I’m going to share about gaming companies, and how are their teams structured.
Of course it will be my experience, as every companies work differently even if they have a backbone of the same core teams.
I will not talk about Finances/Budgets, this article is focussed on Structures.
Many players are often blaming “Developers” when something goes wrong with their game, but the meaning of that word is vast.
A developer can be anyone within the “Development Team“, someone who is working on developing the game: a Programmer, a Community Manager, a Tester, an Animator, …
From Indie developers with one employee, to billion-earnings companies with thousands of employees, people working in games have large sets of skills that allow the final product to become a piece of art, on the same terms as famous movies or best-sellers books. I have a huge respect for everyone working their butts off to support their great products. Keep the creativity up!
I thought it would be a good idea to give players an overall idea of what a gaming company is composed of, and it will serve a future article in October: How to work in the video-game industry.
So now… Who can I really blame for that bug in my Mission? 😏
I can’t make a list of all the jobs available in the gaming industry, but this chapter should be enough to understand how the average AAA game company works.
Roles often come in various levels, depending on the employees experience. Again, the levels & years of XP depends on companies & profiles.
Salaries shared are based on experience, company’s size, job’s specifics.
Junior, fresh out-of-school with no professional experience // Junior Community Manager, ~€25k-30k
Standard, some professional experience // Community Manager, ~€35k-40k
Experienced > 3-5 years XP // Experienced Community Manager, ~€45k/50k
Senior > 5-8 years XP // Senior Community Manager, ~€55k-60k
I consider Seniors to be the highest, most qualified employee in a field.
Lead > 8-10 years XP // Lead Community Team Manager, ~€70k-80k
Leads are Senior employees who excel in relationships, and want to pull their team to the next level. More meetings, more strategy, and less hands in the grease.
Director > 10 years XP // Director of Publishing, ~€Don’t ask
The Lead’s Lead, overseeing multiple teams within its field. Even more meetings, calls, and puzzles to make the project a success.
💡 If you live in France, you can almost half these salaries in two! It’s ok, I’m just messing with you haha… Or not really…
A typical open-world action game AAA (highest level of quality) takes between 400-600 people and ~5 years to develop.
This number doesn’t count outsourcing roles as companies can use freelance services on a short term contract to produce assets & services needed to develop the project.
▲ Games I have supported:
[MMORPG] The Edler Scrolls Online – 1,268 people & 7 years development 2008-2014
[RPG FPS] Wolfenstein: The New Order – 766 people & 3 years development 2011-2014
[Survival Horror] The Evil Within – 645 people & 4 years development 2010-2014
[ARPG] Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem – 210 people & 5-6 years development 2015-2020
[Survival Strategy] Tin Can – <10 people & 2 years development 2018-2020
[RPG Strategy] Crusader Kings III – 592 people & 6 years development 2015-2020
[RPG] Baldur’s Gate 3 – Undisclosed & 6 years development 2018-2023
▲ Typically, you can find these Departments in a AAA game development company:
► Investors & Board – To make a game, you need a lot of funds. Their are investment companies that provide game companies with money and of course in return they will receive a share of the profit. The Board is a team of people influencing the game’s development: at least some major Investors, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), and of course the CEO (Chief Executive Officier). Even if a company doesn’t have “a Board”, they have Investors thanks to private investment banks or maybe simply their community if they raised funds via a Kickstarter for example.
► Production – They plan the projects & resources to make everything run smoothly. It’s a lot of scheduling for the teams to reach their milestones & produce the game within the timeframe set by the Board & Analysts. They make decisions and provide their teams with everything they need to reach their goals. Usually there is one Game Director and multiple Project Manager & Producers supporting many major aspects of the game.
► Game Design – They maintain a design document that supports artists & programmers, so they know what they should work on and how it is supposed to look like. They are in charge of developing the game’s concept, the mechanics, the rules and everything that composes the game. For example if you see a character in your game, Game Designers were in charge of its development from its look, the role, strength & weakness, spells maybe, and everything about that character. Everything you see has been designed by a Designer.
► Artists – They create all the visuals for the game. There are a lot of different jobs as “Artist” is another word describing a large panel of workers: 3D & 2D modelling, visual effects FX, concept artists, User Interface, Animation, Texture & Environment, Lighting, Voice Artists, Localisation, Writers, Audio, Music & Composer, Cinematics, … They give the vibes and are skilled creative people.
► Programmers – They code the game to make it playable, by taking all the assets created by other teams. One team to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them; In the Land of Game Development where the lines of code lie. Again, a lot of jobs here as there are specialisations for the Servers, AI, Database, Scripts, Engine, Tools, Front-End (client) & Back-End (devs), Website, …
► Testing, QA – Quality Assurance people find problems within the game (bugs) and document them. It is instrumental that their reports are precise so programmers can reproduce the issues, understand the logic, and fix the bug. QA ensures that the product meet a high quality standard so it is fun to play, balanced, and the experience flows well with the mechanics/gameplay.
► Publishing – It’s my department! The Publishing team is responsible for the brand awareness, which means that they need to bring the game to the public view. Activities, showcase/highlights, campaigns, and other activations are made to draw players’ attention and foster them to play the game, and pay for it. They are Community Managers, Social Media Managers, Influencers Managers, Press, Marketing, Advertisements, Events Manager, Graphic Designer, Video Producer… Their role is also to collect the players sentiment, data, information, and to report them to the other development teams to improve the game & influence its direction.
► Support – Live Ops Team, Customer Support, Data Analyst, and other key people supporting the game and players to make the overall experience smoother.
Let’s explain the roles with five major categories:Owners-Executive, Core, Publishing, Support, Resources.
The list is exhaustive, and doesn’t represent every single jobs possible.
Owners-Executives
Chief Executive Officer
The CEO, often the founder of the project and/or company, is the highest-ranking executive of a firm. CEOs act as the company’s public face and make major corporate decisions.
Chief Financial Officer
The CFO is a senior executive responsible for managing the financial actions of a company. The CFO’s duties include tracking cash flow and financial planning as well as analyzing the company’s financial strengths and weaknesses and proposing corrective actions. Long story short, it’s a Treasurer.
Chief Operations Officer
The COO typically reports directly to the chief executive officer (CEO) and is considered to be second in the chain of command.
Head of Production
The head of production is the highest-ranking member of a production team. They are responsible for overseeing all aspects of production, from planning to execution. The head of production may also be involved in developing new projects and managing other members of their department.
Head of Publishing
Responsible for successful delivery of publishing projects to achieve strategic goals. Lead and manage the publishing team to ensure objectives are met. Devise and implement publishing strategy, business plan and annual budget.
Head of Design
A Head of Design provides a creative vision not just for the design team but the whole organization. They establish processes and practices for realizing that vision, and set the bar for quality.
Brand Manager
What is the role of a brand manager? A Brand Manager is responsible for adapting a brand strategy for a company’s target market. As the ‘brand guardian’, Brand Managers maintain brand integrity across all company marketing initiatives and communications, and may manage a portfolio of products.
Producers
A Producer makes sure the process and progress of a game’s design, development and release actually happen. Producers keep game develop and design teams moving towards deadlines, working collaboratively and sticking to the same creative and technical vision.
Directors
They usually are several, one Director per major department for example QA Director, Art Director, Audio Director, etc… A Game Director ensures a video game looks great and works correctly. They supervise and review all aspects of the video game design process including the graphics, sounds and programming.
Core
Directors
They are the top level here, reporting to the Board & Executives
Leads
Seconds in command, supporting the Directors
Game Design
They bring ideas, build prototypes, create interactive narration and develop the game’s mechanics & levels. Their roles are to design systems that are easily maintainable, expandable and comfortable to use, while injecting fun into the user experience.
Concept Artists
Concept Artists are needed to “draft” ideas, so executives can see if they not only sounds great but look great. It’s the first step of a visual creation process. They create quick and detailed drawings and paintings of environments, characters, buildings, vehicles and props. The Concept Artists use traditional and technological approaches to create designs in 2D and 3D through drawing and painting.
Characters, Vehicle, Environment Artists
After the concept is done, we can drill further down to polish the project. These Artists/Designers visualise and create the look of individual characters/vehicles/environments/…. They work from descriptions given to them by the directors. These might include notes on a character’s personality as well as physical traits, vehicles colours & details, environment vibes, etc…
3D & 2D Modelling
2D Modellers well… model surfaces of an object to actually create the object. 2D modeling involves creating blueprints, drawings and plans in two dimensions. Since 3D modeling is a representation of the surface of an object, 3D modelers, in short, create those images. They create a computer design that’s drawn to scale, often adding details like texture, color, and light, so anyone viewing the model can get a realistic sense of what the finished product will look like.
Animators & Riggers
Animators take the objects created by 2D and 3D artists and breathe life into them by making them move. Working from the designer’s storyboard, they create the movements for characters and vehicles. They add personality, emotion and realism to the game. Sometimes also called Riggers.
“Nora Pot Combo” Anthony Ma
Lighting & VFX
Lighting artists light the scenes in an animation. They decide what lights to use and where to place them. Lighting in games creates a very attractive illusionary scene. It is an art of fulling the artistic touch and beauty of each and every scene. Lighting is not only a source of adding light to objects. VFX team members also work to create effects like spells, smoke, clouds, …
“Spirit Guardians” Frank Le Cocq
Audio & Music
Recording of sounds, working to match audio with animations or game environments, editing soundtracks, implementing the files, and testing the sound in gameplay. You collaborate with audio engineers and game developers to ensure the final product matches the original concept and it is to me one of the most fascinating branches of game development!
Localisation is the process of producing a video game content for a specific region, and doing it so well that it looks like it was made for that region originally. For example if you localise a text from English to French and a character says “Does it ring a bell?!” you would translate it to “Ça ne sonne pas une cloche ?!” but it’s very bad because no French person would say that! You would localise it to “Ça te rappelle quelque chose?!” for ‘Does it remind you of something?!’. Same for the contrary, you don’t naturally says ‘Does it remind you of something’ in English. That’s localisation.
Thanks for the illustration, Nicoch!
Programming
Essentially, a game programmer writes the code that brings a video game to life. They work closely with producers and other departments (e.g. game designers, game artists, Sound, etc) to translate the project’s vision into a fully functioning, playable game. There are programmers for many things liked detailed below.
Server
They lead the design and development of online game server networks to support various game features such as online gameplay & multiplayer, in-game events and purchases, credential verification and online messaging systems.
Web
Web programmers, also known as web developers or web engineers, create applications on the web. Their work centers on non-design aspects of web development, including coding. To be known as well, Launchers for your games are basically web pages!
Engine
Engine programmers develop the game engine from which the game runs. They create new functionality in the engine and rewrite the existing systems to make them as efficient as possible. When a new game is being devised, the engine programmer will figure out how to create the best engine for that particular game.
AI
AI Programmers can be said to give a game its brain. They create algorithms that set the behavior of characters and elements based on the gameplay of the individual player. This is done by customising the reactions of gameplay to the actions of the player.
Gameplay
Gameplay programmers write the code for the interactions that make a game fun to play. While lead designers decide on the combat, gameplay programmers make it happen. They work with level designers to see what needs to be done to make the gameplay work.
Script
Scripting is coding. It’s the way to write instructions for the execution for your game using a very specific language. This is similar to rules for a board game, which explain the order of turns, determining the first player, and different options at a particular moment. Scripting an event will allow the game to understand how a “story” is flowing based on players choices for example.
Graphic
A graphics developer writes or operates software used for rendering, lighting, shading, and shadowing graphical elements in applications, games, and films. Many graphics developers work in the video game industry, where they help create complicated 2D and 3D motion graphics.
Testing (Quality Assurance)
Quality assurance testing (QA) tests gameplay from a technical standpoint. The video game QA team will play through a title multiple times, writing up detailed bug reports and making note of any crashes they experience to improve the final product. They will usually test everything a player could do to make sure the game is solid and that any weird action from the player won’t lead to a bug or an issue.
Publishing
Directors
They are the top level here, reporting to the Board & Executives
Leads
Seconds in command, supporting the Directors
Community Management
Community managers are responsible for the community that grows around the game. That means they attend events, write newsletters, organise social Media, set up live streams and find the best way of dealing with criticism too. They are the people who know the fans best.
Community Development
Community Development is what you do ahead of Community Management. When developing a community, Community Developers prepare the plans to grow the community, understand the demographics, the communities within the community. You need a strategy to develop & manage your community.
Social Media Management
A Social Media Manager manages an organisation’s online presence by developing a strategy, producing great content, analysing socials data, facilitating customer service and managing projects and campaigns to grow the community on the selected social Media. The role is often mixed with Community Management.
Advertisements
Social media advertising is a type of digital marketing that utilises social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to deliver paid ads to the target audience. Social media ads are a quick and effective way to connect with the consumers and boost the marketing campaigns.
Influencers Management
Influencers Managers are responsible for developing organic and paid influencer marketing campaigns, managing the company’s existing regional influencer programs across the games they cover, and analysing influencer content performance based on data-driven insights. They are the ones interacting with content creators usually, if a company has an Influencer Manager. If not, it often goes to the Community Manager.
Press Relations
Responsible for overseeing communications to the media, including preparing articles, press kits, press releases, and other content initiatives relayed by the Press. Cultivates and manages relationships with media representatives. It requires a drop of storytelling, a hint of creativity, a dash of sales, a bit of people management, and a lot of hard work. The core objectives of anyone working in games PR is to cut through the noise, generate awareness for a client, and help establish media relations through powerful, creative campaigns.
Support
Directors
They are the top level here, reporting to the Board & Executives
Leads
Seconds in command, supporting the Directors
Customer Support
Customer support is the team of people who provide help when customers have trouble with a company’s products or services. It’s ultimately about making sure customers are successful in solving whatever issues they have with the game. There are multiple types of CS from Tier 0 being usually the first line of support via mail or phone → To Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and even Tier 4 from my experience. The higher the Tier, the more specialised the CS agent.
Live Ops
Live Operations (Live Ops) is a style of game management and operations that treats a game as a live service and continually delivers new features, updates, promotions, in-game events, and improvements to the launched game to improve the experience for the player community. it’s cool to enter their rooms in their office because there often are many big screens with a lot of Live information passing through.
Data Analysts
The Game Data Analyst studies the data provided by the game system to analyze player behavior and optimize their experience. The analysis of statistics is used to improve the profitability of the game.
Resources
HR & Office
HR Management is often referred to simply as human resources (HR). A company or organization’s HR department is usually responsible for creating, putting into effect and overseeing policies governing workers and the relationship of the organization with its employees.
Finance
They manage the preparation of balance sheets, financial statements, cash-flow reports, day-to-day record keeping and reporting, including all payroll, accounts payable and receivable.
Legal
They provide advice and support on a wide range of legal and business matters. For example if a game is under Non Disclosure Agreement with some important content creators, and one of them release a video publicly about the game: They will be the one sending you information about how your life is going to end hehe! If a pirate website proposes to download a game for free, they will be the ones sending cease & desist letters to that website’ owners. They will find you. Do not mess with them ^-^
IT
The IT department oversees the installation and maintenance of computer network systems within a company: Infrastructure, Servers, the machines you are working on, the communications platforms, …
