The process of creating a big budget video game or computer game is an intensive one that demands thousands of man hours in order to bring to completion and many times, millions of dollars, as well. This is due to the fact that these games often require far more people involved on their completion than a movie and usually wind up selling millions of copies around the globe and across multiple platforms if they become a global hit. This is why the several billion a year game industry has become the biggest earning segment of the entertainment today, surpassing even Hollywood and the music industry when it comes to the amount of money both spent and earned. While games do not as often feature highly paid stars the way that music and movie projects do, they require far larger teams of talent in order to complete from a range of disciplines in the arts and sciences, including: programmers who write the code which runs the software of the games; game designers who come up with all of the aspects of game play; visual artists who create images, textures and animations for the games; the sonic artists who create the music and sound effects for the game; and a team of writers who put together the scripts for those games which feature more involved story lines or dialogue. Many times, there are those who will fill more than one spot on a development team.
In addition to all of these people, most of whom will work for the studio that develops the game, there are also publishers. The publishers also employ a large number of highly skilled individuals in such careers as project management, marketing, accounting, logistics and other fields of knowledge that are needed to take the finished project from the development team and get it out on the market where consumers can buy it. Once the game is published, the royalties are paid to the developers, but developers also get levels of up front investment which they must carefully budget for the game’s completion. All of this is handled with a contract that specifies when the game must be delivered to the publisher by. Contractual agreements are a key part of the gaming industry and much like Hollywood, failure to meet a budget and time line can spell disaster for both publisher and development team. While there are in house development teams that operate under the wing of a publisher, there are also many 3rd party studios which develop the game independently and then sell it to the publisher. In addition, there are independent studios which create and market their own products, as well.
The life of a game developer is an intense one despite the aura of relaxed fun that most studios tend to display. The programmers, artists and other members of the game design team all work very hard in order to get the games out on time, meeting milestones and often having to work incredibly long hours during “crunch time” or during bug testing. Most of the disciplines require some form of education, but not all of them do – some are more based on talent.
