134
votes
How do I get a job in the games industry as "the one with the ideas"?
will big game companies like Ubisoft hire me and give me a team to develop them?
Having worked as a game designer at Ubisoft for 10 years: no, they will not.
The role you're describing is what we ...
- 136k
93
votes
Accepted
Why do game studios need graphics programmers if they're using game engines?
Even with an engine, getting something to display on the screen the way you want it is not always trivial. There will be many instances where someone with programming knowledge is required to make the ...
- 9,955
65
votes
Why do game studios need graphics programmers if they're using game engines?
Game engines are like kitchens, and developers (i.e. programers) are like cooks.
Game engines offer possibilities, while the programmers exploit these possibilities to the needs of the game.
Thus, ...
- 16.4k
28
votes
Accepted
Will working with a publisher help me prevent my game from being cloned?
A publisher would not be able to protect you from someone else creating a more popular clone of your game. Games from large publishers get ripped off just as often as those from small indies. Maybe ...
- 122k
25
votes
Accepted
Do industry professionals building games using UE4 use Blueprints at all, or do they use C++ exclusively?
Yes, professional games use Blueprints.
Some use a mix of C++ and Blueprints. We use both on Dead by Daylight.
One of the great things about Blueprints is that non-programmers can get access to the ...
Almo♦
- 6,708
22
votes
How do I get a job in the games industry as "the one with the ideas"?
There are a few aspects to this situation.
Video game companies usually have a large backlog of unused ideas.
The hardest part of making a video game is not coming up with the idea, but implementing ...
Almo♦
- 6,708
19
votes
Accepted
In what ways do lawyers and others involved in the legal field impact game development?
Lawyers rarely have creative influence on the game itself. But they still fulfill two important jobs in the game industry.
The first is intellectual property (IP) law. Games and all their individual ...
- 122k
11
votes
In what ways do lawyers and others involved in the legal field impact game development?
I worked with the legal team at a Chinese game developer/publisher and one important role they played was to help with cease-and-desist and litigation, as IP theft is a pretty big problem there. One ...
- 111
11
votes
Why wouldn't games be published with Map Editors included?
There could be a lot of factors but the ones that come to my mind first are ease of use and compatibility.
An AAA office environment would most likely have company-provided computers, meaning there ...
- 111
10
votes
Do industry professionals building games using UE4 use Blueprints at all, or do they use C++ exclusively?
A little anecdote from outside the games industry: We use UE4 for architecture visualization in VR.
While I'd rather have most things built in C++, we also use Blueprints heavily for all kinds of "...
- 221
10
votes
Why wouldn't games be published with Map Editors included?
What money can you make from such a map editor?
Prolonging the lifetime of a game is great for the customer, but for the studio? Blizzard had to keep the original Battle.Net servers online much ...
- 803
8
votes
How do I get a job in the games industry as "the one with the ideas"?
People sometimes have the belief the idea is the most important part of making a creative work successful, whether that be book, movie, video game, or something else. More often than not, the people ...
- 180
7
votes
Accepted
What is a good strategy to switch my career from full-stack developer to game developer?
Health warning: The following comes with a large amount of hindsight and I'm sure it's one of many experiences within game dev - but it's worth considering
I'd like to offer a perspective from ...
- 1,473
7
votes
Why do game studios need graphics programmers if they're using game engines?
You can ship games without a graphics programmer pretty easily now-a-days because of all the engines. What you generally need a graphics programmer for are things like
optimization
A graphics ...
- 850
6
votes
How do I get a job in the games industry as "the one with the ideas"?
TL;DR With over 15 years in the video game industry, I can tell you: there are no jobs for idea people. Ideas are not valued as much as ability to execute and perform. Your best best: go to school and ...
- 160
4
votes
Accepted
In today's video game industry, why isn't every game released on PC?
Consoles have their advantages. You know exactly what hardware and software environment your game is going to run in. No targeting a huge array of combinations of GPUs (which might or might not have ...
- 122k
4
votes
Why do games have credits more often than other software?
As someone who does business application development as their primary job and game development on the side, I would not want my name in publicly visible credits of the business applications I worked ...
- 122k
4
votes
Why do game studios need graphics programmers if they're using game engines?
A lot of times, game engines would not fulfill 100% of the requirements and specifications of a game project. This is especially true for triple-A titles that are always pushing the boundaries of ...
- 51
4
votes
Where can I find a game development team that is willing to accept a 2D artist with no experience in game development?
A good way to gain some experience in working is a game development team without the pressure of having to deliver commercially viable work is to participate in game jams.
Game jams are game ...
- 122k
3
votes
What is a good strategy to switch my career from full-stack developer to game developer?
I would think that making a few smaller games to release for console/mobile/whatever would be a good start. Then you'd technically have experience. You can then use that to get a higher position. But ...
3
votes
Why do game studios need graphics programmers if they're using game engines?
Most standard techniques will be implemented in any decent commercial engine, like FXAA, lighting, cel shading, normal mapping etc, but not all.
In the case where a game designer has specified that a ...
- 2,679
3
votes
Why wouldn't games be published with Map Editors included?
To complement the already existing answers I want to add two points:
Often newer games have more complex geometry, effects or design (I'm not speaking of level layout here, only the complexity of the ...
- 91
3
votes
Why are there no in game time subscription options?
I suspect one of the main reasons is that you would get charged if you left your screen and left it running by accident. Imagine you were playing your phone game while waiting for the microwave to ...
- 800
3
votes
What does it mean to "release" a game in a country?
It’s a bit simpler than that. If you have not released a game in a certain country, it is not available to purchase in that country. These days, you can always import it, through eg. Amazon, but you ...
- 5,249
3
votes
How do I get a job in the games industry as "the one with the ideas"?
How do I get a job in the games industry as "the one with the ideas"?
That's not an actual job-description in the games industry outside of some very naive startup companies.
There is no ...
- 209
2
votes
Why are there no in game time subscription options?
Mobile games actually do something pretty similar sometimes, with energy meter mechanics. You get some number of matches you can play for free, and then if you want to play more you either have to ...
- 784
2
votes
What do "Character Designers" do in the game industry?
The task of "character design" is to take a character idea from a game designer and then come up with how that character could look. Which requires to visualize that look in some artistic ...
- 122k
2
votes
Accepted
Why do game developers ask for so much money for their games?
At the moment I’m a solo game developer and will likely hire people from other areas to me in developing my title
So I will turn this into actual advice. But not advice on what to say to justify high ...
- 27.5k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible