Gaming has evolved to become one of the most sought after careers for computer geeks. Wages of a video game designer are quite variant and they’re dependent on several factors.
If you’re really interested in the field of video game designing, then you have made a prosperous choice. Video game industry has now for long been in existence and it has evolved to become an industry that demands oodles of creativity, imagination, desire, determination and technical expertise for success. It takes months and years before one is able to lead teams and reach at managerial positions in the gaming industry. Candidates who’re passionate about careers in game designing have tremendous options to prove their skills. In case, you’ve been trying to learn how to become a video game designer, you’ll be glad to know that designing of video games pays excellent wages. The income of a video game designer however, depends on numerous factors like the employer type, level of expertise, years of work experience and educational qualification of the designer.
An Overview of the Earning Potential of Video Game Designer
One has to stay in the gaming industry for sometime to be able to command salaries that are very high. Initially, like all professions, the salaries of video game designers are low and they increase only after work experience. In the recent years, owing to the complexity of video game designing tasks, there are various teams in a gaming company that work on a single project. So you may find designations like basic game designers, lead designers, level designers and even the fiction/video game writers. Different companies may recruit game designers as per their requirements and even the salaries may fluctuate depending on whom you work with. In the starting years, basic video game designers may earn anywhere from US$32,000 to US$75,000. Obviously, the company you work with and the skills you have are prime determiners in deciding the salary as a graduate. In case, you have graduated from a very reputed animation school or you have been a computer science graduate with certifications and diploma from reputed video gaming training institutes, you’ll obviously be preferred during job interviews. The lead game developers and designers may even earn US$100,000 or more per year as they are the individuals who run the show in the company and have many years of work experience.
Those video game designers who have 3 to 6 years of work experience can earn between US$60,000 to US$80,000, as per various salary data. Again these salaries are variant and they may fluctuate due to other constraints. Video game designers with more than 20 years of experiencing in the gaming industry can earn anywhere between US$60,000 to US$180,000! The type of employer, job location area and skills acquired during the professional work also determine the salaries. If you’re in a metropolitan area, your salary will be higher to account for the high cost of living however if you’re situated in a rural area where the living costs are less, your salary drops.
Video Game Designer Education
There are no fixed educational paths for becoming video game designers. Since various duties in video game designing is handled by different individuals, it is a task that requires multiple skills. Excellent knowledge of interactive programming languages like C and C++ is always helpful and if it is supplemented by courses related to computer engineering and video game design courses, you can increase your chances of getting your dream job. Even computer design knowledge is a great skill to be learned in video gaming industry. In case, an individual is interested in development of plots, characters and writing the script of the game, he may have to take courses in the video scriptwriting. In fact, candidates with degrees in journalism and fictional writing will have easier time in imagining and creatively writing plots and characters of the game. Those interested in art design in video games must sincerely pursue courses in computer generated (CG) graphics. Besides these, excellent communication skills and an ability to handle pressure and work in teams is expected from all video game designers.
A lead video programmer will design and write the games, while the video game art designer will work on CG graphics. The salary of a game designer, in the starting years, may be less but with excellent performance and with further work experience, it increases to a significant level. Being a very competitive and merit oriented industry, it is expected of the employees to perform their best.