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Career Info: The Video Game Industry

An Overview

The video game industry generally is growing year on year, as the market for video game software and hardware continues to grow.

In 2004 the value of the game industry in Australia, based on retail figures published by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia, grew 5%, bringing software sales to $535 million, hardware sales to $189 million, and gaming peripheral sales to $63 million (for new products).

The video game industry is always at the forefront of powerful entertainment technology, as more powerful machines are built or adapted to run video games.

Making a video game for cutting edge machines requires the best programmers and artists, as well as producers and a range of professionals. Video games are not only for cutting edge machines however, and as long as the focus is on fun, games of all sorts can be made and be very successful.

The video game industry in Australia is made up of several types of businesses:

Development Studios: development studios (commonly known as developers) create the games. They are highly innovative software developers that work to create successful video games. Developers may specialise in several areas: such as (a) platforms (platforms is another name for the class of devices that run games), eg develop only for PlayStation 2, or develop only for mobile phones; (b) genre (eg first person shoot'em ups, or real time strategy); (c) audience (eg kids games, party games, or hard core gamers, online game players), or (d) types of work (eg only doing conversions - say changing a IBM-PC game to run on a PlayStation 2 console). Development studios depend to a large extent on publishers for funding. Publishers typical contract a development studio to make a game for a set amount on money, and if the game is successful the developer may also be provided a royalty for each sale of the game once the game has reached a certain amount of sales. However some independent developers have been extremely successful and do not require publisher support to make their next game as they have enough money in the bank to support them during development or have another source of funding. There are over 40 development studios in Australia, some owned by publishers, some foreign owned, and many independent Australian owned businesses.

Publishers: these companies take the developer's game and get it to customers. And as mentioned, they may have funded the development of the game in the first place, which typically happens. They organise distribution and retail promotions, new game marketing and advertising, and so on. Publishers generally have many games they are selling but some publishers specialise in a particular type of game. The big publishers all have their own development studios, but also buy the services of independent developers from time to time. Publishers may also have their own distribution businesses as well.

Hardware makers: these companies make the machines and peripherals, they include Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, PC makers (including all the graphics card makers and so on), Nokia, Logitech, and so on. Hardware makers like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo also have publishing and game development businesses.

Distributors: these companies take the games from publishers and get them into the video game shops. They run warehouses, game catalogues, and shipment operations.

Retail Stores: whether online or offline, retail stores sell games to customers. There are several video game chain stores in Australia, lots of independent stores, and lots of general retailers that sell video games and hardware. Retail stores take up to 30% or so of the game price.

Game media: as we all know there are specific video game magazines and websites that provide an important avenue to publicise games and what the video game industry is up to. Game media has been around for as long as games, and provides professional fact and opinion based content.

Allied industries: these companies provide specialist services such as 3D animation, voice over people, music composers, human resources, and so on. Overall, 10% of total developer budgets per year in Australia go to allied industries.

Educators: Australia has a growing game education sector with the opportunity for experienced game makers to teach game making, and for academics to focus on game related issues such as classification.

When it comes to careers, of course developers require game programmers and artists, producers, designers, and a range of other technically minded professionals, but when you consider the industry as a whole, there are many other career options open: business managers, financial experts, legal experts, marketing and publicity experts, webmasters, journalists, commentators, opinion-makers, system administrators, academics, teachers, consultants, quality assurance, game writers, graphic artists, distribution people for starters.

The brief information above shows how varied the video game industry is, and there are many career choices available as the industry requires many different types of people and skills.