Who is a Game Developer? A Guide to Video Game Development

Video Games hold a special place in most people’s lives while being a prominent part of pop culture. For some people, these games bring nostalgia, as they mesmerise over 8-bit titles, while to others, it is something to look forward to when a new title gets released. Either way, Game Developers pour their love and efforts towards creating these memorable games to keep a community of gamers happy.  

According to Statista, the total revenue for the Video Games market is expected to reach 271.06 billion GBP by the end of 2023. This shows a promising career for the gaming industry as well as Indie Developers. If you love these games and wish to learn more about the people and process behind their creation, this blog has got you covered. Keep reading as we explain how Game Developers use concepts, storyboards, and ideas as a blueprint to create fascinating games. 

Table of Contents 

1) What are Game Developers exactly?  

2) Responsibilities of a Game Developer 

     a) Concept Designing: The beginning of a game 

     b) Programming: Establishing the mechanism of a game 

     c) Animating: Bringing visuals to life 

     d) Sound Designing: Adding depth to visuals 

     e) Game Testing: Examining your masterpiece 

3) Are there different kinds of Game Developers? 

4) Conclusion 

What are Game Developers exactly? 

Game Developers are simply Software Developers who specialise in creating game software. Even though most video games are considered software, creating one is seen as an art and science rather than putting it in the same bracket as technical development. The term Video Game development is not limited to the technical team members, such as programmers, but also artistic teams, such as Sound Designers, Graphic Illustrators, Concept Designers, and Animators.   

Some popular videogame titles made over the past decade, be it the Final Fantasy franchise, Nier Automata or Drakengard, can be credited to their respective studios, such as Square Enix. These studios tend to have their respective developers who work and direct their game projects based on their vision of what the finalised game should look and feel like while playing it.  

A prominent example of a popular Videogame Developer is Hironobu Sakaguchi, who was responsible for creating the Final Fantasy franchise from 1983 to 2003. He was responsible for the conceptualisation as well as the implementation of those ideas as an actual playable software. This allowed the studio Square Enix to keep carrying his legacy, even after he resigned from the studio.  

Another excellent example of one of the best Game Developers is Yoko Taro, the creator of the Drakengard series. Yoko’s proudest creation includes his latest title in the series Nier Automata, released in 2017. He is renowned for his unique writing style and unconventional game design, helping his games stand out from other popular titles.   

Both Yoko Taro and Hironobu Sakaguchi served as directors for their respective creations; however, they also oversaw minor factors like character design, sound design, story writing and level design. This shows how a Game Developer is not limited to a programmer or people conceptualising a game, but a group built from the collective effort of multiple people doing their best to create a fascinating game. 

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Responsibilities of a Game Developer 

Game Developers hold a wide array of responsibilities, which vary based on the work ethics of their studio. The designation of a developer and how much their decision impacts the video game also affects how much responsibility a developer holds.  

An example of how the responsibilities of a Game Developer vary can be seen with indie game development. When it comes to Indie Developers, the entire development could have been done by one person. For instance, Ib, a cult classic in Horror Role-Playing Games (RPG), was created by Kouri. The entire development process of Ib was done by one person, which included the character illustration, Background Music (BGM) integration, and level design.  

Alternatively, people will have specialised dedicated roles in a larger videogame development studio like Fromsoft. Despite the type of development practices followed by the developer or the studio, the responsibilities of a developer can be divided into certain categories. Some of these responsibilities are as follows: 

Concept Designing: The beginning of a game 

Concept Designing is the initial process of the Game Development process. It can include minor elements like character design, deciding on the genre of the game, selecting the play style, and establishing levels and progression.   

Concept Design also extends to establishing the experience a developer wants the game to go through while playing the game. Making these decisions beforehand allows the illustrators, animators, and artists to set the mood of the same, which is a vital factor in video games with a focus on narrative. 

Programming: Establishing the mechanism of a game 

Programming is the means that allows a Game Developer to take designs of characters and ideas behind a game and turn them into functional video games. The most common languages for programming in game development include C++ and C#. Both languages have their dedicated libraries and frameworks.  

Despite C++ AND C# being frequently used programming languages, other languages, like Python, are also commonly used for game development. It is done with the help of frameworks such as Py.Game and Py.Turtle, which lets the language adapt to the Game Development process.  

Additionally, certain tools allow for No Code (NC) or Low Code (LC) development, allowing newbies to develop games and explore the process without the hassle of mastering code from scratch. 

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Animating: Bringing visuals to life 

If programming is meant to bring the game mechanics to reality, animation does the same for visuals. The Animators of the game development team dedicate their time to understanding how Concept Artists and Illustrators envision their character to move and establish their body language. For low-resolution games that do not have detailed expression, Animators prioritise how a character will respond to its surroundings.   

Sound Designing: Adding depth to visuals 

A less explored responsibility of a Game Developer is sound designing. As a part of the videogame development process, soundtrack and background music play an important part in creating a fun experience for the gamers. However, this game development process is not limited to music and Background Music (BGM). Trained voice actors and interactive sound effects also play a part in setting the tone and depth of the game, helping characters stand out from each other. 

Game Testing: Examining your masterpiece  

Game Testing is one of the most popular roles in the game development branch; this task is often extended to people besides the development team. Game Developers get to understand potential improvement from this process, fixing bugs that may have passed on in the alpha release of a game.   

When the game gets enough feedback from testers during the alpha release, developers make necessary changes based on the feedback. This improved version of the game is then released again as a beta release, allowing a small set of gamers unrelated to the development process to try it. Testing and cooperating with testers help developers create an error-free application, making this a vital responsibility for not just Video Game Developers but Software Developers as a whole. 

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Are there different kinds of Game Developers? 

In essence, Game Developers can be divided into groups based on their specialisation and the genre of games they work on. However, based on the development practices, video game developers are strictly divided into four categories. These four categories affect the role and responsibilities of the developer, how big the development team is and the budget of the video game project. The types of Game Developers are categorised as follows: 

First Party Game Developers 

First-party developers normally refer to any video game development company responsible for creating a console. Some examples of this are PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo. These developers are not only responsible for making a profit through their games but also for giving a competitive edge to the console. These developers can create a game dedicated to a particular console, leading to fans purchasing a particular console if they wish to play it.  

First-party developers tend to have a financial advantage, as they are backed up by a huge Multinational Corporation (MNC). However, this also means that MNCs can suffer huge losses if a game does not do well in the market. If a game does become popular with the audience, the company can make a huge profit as they are not obligated to make royalty payments, as they would with other developers. 

Second Party Game Developers 

Second-party developers is a terminology coined by the gaming community over time as video game development became more specialised. These developers are normally responsible for creating a game as an independent studio. However, a game console company purchases the rights to that game. As a result, these developers have complete freedom on how they wish to approach the development process of a game, but they cannot release the game for any other company.  

An excellent example of the term Second-party developer is from Fromsoft Studios in the development of Bloodborne in the year 2015. Bloodborne is considered one of the best games from Fromsoft, notable for its high-speed combat and high-scale difficulty. Bloodborne’s rights were purchased by Sony, making the title a PlayStation 4 exclusive, which played a significant role in the popularity of the console. 

Third Party Game Developers

Third-Party Developers are studios that create a game and are also responsible for publishing it. These games are accessible on different consoles such as Xbox, Switch and PlayStation while also being available for common platforms such as Personal Computer (PC). The advent of Third-party development led to a revolution in how video games are created and how much freedom the developers have.  

Most Game Developers were in-house during the era of 8-bit and 16-bit pixel games, which were released for NES, SNES and Sega. This meant the developers were the company's employees which created the console to play the games on. However, in 1979, this changed as Atari programmers left their home company to start creating games by the name Activision, which were supported for the Atari console but were not directly owned by it.  

In the modern age, a large majority of games are third-party. This gives the developers a choice between different consoles without losing the freedom to profit from different consoles if they choose to do so. This choice of which console a game is made for is vital, as one console may have specifications that others do not. However, most third-party development games are also released for PC, allowing people to adapt their system to accommodate the game. 

Indie Game Developers 

Indie Game Developers refer to games created by a small team and not dependent on a single publisher. Indie Developers tend to have a small workforce, sometimes being as low as a single person working on an entire game. A notable example of such a developer is Thomas Happ, responsible for creating Axiom Verge and Axiom Verge 2. He was responsible for working on the game as a programmer, artist, and musician. 
 

Indie Game Developers can form a contract with a console company, which allows them to release their games on a specific console. Additionally, certain developers, such as Yacht Club Games, and their titles, such as Shovel Knight, can be funded by the audience, relying on the internet and the words of the gaming community.
 

Conclusion 

As we conclude this blog on Game Developers, we hope it inspires you to create your own games by pursuing game development. Surely, there are games out there that make you happy, and you wish others could have the same emotions you did while playing these games. Either way, understanding the duties and the creative process that the creators of these games go through deserves respect and love from the community. Thank you for reading and happy gaming! 

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