Gaming is a big business, dominating the entertainment industry and enthralling billions of people worldwide.
It’s also an incredibly innovative and creative arena, with designers pushing boundaries of what’s achievable and developing interactive works of art that will stand alongside other pinnacles of human endeavor in the future.
If you’ve got a passion for video games and you want to do more than just play them, becoming a game designer is an obvious move. But what steps will you need to take to achieve your goal, and what type of person does this profession suit best?
Play all sorts of games
The good news is that all of the best designers know and love video gaming in all its forms. And so the more you play, and the wider the variety of experiences you seek out, the better equipped you’ll be to thrive if this becomes your vocation.
From the latest first-person shooters and sprawling open-world adventures to casual mobile games and complex RPGs, immersing yourself in games will expand your understanding of what makes them tick.
This is also useful because you might not get to work on your preferred genre of the game straight away but could find yourself handling a project that would otherwise be out of your comfort zone if you hadn’t taken the initiative to explore as many diverse games as you can get your hands on.
Find out where your skills lay
While some game devs are able to fulfill all sorts of roles when working on their projects, for the most part, this is a collaborative process that involves people with different skill sets coming together to create something special.
It’s helpful to know what you’re good at before you get started down this career path for this reason. And there are all sorts of routes to take, depending on what interests you the most and what gels most with your innate strengths.
For example, if you’re an amazing artist or graphic designer, it makes sense to focus on this because, without artists, games would be drab affairs. If you’re more of a wordsmith, then writing the stories and dialogue for games is a better fit for your skills.
If you’re a natural coder and you’ve already got some programming experience with your home-brew efforts, these are skills worth developing and applying to game design.
The list goes on and on, but the point remains the same; it helps to have a core skill around which to hang the rest of your game design efforts because this will keep you focused and make the next steps simpler.
Enroll in a game development course
Applying for a Game Development Program at a reputable educational institution is one of the most important things you’ll do as you strive toward becoming a full-blown designer.
There are plenty of people in the industry who don’t have formal education and training, of course, but we’re very much in an era where it makes more sense to achieve a degree in game development rather than attempting to be an autodidact.
You’ll learn the fundamentals of the actual business of making games, as well as be given the opportunity to find out more about what parts of the process you enjoy the most and where your skills are best employed in this context.
Establish a portfolio to get your name out there
As well as studying game development and design, you need to be willing to stretch your legs as a solo creative and begin building a profile that will later come in useful when you’re applying for jobs or pitching to studios.
Your game design portfolio can consist of whatever you’ve worked on over the years which is relevant to this industry. If you’re an artist, it can include the images and animations you’ve conjured up which are applicable to gaming or have even been used in any student projects you’ve worked on, for example.
Get hands-on with a modern game engine
It’s still common for game development studios to have their own in-house engines that they build to power their own projects. However, there are also a number of widely used engines that aren’t tied to just one developer or brand but instead can be licensed by anyone who wants to make a game.
Unreal Engine is a great example of this and is one of the most flexible and popular platforms for game development on PC, console, and even mobile. You can use many of the basic tools it offers free of charge, and tinkering with it in your spare time will prepare you for what might come if you get a job as a designer.
Unity is another staple of the game development scene, especially among indie developers and first-timers. The more experimentation you do, the better you’ll fare in a full-time development role.
Be prepared to face stiff competition
Patience and perseverance are both crucial for up-and-coming game designers and developers right now because the industry is over-subscribed in many areas, and getting a job at the top studios is not easy because of how competitive it is.
The best advice is to be prepared to work your socks off and not necessarily get the success you crave in the short term. Sticking with this career path can lead to significant rewards, but it’s also a long and often arduous journey that you’ll face.
Wrapping up
Game designers are quickly becoming the rock stars of the digital age, making more of an impact on pop culture than many of the more conspicuous public figures.
Of course, if you don’t want to make mainstream games but have a more niche interest in a particular genre or a specific story you want to tell in your own way, there’s also space for you in this industry. Start working now, and you’ll be closer to your goals with each moment that passes.