Game designer

Game design is a competitive career so you’ll need to build up your portfolio to showcase your creative skills

As a game designer you'll come up with ideas, stories and characters for games on a range of platforms, including consoles, computers, virtual and augmented reality, and mobiles. You'll need to use technical and creative skills to imagine, test and develop your ideas. You may work on a design that you've conceived yourself or from a pre-approved idea, such as a game based upon a film.

Within your design you'll need to consider the mechanics of the game (the rules of the game and how it works), whether it can be easily expanded and maintained and whether it’s comfortable and fun to use.

Game designers work as part of a multidisciplinary team that includes game developers, programmers, game artists, animators and quality assurance testers.

Although game designer is usually a clearly defined job role, in smaller companies you may get involved in some of the art or programming elements. Subfields within game design include level designer, content designer and interface designer.

Responsibilities

As a game designer, you'll need to:

• use your creativity to design games for a range of devices and platforms that engage and capture the imagination of the user
• consider, plan and detail every element of a new game including the setting, rules, story flow, props, vehicles, character interface and modes of play
• put together a concept document and use this to convince the development team that the game is worth proceeding with
• conduct market research to understand what your target audience wants
• transform a rough idea into a detailed concept and then implement it
• write scripts and design storyboards
• work collaboratively with others, including game developers, artists and programmers, to produce a prototype - a small-scale playable version of the game
• make adjustments to the game design specifications to reflect developments as the project moves forward
• train quality assurance (QA) testers to play the game so they can test it properly
• lead on the user experience (UX) design of the game, ensuring players have the best experience
• work alone or within a larger team overseen by a lead designer.

Salary

• Salaries for entry-level positions, such as a junior/intern, typically range from £18,000 to £20,000. Starting salaries for quality assurance (QA) tester roles, another common way into games design, may be slightly higher reaching around £22,000.
• Level designers can expect to earn between £20,000 and £35,000.
• With experience you can earn up to £45,000. As a senior game designer it may be possible to earn up to £65,000.

Salaries vary depending on a range of factors such as your skills and experience, the size of company you work for, the type of game you work on, and location.

Benefits, especially with the larger companies, can include access to games rooms, fitness/gym membership, private healthcare and store discounts.

Income figures are intended as a guide only.

Working hours

You'll typically work between 30 and 40 hours per week on average. Flexible working hours may be available. You may need to work weekends and evenings as deadlines approach.

The majority of game designers are employed full time, with a small number being self-employed or working part time.

What to expect

• Work is mainly studio based within a multidisciplinary team including artists, engineers, programmers, animators, producers and content developers. There may also be opportunities for hybrid working where you spend some days working remotely from home.
• The majority of game companies in the UK are either microbusinesses (with typically fewer than ten employees) or small businesses. There is a large concentration of game design companies in London and the South East, as well as other major UK towns and cities such as Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Dundee, Guildford and Manchester. However, job opportunities are available outside of these locations across the UK.
• Women and black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) games works are typically underrepresented, particularly at senior level. The aim is to redress these imbalances by raising the awareness of the games industry through initiatives such as RaiseTheGame.
• The dress code for the games industry as a whole is generally more relaxed than many other industries.
• Travel isn't a regular feature of the work, although you may travel occasionally to represent your company at events and conferences.

Qualifications

Although you don't need a degree to become a game designer, the majority of people working within game design are graduates. Games-specific degrees are particularly useful and relevant subjects include:

• computer games art/design
• computer games development/technology
• computer science
• animation
• interactive media
• mathematics.

The Independent Games Developers' Association (TIGA) accredits a number of games courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Science, technology and engineering subjects are helpful as well but you can also enter the career with a social sciences, arts or humanities degree. Employers are usually looking for relevant games experience and knowledge and this can be built up outside of your degree.

In order to be able to demonstrate your skills in game design you'll need to build an online portfolio of your projects and any work you've completed. This can then be used within interviews or with speculative applications to preferred employers.

You'll also need to be up to date with current trends within gaming across all platforms and enjoy playing games as well as making them.

If you don't have a degree you could take a Level 3 Diploma/Extended Diploma in Games, Animation and VFX. You can also do a higher apprenticeship, which allows you to complete your learning while you’re working. For more information, see the NextGen Skills Academy.

Although having a postgraduate qualification isn't essential, it might be useful to develop your skills, especially if your first degree doesn't involve a games specialism element. Research courses carefully to make sure they match your career aims. Search postgraduate courses in games design.

Skills

You'll need to have:

• technical ability, in particular familiarisation with a range of programming languages and software technologies and packages such as C#, C++ and Python
• scripting and design capabilities using software such as Blueprint Visual Scripting in Unreal Engine
• a passion for gaming and an understanding of the different hardware platforms available for games
• communication skills, both verbal and written, to put your ideas across to other members of the team
• teamworking skills and the ability to collaborate with others to create the finished game
• an innovative approach to game design and the ability to come up with new ideas
• a willingness and aptitude to learn new technical skills such as version control software
• organisation and project management skills, including familiarity with Agile development and Scrum
• confidence and influencing skills to present your ideas and pitch for funding
• problem-solving skills
• a flexible approach to work in order to tailor your ideas and to meet deadlines
• commitment and focus to complete every task to a high standard
• mathematical and analytical understanding.

Work experience

Competition for game designer roles is fierce and it's therefore essential that you get relevant work experience. Ideally, this experience should be with both free-to-play (F2P) and premium or AAA games across a range of platforms.

One way of building up experience is to participate in game jams. The aim of these game jams is for groups of people to collaborate to plan, design and create a game in a short space of time, usually over one or two days. It's an excellent opportunity to showcase your skills, obtain evidence to put in your portfolio and network with others. You can find game jams listed on sites such as itch.io and Indie Game Jams.

You could try applying for an internship or placement with a games company during or after your degree. Game design internship opportunities are occasionally advertised, but applications for these are fierce.

You could also apply to take part in the Rising Star and Search for a Star annual challenges, which are run by Grads in Games. These aim to simulate aspects of games industry recruitment and provide the opportunity to create technical game projects and finished game-ready assets which can then be used in your portfolio. Feedback on your work is available from games professionals and high achievers are invited to take part in an interview with industry leaders.

However you do it, the best experience is to actually design your own game, by putting together the storyboard, prototype and demo. You can then place this on your online portfolio. It's important for prospective employers to be able to try out your work, so ensure the demo can be downloaded or, at the very least, make sure video footage of the game in action is available.

Find out more about the different kinds of work experience and internships that are available.

Employers

Most employers are small independent games studios. However, there are also opportunities available with a number of multinational games producers based in the UK. Employment with these companies can open up opportunities to work abroad as well as in the UK. 

Although self-employment and freelance roles are rare, with experience you may be able to work as a game design consultant.

Games are now also being widely used across a range of industries including healthcare, fitness and education. This means that there may also be opportunities with:

• advertising firms
• broadcasting companies
• computing and electronics organisations
• creative agencies
• education providers and education resource suppliers
• esports associations
• event organisers
• hardware and software distributors
• PR, communications and marketing firms
• software developers
• trade and retail organisations.

Look for job vacancies at:

• Game Developer Jobs
• Gamesindustry.biz
• Games Jobs Direct
• MCV Jobs
• TIGA

Student membership of Ukie (UK Interactive Entertainment) provides access to paid placements and internships as well as CV advice, industry guides, careers advice and industry news.

Most employers will welcome speculative applications. See Ukie Members for a list of games-related organisations, including game companies as well as those who sell games or provide services or support to the UK games industry. LinkedIn also advertises vacancies.

A small number of specialist employment agencies advertise games roles, such as Aardvark Swift, which also has a dedicated graduate recruitment section that aims to helps graduates get their first job in the sector. Other relevant recruitment consultancies include:

• Amiqus
• Datascope

Professional development

When first starting out you'll receive support from more experienced colleagues, including the opportunity to work shadow them in their role. As you get more experience, you'll usually be responsible for managing your own professional development.

As the games design industry is fast-moving, it's essential that you keep your technical skills and knowledge up to date. This can be done through in-house training, completing short courses and developing your own bank of skills through self-study. Attending events and networking can form an important part of your professional development.

Ukie (UK Interactive Entertainment) is the trade body for the UK games industry and it provides events, training and workshops that can all aid your professional development. See Ukie Events for more details.

You can also study at postgraduate level to develop your skills in a specialist area of game design. Courses are available in areas such as games design, digital experience design, independent games and UX design, as well as games enterprise.

Career prospects

You'll typically start in a graduate or intern quality assurance (QA) tester role. QA positions involve testing applications and games in order to locate and report issues across different hardware platforms. They provide good experience in how the company operates and how a game is made.

You’ll then move into either a level design or game design role. Promotion is usually gained through experience and as openings arise and depends to a certain extent on the size of the organisation, as well as how fast you can learn new skills.

After several years' experience, successful game designers can progress onto senior and finally lead designer roles. Lead designer is generally more of a management role and involves fewer creative design elements. Specialising in areas such as mobile gaming or virtual reality can help increase your job prospects.

If you wish to move on from game design you could consider becoming a game design consultant or game design lecturer, or move into other areas of interactive media and entertainment. Alternatively, you could consider setting up your own independent game studio.