Games Industries Roles

There are tons if different roles in the games industry and tons in each games company, the issue is getting into just one of these roles and picking which role is right. Its also important to be aware of the different areas of a games company.

Generally researching i came across a a list of areas and job titles in the games industry that was useful to see areas that i might be interested in.

Games Design Roles:

-Lead Designer
-Object planner
-Games Designer
-GUI Designer
-Script writer
-Storyboard Artist
-Map builder Illustrator
-Level Editor
-Graphic Designer

Art and Animation in Games Design

-Creative Manager
-PreVis Artist
-Art Director
-Technical Artist
-Lead Artist
-Artist
-Concept Artis
-Animator
-Environment Artist
-3D Modeller

Programming and Coding

-Lead Programmer
-Action Scripter
-Software Engineer
-Platform Designer
-Programmer
-Information Architect
-A.I. Programmer
-Systems Analyst
-Middleware/ Tools Programmer
-Database Designer
-Graphics Programmer
-Engine Programmer
-Gameplay Programmer
-Server Architect

Audio

-Musician
-Sound Effects Designer
-Audio Engineer
-Composer

Quality Assurance

-QA Manager
-Localisation Tester
-Quality Assurance Technician / Tester*
-Localisation Manager
-Lead Tester

Production Management and Publishing

-Head of Development
-Creative Director
-Executive Producer
-Executive / Senior Producer (Publishing)
-Project Manager / Producer
-External Producer(Publishing)
-Art Director Account Director
-Programming Manager
-Associate / Junior Producer* (Publishing)
-Assistant Project Manager*
-Project Co-ordinator* (Publishing)
-Production Accountant
-Product / Brand Manager
-Production Scheduler
-Sales Manager
-Production Assistant
-Licensing / IPR Manager

I found this list of jobs on http://www.skillset.org/games/careers/article_2768_1.asp

Brief

Our brief wants us to create a website and a 30 second show reel of our work to help us get noticed and hopefully use this portfolio to get a job in the games industries. The unit is centred around us learning to use software to help build and create a good looking and relating portfolio. This unit is more focused on how we look at whats around us and what we want to do when we leave as students. It also means we will be learning new skills that may be handy in the games industry or when we need to create new portfolios.

Research would include looking at portfolios and how we can make them good and maybe visually interesting and unique. Researching on software that might help us in the creation of websites and show reels. Also looking into areas of the games industry that we want to become a part of as there are many different areas. Displaying our portfolio in a way that projects our skills in that area is more important that just showing general work with not much meaning behind it. There may even be areas of the games industry that we didn't know of that might even suit us better.

Currently i feel that i want to go somewhere in the early stages of games design but i am not 100 sure yet what i want to do. I feel that my strongest areas are 2D artwork, Storyboarding, story design and creativity in groups. Relating this to areas in the games industries means that i would most fit in areas like Concept Art, Previsualization and maybe even Creative manager roles in the future. This means showing my work in a more visually creative way. Most of my show reel would be of still 2d imagery that i should animate. Keeping with theme of my work i should mostly concepts showing development.