How Gaming Studios Can Build and Expand Game Development Teams
The gaming industry has experienced exponential growth in recent years, with the value reaching £178.73 billion in 2021. As a result, gaming studios are eager to capitalise on this booming market and create award-winning video games. However, building a successful game development team is no easy task. It requires careful planning, strategic hiring, and a deep understanding of the stages of game development. In this article, we will explore how gaming studios can hire and build game development teams to ensure the success of their projects.
Understanding the Stages of Game Development
Before diving into the hiring process, it’s crucial to understand the stages of game development. Game development is a complex process that involves multiple stages, including pre-production, production, testing, and post-production. Each stage plays a vital role in creating a successful video game.
1. Pre-production
The pre-production phase is the initial planning stage of game development. Game developers outline the concept, design, and important aspects of the game during this phase. Key elements of pre-production include:
- High Concept: A concise one-line description of the game that captures its essence.
- Pitch: A marketing pitch that explains why the game has the potential to be profitable and popular.
- Concept: A game plan that outlines the genre, gameplay, features, story, target audience, schedule, levels, game development team, and hardware requirements.
- Game Design Document (GDD): A comprehensive document that describes the gameplay elements, game design, and concept art.
- Paper Prototyping: Creating written prototypes to describe features and gameplay ideas.
2. Production
The production phase is the main stage of game development where all critical aspects of the game are created. This phase involves:
- Game Design: Collaborative work to establish the rules, narrative, gameplay, structure, and other aspects of the video game.
- Programming: Writing the source code of the game and working closely with the game designers to execute and test the game’s code.
- Level Designing: Creating and coordinating the elements of video game levels, managing difficulty levels, complexities, and game flow.
- Game Art Designing: Developing the visual art and assets of the video game using tools like Blender 3D, Adobe Photoshop, and Autodesk Maya.
- Audio Production: Producing sound effects, in-game music, and voice-overs to enhance the gaming experience.
3. Testing
The testing phase involves rigorous testing of the game to identify and fix any failures, crashes, glitches, or errors. Video game testers perform repetitive in-game tasks to ensure the game’s quality. Automated testing and regression testing are used to speed up the testing process and prevent functionality failures.
4. Post-production
The post-production phase occurs after the completion of the game and focuses on maintenance and improvement. This phase includes:
- Bug Fixing: Addressing glitches, errors, and user-reported issues to create stable patches.
- User Feedback: Collecting feedback from end-users to identify areas of improvement and make necessary changes.
- Release of Patches: Releasing improved versions of the game that fix bugs and enhance the gaming experience.
Hiring Game Developers for Your Gaming Studio
Now that we have a clear understanding of the stages of game development, let’s explore how gaming studios can hire game developers to build successful game development teams. There are several methods to source and hire game developers:
Game Development Communities
Certain gaming forums and communities, such as r/gamedev, Kongregate, Develteam, TIGSource, Dream In Code, and IndieDB, have dedicated sections for game developer jobs. These platforms attract video game developers from around the world, providing a pool of talent. However, it’s important to note that these websites may have varying levels of reliability when it comes to hiring game developers.
Freelancing Websites
Freelancing websites like Upwork.com and Freelance.com offer opportunities to hire game developers. These platforms provide a wide range of developers with different skill sets and expertise. However, quality control, skill assessment, vetting, and profile verification may be lacking on these platforms.
Hiring Specialists
Hiring specialists like IIConnection Recruitment can be an excellent option for sourcing and vetting game developers. IIConnection conducts a rigorous vetting process to ensure that companies can hire the best game developers with excellent game development skills. Their expertise and network can help gaming studios find the right professionals who can contribute to their company’s growth and success.
Roles in Game Development Teams
When building game development teams, it’s important to understand the various roles that game developers fulfill. Here are some of the standard roles found in video gaming studios:
- Game Designers: Responsible for establishing the rules, narrative, gameplay, structure, and other aspects of the video game. Game designers work closely with level designers to customise the levels of a video game.
- Artists: Graphic designers who create the visual art required for the video game. They manage the appearance of the game, including internal assets, weapons, cars, characters, and other visual elements.
- Sound Engineers: Produce audio effects, position them within the game, and work with musicians to create the musical score. They are responsible for the soundbank containing all auditory assets and voice acting for the characters.
- Game Programmers: Software developers who manage the coding side of game development. They control various aspects of the game, such as input processing, user interface, gameplay, scripting, artificial intelligence, graphics, network and cloud integration, and game physics.
The Future of Video Game Development
As the gaming industry continues to grow, gaming studios must stay ahead of the curve to meet the demands of gamers. Free-to-play games have become incredibly popular, accounting for nearly 80% of all revenue generated by video game companies. Gamers are willing to spend a significant amount of money on in-game purchases, seeking an immersive gaming experience with cool features, levels, mods, and skins.
To keep up with this evolving landscape, gaming studios need to build and expand their game development teams with the right talent. By partnering with IIConnection Recruitment, gaming studios can tap into their expertise and network to find skilled game developers who can contribute to their company’s success. Take the first step towards finding the best talent for your organisation by contacting IIConnection Recruitment for your technology recruitment needs. The team at IIConnection can guide you through the hiring process and help you find the right professionals who can accelerate your company’s growth and success.
In conclusion, hiring and building game development teams is crucial for the success of gaming studios. By understanding the stages of game development and the roles that game developers fulfil, studios can make informed hiring decisions. Partnering with IIConnection Recruitment can provide access to a pool of talented game developers and ensure the growth and success of your gaming projects.
