 billion gamers worldwide. And it’s only growing higher with the approach of cloud gaming services and big tech companies entering the conflict with their own gaming platforms like Google Stadia, Microsoft xCloud, and Apple Arcade.
In India, every year the gaming industry does approximately $890 million worth of business and there are more than 100 game development companies in the country. There’s a growth in demand for professionals in the gaming field, game development jobs surpass any regular 9-5 work, and there are lots of interesting roles available. You will not only build games but can be involved in the world of gaming – all in a day at work.
Let’s dive in and learn all about game development in this comprehensive career guide from Eduonix Learning Solutions.
What is Game Development?
Game development is simply the process of creating video games. A game developer brings out the programming included in building a video game. They’re also known as programmers. Developers work in different teams who are responsible for several features of the game like gameplay, context, character development, and more.
A Game developer is often seen working in teams to help compose an idea for a game to come to life. The work prior to establishing up a game involves creating a story, outlining the designs, and producing a prototype giving sound effects, ensuring the quality. The gaming industry is especially a very powerful industry with rich layoffs; it needs severe hard work and long working hours.
In the gaming industry, you basically make a world for others to play in so that they can emerge into a world of your creativity in every concept. Certainly, a professional or an enthusiast anyone with passion can become a game developer.
Skills Required to Become a Game Developer
- Strong IT Skills –
To achieve success as a game developer, you require to fasten your knowledge in software programming and design. You also will need an aptitude for design beyond your coding abilities.
Animation and graphics play a crucial role in video games. As a developer, if you acquaint yourself with user interface design, view design, character design, and other related topics, it’s a huge bonus point. Possessing creative and technical skills will help create a game that is life-like, lucid, and realistic, which helps it survive in the market.
- Time Management Skills –
Video games are complicated – there are so many phases and layers to them. Usually, to remove parts of a game together, you need more than two sources and various artistic and technical teams to come together. Also, games don’t get built overnight. It bears many years to create an award-winning game. To succeed in such an environment, you should be apt to cooperate with others, work well under pressure, and adhere to deadlines.
- Problem-solving Skills –
Game developers have to conquer challenges and solve technical bugs nearly every single day. Courage and patience are what will help you succeed when you approach difficulties or debug code. Thinking out of the box and watching at things differently can prove to be valuable skills too.
- Creativity and Culture –
Creativity should be your ambitious advantage. In a market flowing with creative ideas, you need ideas that are original and unimaginable to the virtual world. Along with creativity, you need to learn cultural choices and tastes. To attract and hold the interest and attention of players quickly, game designers and developers need to know human culture and psychology.
- Communication Skills –
It’s easy for technical peoples and programmers to inspect soft skills. Communication relates to that category. To be successful, your communication skills need to be great so you can efficiently communicate your concept, ideas, and thoughts to other team members.
What’s the Scope of Game Development?
Did you know that aside from film and music, one of the top-grossing divisions in entertainment is gaming? Slowly and firmly, the gaming industry is rushing movies and music in revenue.
The global gaming industry remains to grow at a rapid speed with a 15.9% rise in 2020 and an estimate of $145 billion. While gaming in India stays in the developing stage, hence there’s a lot of scope for credit and growth. Today, gaming is not just a hobby. It’s a booming industry with scope for endless innovation. With each passing year, the ecosystem of gaming is evolving and developing, and there’s a brilliant future for gaming in India.
Career Opportunities in Game Development
From when the game designers visualize the first framework and concepts to the edge, a game cannot come to completion without game developers. Developers are technical artists who combine sound, artwork, and thousands of lines of code to give magic to your screen.
Career opportunities after a degree in game development are various, and include the following:
- AI programmer
- Computer software engineer
- 2D/3D Game developer
- Lead programmer
Salary of a Game Developer –
The salary of a game developer ranges based on several elusive factors like the person’s expertise, ability, talent, market conditions, and more. The average pay as indicated by a search result on Glassdoor.com for a game developer in India is between Rs. 3-4 lakh for small-medium scale companies, and around Rs. 5-6 lakh per annum for major studios.
This is a rough estimation of the base salary, this amount can increase to 12 lakhs or more by the time the candidate reaches a lead position, or earlier, depending on the company. But at the end of the day, you have a chance to work on what you cherish.
Tips to Sharpen your Game Development Abilities
1. Think Big, Start Small –
As a beginner, definitely, you’re thrilled to work on games. But it’s best to start your journey small and then proceed further based on your experience. Start your development work with an easy and famous game that proved to be successful. Moreover, this could turn to be a great learning experience.
2. Be Innovative –
Certainly, game development is nothing without innovation. Don't be scared to experiment and go absurd with your ideas. In gaming, the laws of physics do not apply - you create your own rules. It will be a success as long as the players find it enthralling.
3. Play Similar Games and Critically Review them –
Many games are not actually new concepts, they’ve just transformed versions that underwent a severe amount of development work that turned them into multi-million-dollar games.
So even if you are working on games, you require to get your hands-on similar games and then critically review them. Observe what makes them so famous and try including similar factors in your version.
4. Never Stop Learning –
An endless learning mindset is one that will take you forward. In a matter of years, gaming languages and platforms become old-fashioned. Always follow what’s trending and take on learning each day with a determined attitude.
How can you assure a Successful Career in Game Development?
- Keep up with Technology –
Technology advances at lightning pace, and sometimes in unforeseen ways. What’s important today morning maybe be rendered outmoded by the evening. It’s necessary you should keep up with the changes. When your games use the latest technologies like AR or VR, you earn not only visibility but also attention.
- Stay with Industry Trends –
Like technology, the world runs at an equally rapid speed. Who would have imagined mobile gaming would hit console gaming? Therefore, industry trends support you understand the market and player performance better.
- Capable of Receiving Criticism –
Just like you, there are many people out there who are enthusiastic about video games. While it’s easy to discover your own idea astonishing, others might have a judgment not to. It’s crucial to be able to take a step back and accept criticism. The other person can see a defect that you may have missed. Consider it as part of learning better.
Conclusion –
The gaming industry is a tough place to start a career, but is very satisfying for people who are determined, hardworking, and intelligent, whether they are in technical or non-technical posts. Considering the growth outlooks of the industry, it can be stated without uncertainty that it is a great place to look for a job if you want specific professional careers in Game Development, and are focused, hardworking and skilled at what you want to seek in the industry.
We believe this career guide in Game Development was enough to clear all your queries. Here we had discussed Game Development, Education skills, Scope, Career Opportunities, Salary, Career tips.
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