The Game Industry (Week 15)

Back in the day, the Game industry was pretty tiny compared to the size it has grown today, before it was coders etc etc, nowadays its mainly specialist roles such as art directors, concept art, character modelers, environmental modelers etc. The Game Industry has come on leaps and bonds since the days of sweaty blokes stuck in their rooms writing code (well sorta still the same but instead of one bloke OR women its a team of them these days).

Today's Game Industry is all about the money (in someways). Budgets and Deadlines are a must for producing a game to be ready for the shelf in your local Game store. Different teams of people all work to the same goal but work on different aspects of creating a game (warning EA dig) unless its EA and they still seam to lack an quality control department but I wont get into that D:

Most people who start a new job in the games industry, start as a generalist employee. This means they work on some basic projects and help tie up loose ends, such as making 100 trees for environments, skinning buildings but these may depend on what role in the company the person has applied for. Generally it takes a certain amount of years before someone can specialise in a certain field in the games industry, unless they show outstanding knowledge and skill within a certain aspect of game design. An example of this is a Character modeler, they could start as a low poly modeler then specialise in high poly character modeling showing results that are near to pure realism.

Some companies within the game industry sub let some of their work to outside contractors, generally these contractors could be another games company working in the eastern European block or Asia where the wages are considerably lower. The reason for this is that the main games company may be working on a very tight budget and need to let some of the more basic work out to these type of contractors.

This new type of game design may have negative effects on the Game Industry in the Future, where games no longer are pieces of art but become mearly a means of wealth. The ability to churn out games at a fast rate may kill the games industry, but I may be talking like the Apocalypse is just around the corner.