If you love video games, pursuing a career in gaming has likely crossed your mind. After all, what could be better than spending your working life engaged in an activity you love? The gaming sector is booming right now, so there are many opportunities to break into the industry. Whether you want to pursue a technical career or do something on the creative side, jobs are available if you have the right skills. With that in mind, we’ve compiled this list of the top careers out there.
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Game Designer
This job may be the perfect fit if you want a mix between technical and creative careers. Game designers do everything from developing video game concepts and characters to writing storylines. In this line of work, you could design a range of games, including adventures with a dystopian twist and massively multiplayer online games. You’ll need to have a deep knowledge of gaming to succeed in this career, which means playing many titles to learn why they work.
As you play, you’ll analyze the games and talk about them with your coworkers, learning through trial and error. Game designers spend their days playing competitors’ games to determine their strengths and weaknesses, promoting their game designs to production staff, designing game levels, and fine-tuning game mechanics. If you succeed, you could eventually be tasked with making your very own original titles.
Artist
This career path best suits those with an artistic or creative background. Since the gaming industry is all about visuals, artist is one of the most important jobs. As an artist in the gaming industry, you’ll be responsible for the aesthetic elements of video games. You’ll work on every stage of the game, including sketching characters and even entire worlds.
Artists collaborate closely with design and development teams to ensure their work accurately reflects what the developers had in mind. Remember that there are several types of artists who work on video games, including animators, texture artists, UI artists, character designs, environment artists, and art directors.
Writer
While game designers envision the storyline, writers do the bulk of the writing, breathing life into the characters which players see on the screen. So, if you have a gift for words and use your gaming PC to write out your thoughts in addition to gaming, this may be your career path.
Once upon a time, video games didn’t tell much of a story. Gamers simply guided their character from one level to the next without much context for what was happening. As technology advanced and video games evolved into theater-like productions, all of that changed.
RPGs and adventure games rely heavily on stories to drive the action in the game. Today, a good storyline can make or break a game. Several career paths are available to writers in the gaming industry, with scriptwriting and creative writing being the most common.
Quality Assurance (QA) Tester
QA is the job many gamers dream about because it involves playing games all day. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes before a video game is released to the public. One of the most important things that happen before a game gets the green light is the process of testing it for bugs and glitches.
As a QA professional, you’ll test video games to ensure the storyline unfolds as intended and has the desired impact on the audience. You’ll also analyze how the game flows and whether its instructions are clear. If you have an eye for detail and can write clearly, and concisely, this is a job worth considering.
Programmer
If you have a degree in computer science or know programming languages like Java, C#, or C++, consider putting your skills to use as a programmer in the gaming industry. Programming is the most technical job in the industry, and you’ll be responsible for coding game features, typing instructions in source code, conducting research, drawing diagrams, and reviewing bug reports from QA testers.