How to Become a Game Designer only In 3-Simple Steps!

From playing games to diving into the visual artistry of game design, I will help you absorb the knowledge required to excel in the gaming industry.

I do not know how aware you are of the gaming industry, but let me tell you that it has been booming for the past five years. Currently, game designers are in substantial demand and earn nearly around $1,49,700 every year.

You may enjoy playing games, but developing these games has always been a challenge for game designers. To avoid wasting time and knowing exactly what to do, follow my step-by-step guide to understand the detailed process of becoming a game designer.

Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Starting Your Career as a Game Designer

Designing a game is a complex process. Do you think you can design games while getting exhausted at the same time? To ensure that choosing to become a game designer is an appropriate career for you. I suggest you answer these questions to help you make a firm decision:

Are you passionate about games and creating worlds and animations for other gamers to enjoy?
Do you possess the creativity and imagination skills required to design games?
Are you familiar with programming languages? Are you willing to learn different software and game engines?
Do you love understanding the gaming industry and staying updated on the latest trends?
Are you willing to invest time and effort in learning the necessary skills and knowledge?
Do you think you can manage your work-life balance by working as a game designer for the rest of your life?

Step 1: Knowledge

Who is a Game Designer

A game designer is a professional who creates an enormous experience for gamers with a combination of artistic, technical, and storytelling skills to create entertaining and exciting games.

With their strong technical and computer skills, they are creative in conceptualizing, structuring, designing, modeling, and shaping the overall experience of a video game.

They conceptualize everything innovatively, beginning from constructing the characters to developing the end of the storyline.

Game designers are highly professional as they contribute toward creating a high-level design and mechanics to create a marvelous experience for gamers.

Game designers play a pivotal role in the gaming industry, contributing to the creation of immersive and entertaining experiences for gamers all over the world.

Types of Game Designers

Were you aware that game designers have expertise in different areas? Choosing an area of interest can be beneficial for you and keep you dedicated to becoming who you want to become.

Let me introduce you to our next section to understand the different types of game designers and their roles to help you decide your role.

Gameplay Designer

Who they are: Gameplay designers are experts in designing and crafting the core mechanics to make the players engage in the game.
What they do: They are more focused on designing gameplay movements, elements, and player control. Gameplay designers ensure to provide an overall user experience to players to ensure enjoyable and outstanding interactions.

Level Designer

Who they are: They have a strong expertise in creating the layout, configuration, structure, and challenges within individual levels or environments of a game.
What they do: Level designers carry out the spatial aspects of the game, including terrain, barriers, obstacles, and pacing, to guide the player’s experience.

System Designer

Who they are: System designers are skilled in creating underlying systems and frameworks governing interactions within the game.
What they do: They play an important role in developing progression systems and game economies and managing balance in the game’s mechanics.

UI/UX Designer

Who they are: UI/UX designers are known for their creativity and are specialists in designing User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) for players.
What they do: They undergo a lot of training and are experts in creating intuitive interfaces, designing menus, and optimizing user interactions to enhance overall usability and player experience.

Character Designer

Who they are: They are appointed for their expertise in conceptualizing and creating characters in the game.
What they do: Character designers play an essential role in developing overall character, including aesthetics, personalities, identities, and body posture.

Environment Designer

Who they are: Environment designers are in demand known as specialists in creating visual and interactive elements of game backgrounds.
What they do: They are hired to create visuals in the background. They mainly work on designing buildings, landscapes, structures, and other interactive objects to display the theme effectively in the game.

Roles & Responsibilities

Game designers contribute to various aspects of the game design process. Certainly, every game designer is assigned a few roles for which they are responsible.

I have listed a few key roles and responsibilities that will help you prepare for the specific position you fit into.

Conceptualization

What they do: It involves conceptualizing game ideas, themes, compositions, notions, and overall concepts.
Why: It is an important step to ensure the tone of the entire game development process. This step guides the teams involved in the game development process in creating a coherent gaming experience.

Game Mechanics design

What they do: They are responsible for illustrating the systems, rules, and mechanics that control the gameplay.
Why: Play a crucial role in creating a massive gaming experience for players. Determine the way players interact with the game world and each other.

Level design

What they do: They create, design, and structure the layout of game levels. This includes the addition of new environments, challenges, and progression.
Why: It keeps the players engaged in the game. Level designing boosts the player’s motive to pace in the overall narrative of the game.

Story and Character design

What they do: Develop characters, identities, visuals, game stories, and other narrative elements.
Why: A story is important to keep the players attracted to the gameplay. A compelling story and types of characters enhance player immersion and vigorous investment in the game.

Balancing and Tuning

What they do: Adjust the background, layouts, themes, graphics, and other similar parameters to ensure a balanced and enjoyable experience for players.
Why: It is important that players do not refrain from playing games. Balancing and tuning help in maintaining players’ interest.

Prototyping

What they do: Develop and create early versions of the game to test, run, and rehearse ideas.
Why: It helps in identifying potential issues early in the gameplay and allows the creation of new ideas for experimentation.

User Experience design

What they do: Aim to create a positive and engaging experience for players.
Why: A promising UX design enhances players’ satisfaction and provides a user-friendly experience for overall enjoyment.

Playtesting

What they do: Conduct game tests to analyze and gather feedback on the gameplay.
Why: It helps in identifying the areas of improvement in the gameplay and enables designers to meet the player’s expectations

Expert Skills Sets Required to Become a Game Designer

Game designing is a vast field to get into. With the latest developments and technologies, there has been a revolution in the game development field.

Previously, it was impossible to create immersive experiences for gamers. Now, with machine learning, AI, and virtual reality, game designers can work effectively faster and easier and create a more realistic experience.

I am listing a few skill sets below that can help you get recognition and get hired by the top agencies in the game development industry.

Creativity: Ability to generate innovative, unique, compelling, engaging game concepts, characters, and storylines that capture gamers’ interest.
Problem-Solving: Capability to identify complex problems and address design challenges effectively to find creative solutions.
Understanding Gaming Mechanics and Engines: Proficiency in using technical constraints associated with gaming and efficiency in using game development tools and engines.
Game Design Fundamentals: Having strong fundamentals in designing and a deep understanding of game dynamics and systems to create an enjoyable gameplay experience.
Understanding of UX Design: Good UX design contributes to the overall experience of the game by providing satisfaction, ease of use, and overall fulfillment.
Analytical Design: Capability to analyze data and game metrics to make receptive decisions to enhance the gameplay quality.

How much can a Game Designer earn?

Game designers are offered salaries based on their specialized skills and creativity. According to the research, I have found that the average salary a game designer earns is around $87,000 every year.

I would suggest you pursue additional education, certifications, and courses to enhance your career in the game development field.

There will be multiple opportunities in the future; Payscale reveals that game designers are offered a base salary of $68,000 per year, expecting to have the desired skills required for that position.

As you start getting familiar with working in the field and gaining experience. I can say that as you gain decent experience of 7-8 years or more, you can expect a salary ranging between $90,000 and $1,50,000 every year.

Scope of Game Designers in the Future

Did you know that the demand for game designers is expected to grow by creating around 32,000+ employment opportunities for designers in the next few years?

Game designers are in demand and are projected to grow by 21% by the year 2028. The market size of the gaming industry in the USA was reported to be around $97.67 billion in the year 2022.

Currently, with my latest research and updated reports, the market size has shown tremendous growth and is presently at $106.82 billion.

At the same time, the global gaming market was previously valued by market analysts at $167.5 billion in the year 2020. Market analysts believe that the market value is set to reach nearly or above $290 billion by the year 2027.

Thus creating numerous opportunities for game designers in the future.

A tip from me is to stay updated with the latest trends and learn AI and other gaming engines to stay ahead and get recognition from top market agencies in the future.

Step 2: Skill

Top Game Designing Programs

University of Southern California (USC) – Interactive Media & Games Division

What it offers: The University of Southern California primarily focuses on game development, design, and interactive media.

What you will learn: Covering a wide array of topics, you will be learning game design theory, programming, storytelling, virtual reality, augmented reality, and interactive media lessons.

DigiPen Institute of Technology

What it offers: Focused on real-time interactive simulation, digital art, and animation.

What you will learn: You will be learning programming skills, 2D and 3D art, animation, and game design principles.

Carnegie Mellon University

What it offers: Projects combining technology and entertainment.

What you will learn: You will be trained in game design, virtual reality, project management, augmented reality, and collaboration with artists and professional designers.

New York University (NYU)- Tisch School of Arts- Game Design

What it offers: It offers programs such as game design, game development, and storytelling.

What you will learn: Gain a deeper understanding of game mechanics, narrative design, game production, prototyping, and collaboration in game development teams.

Ringling College of Art and Design- Game Art

What it offers: Focuses on game art and design

What you will learn: The importance of Collaboration with game development teams, 2D and 3D art creation, level design, and character design.

Free ResourcesUnreal Engine Game Development Program

What it offers: The course covers all the skills associated with game designing across the globe. The course is designed to teach you the skills required to secure a career in the gaming development industry.

What you will learn: The course provides you with a certificate of completion after you have completed the course successfully. Being a virtual class, there are pre-recorded videos as well as live class sessions to clear all your doubts/ queries.

With only limited students, you will be learning a ton of topics. These topics include 3D Modeling Workflow, Game resolution techniques, UV layout, Unreal engine mastery, Rendering in Unreal engine, Game design fundamentals, and much more.

Enroll for the course to get access to such insightful learnings right away!

Introduction to Game Development with Unity

What it offers: A simple guide to make you familiar with the Unity game development

What you will learn: The course will teach you all the basics of Unity game development, right from downloading to installing Unity.

You will come across using the Unity project interface, opening and closing projects, understanding the object control panel, adding 2D and 3D game objects, using lighting, working with cameras, and what to do next. All this for free. So what are you waiting for? Enroll in it right now!

MITX: Introduction to Game Design

What it offers: A complete practical introduction to game design, even if you are a beginner in the game designing field. It emphasizes the basic tools of game design, digital prototyping, and much more.

What you will learn: You will be offered different modules that will help you incorporate different concepts and analyze the mechanics of different games. You will discover how to design, develop, and test digital prototype games using an iterative design process.

Introduction to Game Design: Game Systems and Balance

What it offers: The course is a free guide that will explain to you what game design is, how it works, and how game mechanics and game balancing are important.

What you will learn: The course will increase your proficiency in using different categories of game mechanics, applying logical thinking, using various tools, and leveraging game balancing tools to enhance game design and user experience.

Introduction to Game Design: Process and Creation

What it offers: The course delivers an experience that will teach you the steps involved in the game-designing process and turn your vision into reality.

What you will learn: The course is packed with knowledge that will teach you how to design a game from scratch. You will learn to evaluate a game’s viability, design, and prototype the game idea.

In the end, you will learn to outline criteria for your game, create gameplay situations, and finalize your game.

Step 3: Job

Wondering where will you find an appropriate job that fulfills your financial aspects? Here are a few platforms that can help you kick-start your career in the gaming industry.

Activision Bizzard

Overview: One of the largest and most prestigious game development companies in the industry.
Highlight Jobs available for various types of game designers.
Website: Activision Bizzard

Epic Games

Overview: Rated as the most successful game developer in the United States.

Highlight: Focused on innovation and quality and provides jobs for various positions in the game designing field.

Website: Epic Games

Fiver

Overview: The easiest way to find jobs/ gigs across the globe.

Highlight: Enables you to showcase your skills and list your services at your rate. It helps you find freelance projects and full-time projects.

Website: Fiverr

In Conclusion

Hope we got you covered with all the factors through the blog that are essential to becoming a game designer.

I recommend you utilize your full potential and let your enthusiasm and love for games fuel your dedication and hard work. Be ready to put in your continuous efforts, as the journey to becoming a game designer is a journey of learning and adapting.

Still, have any questions attacking in the back of your mind? Feel free to drop your queries down in the comment section, and we will reach out to you soon.

All the best for your journey!