Video Game Designers

design artistic game feedback video game production staff play mechanic character biography technical staff documentation

Design Director, Designer, Game Designer, World Designer

What they do:
Design core features of video games. Specify innovative game and role-play mechanics, story lines, and character biographies. Create and maintain design documentation. Guide and collaborate with production staff to produce games as designed.
On the job, you would:
  • Balance and adjust gameplay experiences to ensure the critical and commercial success of the product.
  • Devise missions, challenges, or puzzles to be encountered in game play.
  • Create core game features, including storylines, role-play mechanics, and character biographies for a new video game or game franchise.

Knowledge

Engineering and Technology

  • design
  • computers and electronics

Communications

  • multimedia

Math and Science

  • arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, or statistics
  • psychology

Arts and Humanities

  • English language

Skills

Basic Skills

  • listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions
  • reading work related information

Problem Solving

  • noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it

People and Technology Systems

  • thinking about the pros and cons of different options and picking the best one
  • figuring out how a system should work and how changes in the future will affect it

Abilities

Verbal

  • read and understand what is written
  • communicate by writing

Ideas and Logic

  • come up with lots of ideas
  • create new and original ideas

Attention

  • pay attention to something without being distracted

Personality

People interested in this work like activities that include creating, designing, and making your own rules.

They do well at jobs that need:

  • Adaptability/Flexibility
  • Cooperation
  • Attention to Detail
  • Initiative
  • Achievement/Effort
  • Persistence

Technology

You might use software like this on the job:

Development environment software

  • C Hot Technology
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Hot Technology

Data base user interface and query software

  • Blackboard software
  • Microsoft SQL Server Hot Technology

Object or component oriented development software

  • C# Hot Technology
  • Objective C Hot Technology

Education

Education: (rated 4 of 5)
bachelor's degree or
high school diploma/GED
usually needed

Get started on your career:

Find Training
Apprenticeship.gov

Job Outlook

Bright
New job opportunities are very likely in the future.
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See more details at O*NET OnLine about video game designers.