What is game development? An overview of the process of creating a game in terms of resources, team, time, outcome and overall costs

What is game development?

When the first iPhone went on sale, people endured queues for many hours, fatigue, heat, urge to use the toilet, came with tents and sleeping bags to be among the first buyers. Rarely does an industry boast such reckless customer love. Except for game development.
Customers of game development companies do not sleep at night, take time off from work in anticipation of releases, do not spare money on Steam, sew costumes for game characters and name their children after them.

Game development is the process of developing a game for a specific gaming platform. It can be a game for PC, for consoles, for mobile, for VR headsets, for smartwatches, etc. Between console and PC gamers there is an old holy war, similar in scope to Windows vs. Linux or Mac vs. PC . Many developers, game development services and publishers don't want to choose sides - multi-platform development has long been considered a trend.

What is game development?

Gamedev is the domain of universal experts: those who work in game development, as a rule, understand what their colleagues are doing. Ideally, they have two professions, like NASA astronauts.

To create a game, you need at least three people (or one who combines these skills): an artist, a programmer and a game designer. But if you delve deeper into the topic, much more specialists are involved in the process of creating and supporting games:

  • game architecture programmers,
  • programmers of game pieces and modes,
  • tool programmers,
  • level designers,
  • scripters,
  • modelers,
  • animators,
  • artists,
  • creators of concept art,
  • creators of textures,
  •  UI / UX designers,
  • facial animators,
  • sound designers,
  • scriptwriters,
  • localizers,
  • mockup actors,
  • voice actors,
  • testers,
  • project managers,
  • producers.

And this, of course, is not the whole list. At each stage of the development or publication of the game, tasks appear for a variety of skills; community managers, marketers, analysts, etc. are involved in the development, promotion and support of the game. The payment for such work also fluctuates depending on the region, the scope of the game project, and the type of task.

If you are interested in game development you will like this: https://kevurugames.com/portfolio/

The process of creating a game can vary greatly in resources, team, time, and outcome. The code, music, script, design and 1000 lines of dialogue for the Unepic game were created by one person, who spent two years of free time on it. Released in 2013, Grand Theft Auto V has over 1,000 employees over four years, and cost $ 265 million to create and market. In comparison, the budget for The Jungle Book, which won this year's Oscar for Best Visual Effects, equals $ 175 million.

The gaming industry is hotter, more risky and more unpredictable than other IT industries. Crunches, stress, crazy conferences and exhibitions, super profits and high-profile failures. New technologies are developing, such as VR, AR, MR, developers have more available technologies and opportunities to create, without excuses about the cruelty of the world - powerful game engines become free for novice developers, and you can engage in the same virtual reality using phone and cardboard for a couple of dollars. But do not forget that hundreds of games are released daily on mobile platforms and dozens on PCs. Thousands of developers are making another Minecraft or Flappybird, dreaming of getting to the top of app stores and making millions. And if you want to become one of them, then prepare for the fact that it will not be easy.

 

About Alice

Layout designer, SEO & marketing analyst. Since 2010 is also a junior developer, working on the web site back-end infrastructure of some italian press companies. She also actively manages a number of social pages (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) for some IT companies and press agencies.

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