Love video games? Get to know them a little better by becoming a designer! With global revenues of video games topping $100 billion in 2017 and expected to continue to grow in the future, there should be plenty of room and opportunity for developing talent to explore for years to come.
If you’ve got drive and passion for game development, all you’ll need is to get the background skills required to either join a team in the industry or strike out on your own as a freelance game design pro.
Ready to take your career to the next level? Here’s a look at what you’ll need to know.
Quality Artistic Ability Can Get You Ahead in Game Designer Careers
Art is critically important to video games. The best games have visuals that invoke a sense of awe in players, transporting them to imaginary worlds where they can lose themselves happily for hours. Games with subpar visuals, on the other hand, often receive a lot of criticism for looking unrealistic, cheap, or unintentionally outdated.
There’s no hard rule for what constitutes good visuals, which means there is indeed room for individual artistic expression in the video game industry. What is universally important, though, is that the art impart an air of professionalism and intention. Completing game design courses that help you to hone your artistic talent will provide you with the space and guidance needed for directed growth and, eventually, a professional level of artistic output.
Learning to create designs and art of professional quality is an important outcome of game design school
Learning to Work From Instructions Is Essential for Video Game Design
Video games are almost always put together by teams, often with instructions being issued from higher-ups for the rest of the team to follow. For a design professional, this means that it is important to learn how to work not just from your own inspiration, but instead from provided instructions or mock-ups.
Learning how to approach this kind of directed work might prove a little trickier for some than freeform design work, which is why it’s best to do so within a training program put together specifically for video game design.
At Oxford College, for instance, students can enjoy a video game design program led by seasoned professionals with a deep understanding of how collaboration within the industry works. With their assistance, it’s possible for students to learn to thrive when working within the constraints of a project, preserving the satisfaction that comes with creativity while still meeting the requirements set by a particular project.
Learning to Make Great Marketing & Packaging Material is Valuable for Game Designer Careers
Helping to put a game together is just one area a designer might contribute to. Packaging, logos, marketing materials, and many more products that include visual elements can all benefit from the steady hand and trained eye of a good design professional, and are important considerations when preparing or launching a video game. By learning the particulars of designing these kinds of materials, it’s possible for design professionals to become the kind of versatile weapon that employers and clients will love to bring on board.
Learning to put together stunning supplemental material can help game design pros stand out
Finding a design program like Oxford College’s, which covers all of these kinds of areas in addition to game-specific design techniques, can help you put together a fantastic portfolio that will really impress. A large majority of Oxford’s video game design graduates find employment in gaming, marketing, multimedia, and other establishments, proving the value of this comprehensive approach to preparing students for the industry.
Are you ready for a great game designer career?
Contact Oxford College to learn more about our program!