Introduction to the Video Gaming Industry

For many, it may seem like a dream job: creating a video game that captures the imagination of legions of game players. Be warned, just because you’re good at playing video games doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got the chops to be good at video game design. But it’s a good start. Knowing what makes a game fun to play is a stepping stone to someday creating games that could be played around the world. These can be relatively high paying careers, especially for the ambitious. One’s career path could start out in testing but the ladder could lead them to game development and management eventually.

In a mere matter of decades, videos games have saturated society. Everywhere you look, you’ll find people playing games, whether it’s an individual getting a quick fix of Beswitched or Words with Friends on a mobile phone, or the 59 million players worldwide who play Fortnite,the incredibly popular battle royale game by Epic Games.

Someone has to create all these games for cell phones, personal computers, hand-held gaming devices (like GameBoy and PSP), and gaming consoles such as Xbox and PlayStation.

“The industry changes on a daily basis,” says one video game designer. “I don’t think anyone can predict where the industry as a whole is going, but it sure makes for exciting times.”

For those who want to be part of the excitement by creating video games, there are plenty of opportunities in the exploding, $137.9 billion video game industry (as of 2018). Video games now rivals the movie industry in scope. Find out about EA Sports jobs and Nintendo careers further into this section of JobMonkey.

“Game Development the Musical” a Fun Video Game Industry Video

But as the industry matures, breaking into it has become even more competitive. A successful game designer must bridge the gap between technology and art, and have the ability to communicate that vision to a team as they work together to bring the game to fruition.