Playing Hard – Review
What did you learn about how products are built from concept to completion from watching?
The pitching phase seems to be the most difficult part of the entire production, as Jason’s idea kept getting shot down time after time from different studios. He had this vision in his head so clearly, yet no one was giving him the chance to realize his idea. In the end, he was attached to this idea for 10 years, which ended up messing things up later as he was reluctant to give up control on the project.
All of the extra things developers need to consider while creating the game, such as press coverage, live events and any unplanned events also.
What did you learn about financial implications or how products are funded?
What did you learn about job roles in the gaming industry?
What did you learn about the wider gaming industry?
What challenges do developers face during production?
Job Roles and Hierarchies
WII1 – Understand job roles, career structures and business model across the games, animation and VFX industries
Task – list as many job roles in the games, animation and VFX industries as possible.
Games
Developer, Producer, 3D Modeler, Programmer, Designer, Animator, Marketing, Artists, HR, Management, Directors
Animation
Animators, Concept Artists, Character Designers, Background Artists, Storyboarder, Project Manager
VFX
VFX Artist, Digital Artist, GreenScreener, Technical Artist, Graphics Programmer
https://www.screenskills.com/careers/job-profiles/
What is the role of the Quality Assurance department?
There are two main roles, Game Testers and Build Engineers. Game testers are tasked with playing through specific parts of games, combing through it to find and bugs, glitches, audio or visual glitches or copyright issues. They assure that users will have the best experience with that project, even if it becomes tedious to play that product. Build Engineers work to keep the build of the game up to date and free from errors. They work with everyone on the games team to ensure that processes are running smoothly and efficiently, changing them if they aren’t and creating useful tools for the team to use.
What is the role of a Producer?
Producers are the people who work to create projects and keep them glued together throughout development. They work with everyone on board a project to negotiate problem and to make sure everyone knows and understands the goals of the game. They find publishers for the game, manage budgets and contracts for the game and the people working on it and work closely with the publisher to agree to changes with how the game is developing.
Getting into the gaming industry, you would start off at an entry level position, most likely a junior position until you get some titles under your belt. Once you have enough experience, you would progress into the standard role for whatever you are doing, such as a standard animator and the like. Progressing further, you would the go to a senior/lead animator role, where you would work on managing specific parts of the project and taking the lead when it comes to standard and junior animators. Following on, the next role up would be art manager, who would oversee almost all of the project and ensure that everyone knows their role and are doing it efficiently. And finally, the producer would make all of the important decisions about the project, and it would direct the way that the project is heading.
Morgan Adams Next Gen Blog 