From the staff of GameCareerGuide.com  

Parents’ Frequently Asked Questions About Game Development
 

 Q:  What does “game developer” mean?

A:  People who make video games or computer games are called game developers. You can think of them like software developers, as video games are essentially just a specific type of software.

Within the term “game developer,” there are a host of other job titles, which we generally break down by discipline or field of study: art, programming, design and writing, production (producers), audio, quality assurance (game testers), and business. The most well known of these are artist or animator, programmer or engineer (sometimes also called coder), and game designer.

Game developers are usually employed by a game development studio, which some people use interchangeably with the term “developer.” On this web site, we try to differentiate between “studios” or “houses,” which are the companies, and “developers,” or the people.

Q:  My child wants to make video games for a living. Is this something s/he can actually do?

A:  Yes.

Video and computer games currently make up one of the largest segments of the entertainment industry. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry that’s thriving widely across the world. The biggest and strongest companies in the market hire throughout the year, with no shortage of applicants.

You have probably heard or assumed that getting a job in the video game development industry is competitive. This is absolutely true, and something that parents should be very clear on.

There are an estimated 47,000 game developers in North America alone, with more and more jobs becoming available each year. The number of jobs is increasing because many mass-market video games are on the cutting edge of technology, so as the technology evolves, it takes more and more people to keep up with it.

Ten years ago, development teams of big-name games might have comprised 20 to 40 people, whereas now they are more likely to be 80 or 100 people strong. However, video game development has become better recognized as a respectable and promising career during that same time frame; so while there are more jobs, there are also more applicants.

In general, the job market for college graduates in all fields is more competitive now than it was 15 or 20 years ago — so what makes a job in game development any more competitive than a job in any other field? For one, working with video games is considered a “sexy” job, so it can attract a huge pool of applicants for the wrong reasons (it’s actually very hard work and does not pay as well as other programming jobs). Second, game developers must be highly skilled and talented. The video game industry pushes to be on the cutting edge of technology and entertainment, and studios strongly weigh talent and demonstration of applied knowledge when looking at job candidates.
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This has been the longest the dumb filmmaker has been away fom his blog since he began it. Things have been very busy for him, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, and he promises to stop referring to himself in the 3rd person.

A brief recap of the last few weeks:

Singer/Song writer Michelle Shocked came to Flashpoint where she cut a song and shot a music video- coming to your computers soon.

Last week Chevy Chase was at school. That’s us with Paula Froehle, our academic dean and Steven Berger Flashpoint’s in-house producer. Chevy was great. Very funny and he spoke well about the importance of collaboration and writing.

All of the film students have shot and are no editing their first films. I have seen many of them and I am quite pleased with the outcome.

On the professional front Jim shot one final (he promises, really) sequence for the teen parent film while I was with Chevy Chase- thanks again Jim. And we are racing to the conclusion of this major top-secret (non-disclosure) film we began in October.

By the end of the week things should return to some sort of consistency and blogging can resume in earnest.

PeterH

Rob Fetters is a superbly accomplished musician and composer, and also a wonderful guest artist.

Not surprisingly, “Be nice” was his number one piece of advice for Rec Arts students during an all-day professional workshop last Friday. He told the story of a handwritten thank you note that led to years of work with network television and how the willingness to “Save As” a mix to try it different ways often leads to better creative results. He emphasized that all work today, whether it’s music for commercials, corporate films, or released on its own, is collaborative, and that the creative process never works if you try to control it on your own.

Rob brought the framework of a song he had written for his 11 year-old son into the Flashpoint recording studios with the intention of reworking some of the parts and letting Rec Arts students have a shot at mixing while Film students documented the event. During the morning part of the workshop, the students tracked several acoustic guitar parts, live drums, background vocals, and electric guitars. As Rob spoke to high school counselors and students about his career as a composer and musician in the afternoon, Flashpoint students broke away into four controls rooms and created different rough mixes. By 4:30, we were all back in the main music control room listening.

Thanks to Rob for a great day.

Rob Fetters and Bernie Mack 

Acoustic Guitar:
Royer 121 and AKG 451 with Great River Pre’s and STC 8 Compression:

U87 for Vocals – API 512 Pre and Crane Song Compression:

Rob completing “Color” Guitar tracks in the control room:

Flashpoint Student Dan Macias on drums:
D112 and 421 for kick with API 512 Pre’s and Eq’s
421’s on Toms with Chandler LTD 1 Pre’s and Eq’s
Km 184’s on hat and ride with Helios Pre’s and Eq’s
Bock 195’s on overheads with Wunder Pre’s and Eq’s

Rob Fetters is an award-winning composer who has recorded and produced music for over 100 ABC TV commercials, and dozens of pieces for shows on the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and PBS. He’s created original music for national advertising campaigns: among them Sea World, Totes, Airheads Candy, Starkist, Intel, Crest, Hasbro, US Bank, and Roto Rooter. He has also composed and produced numerous postproduction scores for corporate films and theatrical presentations, most notably for Proctor & Gamble and Sea World.

In his long career as a singer/songwriter and guitar player, he has recorded and produced albums for other artists and performed internationally in the legendary guitar-pop band The Bears along with avant-garde guitarist Adrian Belew, toured with the Cincinnati Pops under the baton of Erich Kunzel, and done session work with artists ranging from The Ohio Players and Nigerian Afro-Popster Baoku Moses to Spanish language children’s choirs and wild experiments combining legendary bluesman Big Joe Duskin with an operatic soprano.

Michelle Shocked is a remarkably powerful singer/songwriter I’ve admired since her first major label record Short Sharp Shocked was released in 1987. Late Thursday evening I found out what an engaging and sweet person she is too. Yesterday, Flashpoint Academy was fortunate to witness that power, talent, and thoughtfulness up close and personal in the recording studios and on the directing stage at 28 North Clark.

I’d inquired months ago about the possibility of Michelle coming to FPA to hold a “master-class” of sorts, and just recently received word that she really liked the idea and wanted to explore options. She told us she wanted to record a song purposed specifically for the visit and to shoot footage for a complementary music video that would be uploaded to YouTube, her own site, etc. Needless to say, we were as excited about Michelle coming in as she was about working with the students in such an intimate and experimental way.

Before entering the studios, Michelle talked to the students about her highly-successful, but turbulent career in the music industry, her life-long desire to change social stratification, her devotion to an African-American church in South Central Los Angeles, and what was particularly opportune for Flashpoint students, balancing the creative and technical with commitment, discipline, and passion. She told us the recording and video of A True Story would be the first part of a much larger project she is working on with her fiancé and fine artist David Willardson called HEART or HEAR THE ART.

As she rehearsed the framework of the song with the students and staff who served as a rhythm section, it was clear that this was a special moment in the humble beginnings of our small school. By the time she was ripping through lead vocal overdubs with all the heartfelt passion of the genuine gospel singer she is, we were mesmerized.

It was a real treat for the Rec Arts students to be able to record and Film students be able to roll cameras on such a seasoned professional. The resulting recording, video, and archival documentary footage is testament to FPA’s hands-on, immersive learning. The experience and memory is a gift for committing to the ground floor of Ric Landry’s vision.