How to Become a Game Programmer
How to become a Game Programmer?
Video Games have always been a form of entertainment and a way to relieve stress for people of all ages. But does’nt it ever fascinate you how it is made? And who exactly makes it.? Let me give you the answer to this simple question. The people mainly involved in the process of making a video games are :-
- Game Designers:- These people can be called the ideators of the game and the people who actually come up with the idea of the game.
- Game Artists:- As the name suggests the people under this category are the one who make the wonderful visual graphics which makes the game look nice.
- Game Programmers:- And finally the people who give life to the art and make it move within the game.
We will be covering the programming section in this blog and directing you to become a Game Programmer.
Game Programmer? So who exactly are these brilliant people with magic skills who animate the art provided by using codes and programs.
In technical terms they are software programmers who specialize in video game development. They are involved in the process and crating of disciplines during the making of the game. There may be hundreds working under one roof and being financed by game publishers forming a company kind of atmosphere. Good examples would be companies like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft etc. And the other type are self funded independent programmers who are also called indie programmer.
The specialization is also separated into a few sub divisions. Some programmers only make games for consoles such as Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony etc. Others develop for a number of systems and some only specialize in specific games like role playing, first person shooter etc. Then finally the last form of programmers are the ones who just port and do other software development activities.
With learning software like unity, you can start with game development.
Now that you have a clear idea about what programmers are, let us see how you can get there to make the games that you want to play.
Career Requirements :
Choosing gaming as a career needs to be a very thoughtful process.The minimum requirements to be a programmer is a Bachelor Degree in Computer Science and Computer Engineering as progarmming in games mainly involves a lot of coding. A minimum experience of 1-2 years is usually expected and key skills consist of Critical thinking, problem solving, quality control analysis, judgement and decision-making, operations analysis, systems evaluation, advanced computer skills with programming languages, especially C, C++, Perl, Assembly, and Lua.
Since it is a job and everyone gets paid when they work the starting salary is usually between 10-15k for freshers and as you progress you get better packages. But the packages also differ from company to company so do not fret you have a vast sea to explore.
And when you enter the field you will meet with different teams and coordinate with them to make entertaining games.
Gaming is an upcoming field in India.There are many institutes that provide advanced training program in game designing and development.