What is it like to work as a video game programmer? It is thoughtful by many game-playing children to be a dream job. Is it actually as beatific as it sounds? It certainly is an interesting life. However, as with anything else on this planet, there are both positive and negative sides to employed as a video game programmer.

For the last 7 eld I have worked as a video game programmer at three development studios: Activision/Treyarch, Visual Concepts and DiscoPixel. I have published titles for the Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo consoles. This article is a summary of some of the perks and pitfalls that I have experienced through my work at these companies.

Perk #1 – Make Games!

This one is pretty obvious, but the biggest perk of employed at a video game studio is that you would be MAKING games. You would be helping build the next great game that potentially millions of people would play and enjoy. There’s an amazing satisfaction that stems from knowing that you helped make something big.

Perk #2 – Play Games!

In constituent to testing and improving your current game every day, you’ll also be activity games made by other companies. There are few jobs out there where sitting down and activity a newly released housing title is thoughtful research. Companies definitely want you to stay on top of the technology and features of new games, and the only way to do this is by activity lots of games. At the companies I’ve worked at, I’ve never seen anyone get reprimanded for activity video games during the day.

Perk #3 – Independence

A great aspect of employed as a video game programmer is the independence you are given. It is rare that you’ll have a manager breathing down your neck or double checking everything you do. To get hired into a development studio you need to already have excellent programming skills, so you are given a lot of freedom to make many decisions yourself. You may be appointed a general task to complete, but how that actually should be done, as substantially as how long it should take, are often up to you.

Provided that you can get your work done, the companies I have worked for generally seemed to be very willing to let me work on my terms. When I was tired or bored or lazy I could go play a game or behave somewhere without anyone complaining. Happy employees with improved morale make better games.

Perk #4 – Fun Office Environment

Everybody that works at a video game studio has one thing in common: they love games. If they didn’t love activity games they would never have been hired to make them. Because of this, the office setting often has fun or quirky things anywhere you look. Many people bring strange new objects to exhibit off or play with during the day.

Most video game studios have lots of games and toys lying around to keep its employees entertained. A few things that I have come across at various studios: Arcades with liberated coin-op games, foosball tables, ping pong tables, razor scooters, board games, action figures, puzzles, daytime basketball games and giant stuffed animals.

Coming to the office ease means you’re going to work, but there’s no reason why it can’t also be fun.

Perk #5 – liberated salt + Snacks

This perk is maybe not essential to everyone, but it’s nice to know that you won’t go hungry employed at a video game studio. I’ve never met a video game consort that hasn’t offered liberated salt and snacks as part of the benefits of employed there. I suppose being loaded up on caffeine and sugar helps boost productivity. During long days at the office, companies would typically provide liberated dinner as a thank-you for staying late. One consort I worked for served full catered meals from assorted restaurants every period for many weeks.

Pitfall #1 – Long Work Hours

Making video games is a lot of work. The amount of time needed to make the latest game seems to be growing exponentially. Development teams continue to get bigger and bigger every year, yet somehow the amount of work per person doesn’t seem to get any smaller. Games are very complicated. Also, the nature of games is that they must be fun, which is not always so easy to accurately pencil into a schedule. A lot of experimentation is needed, especially with new game concepts.

Before a milestone and especially a few months before a game is released, the work day would be very intense. The work has a way of very quickly piling up. New features and old bugs suck away all of your time. employed long nights or weekends is not uncommon. Fortunately, employees generally care most the games that they are making, and their suffering helps energize them through these occasional long shifts.

The stress can get overwhelming, too. At one consort I had a giant arrange of bug reports inactivity for me on my chair when I came into the office. I would work all day, scrambling to fix the bugs as quickly as possible, employed on full blast all day and night. I’d go home for a couple hours of sleep, but when I’d return to work there would be a new, even larger arrange of bug reports inactivity for me.

Typically after a send has shipped there would be a period of downtime where the employees can get a chance to behave and recover. The work load would suddenly significantly reduce. One consort gave bonus vacation time after a send shipped, and another put employees “on call” for most a month, in which they only had to come to the office if there was some kind of problem. It’s nice to know that your long work hours do not go unnoticed.

Pitfall #2 -Choosing What to Work On

Working on your own video games in your liberated time is a lot of fun. You get to choose exactly what game and tasks you want to work on, focusing only on the fun stuff. Anything boring can be safely ignored since the only audience is you. Unfortunately, this is not the case for super video game studios. There are many tasks to be completed, some of which are not too glamorous. Fixing housing manufacturer standards violations or building data tools is not very exciting, but it ease needs to be done by someone in order to ship the final product.

These tasks typically are given to people who are just starting out in the video game industry, perhaps as a rite of passage, but probably just because nobody else wants to do them.

In constituent to the possibility of employed on less exciting tasks, you could be appointed a send that you are not full fascinated in. Typically the consort would let you work projects that interest you, but this is not always possible. A particular send could be falling behind schedule and it needs a few solon employees to fix some bugs or add some new features. Or, the send you are fascinated in already has enough workers.

I think that the suffering of the employees employed at a video game studio is crucial to the success of that game. If you are not excited most what you’re employed on, it would exhibit up in the game you’re creating. To avoid any misunderstandings or letdowns, before deciding to work at a particular company, it’s essential to encounter out what game you would be employed on in constituent to what tasks you would be assigned.

Pitfall #3 -Pay Not as beatific (Maybe?)

I’ve heard from a few people that the pay employed as a video game programmer is not as beatific as the pay employed at solon conventional companies. Business database programmers, for example, could be earning solon money. This could be true. However, choosing your affirmation is not just most the pay. You spend a super percentage of your life at your job. Money is not everything. Choosing something that you savor is important, too.

I thought the pay at the companies I have worked at was very reasonable. There is also a super potential upside from royalty checks reaching from a game that sells well, which has sometimes turned out to be significant. You would definitely not be living as a pauper if you get a programmer job at a video game company.

Conclusion

I hope that this article has been helpful towards learning a little bit most employed as a video game programmer. As with everything in life, there are pros and cons to this profession. If what you have read sounds beatific to you, I hope you encounter that dream job making the next great bestselling game.