There have been a couple of huge acquisitions in the gaming industry within the last few years. Last September Microsoft bought Mojang, allowing them to take the incredibly popular Minecraft franchise out of Notch’s hands for $2.5 billion. A couple months before that we heard the news that Facebook itself bought Oculus VR, the minds behind the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, for a cool $2 billion.

The Latest Big Acquisition

Now, Activision-Blizzard has acquired King, the makers of the Candy Crush games, for $5.9 billion. For the few out there unaware, Candy Crush Saga has been a huge money maker with several hundred million monthly users making billions of microtransactions. Thus it make sense that a company with the cash to acquire one of the most popular Facebook and mobile games on the planet would do so.

Except that the move happened to catch not just game industry analysts but the entire industry by surprise. This is because Activision Blizzard has been making a name for itself lately in the profitable mobile game market with their own title, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. The digital card game, while not having nearly the network of gamers as King boasts, has been making the gaming giant a profit thanks to its addicting gameplay and popular cash shop features.

Why King?

Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard CEO, knew people would be asking questions after learning of this huge acquisition. That is why he prepared the following statement for the announcement:

“The combined revenues and profits solidify our position as the largest, most profitable standalone company in interactive entertainment. With a combined global network of more than half a billion monthly active users, our potential to reach audiences around the world on the device of their choosing enables us to deliver great games to even bigger audiences than ever before.”

Despite previous attempts, perhaps Activision Blizzard accepted their own failure to build a mobile franchise with those kinds of incredible numbers. By acquiring one of the biggest mobile game franchises on the planet, they’ll very likely make back the $6 billion they spent in the long run.

In Need Of Funds

Of course, the massive acquisition could be an indicator of the company’s recent performance. While King has been very profitable the most recent quarters, Activision has been having a hard time with their own top franchises. For one, Call of Duty is finally seeing a decline in sales, which could mean that gamers are finally growing tired of the annual releases.

Also, the once-dominant Skylanders franchise is also now facing stiff competition from Disney INFINITY, Nintendo’s Amiibo figures, and Lego’s own toys-to-life titles. World of Warcraft subscriber numbers have also been plummeting lately as more and more popular MMORPGs and MOBA titles release. The fact that many of these are free-to-play while World of Warcraft still has a monthly subscription system may be a contributing factor.

With their existing franchises showing slow but steady declines, Activision Blizzard knew they needed a strong revenue to keep them afloat and profitable. Mobile games, which are arguably the most lucrative gaming market today, was an obvious choice. Now the Irvine-based company has quite a big stake in the mobile space that was perhaps unattainable even with their own successful Hearthstone game. Only time will tell how Activision plans to use the Candy Crush franchise in its future strategies and business.

[su_note]Learn more about the School of Game Design at the New York Film Academy by clicking here.[/su_note]

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Over the past few decades, the video game industry has really come into its own—not only is it the fastest growing entertainment medium in terms of revenue, but has created (and continues to create) job disciplines that never existed previously.

What follows is a sampling of the main roles that go behind the creation of modern titles, each of which support thousands of jobs around the globe. We’ll be taking a look at what each role involves, as well as the salary expectations and career paths (and some of the pros and cons you can expect from the job once you land it.)

Ever wanted to score video game soundtracks for a living? How about engineering the actual consoles themselves? Scroll on as we unpack:

A Career in Gaming: 9 Major Roles

Game Animator

An essential role in just about any production, the game animator draws upon a large skillset of both 2D and 3D techniques to bring characters and models to life within the limits of the game’s framework (and production budget.)

Game Animator Career Path: While it is possible to self-teach animation for video games, the cinematic nature of modern games (particularly triple A titles) usually calls for qualified professionals. In addition, game design school can dramatically accelerate the learning process, since there’s now a huge amount of varying software that must be mastered in order to slot into any design crew seamlessly.

Pros: A lot of job satisfaction when you finally nail that character movement after hours of graft, and it’s a challenging mix of both creativity and technical understanding.

Cons: Nothing is achieved quickly in game animation, and it can sometimes feel like an overwhelming grind (especially in a professional environment when deadlines loom.)

Game Animator Salary Expectations: Once you’ve got between 3-6 years of experience you do expect to have above average salary and will continue increase once you take on a senior animation roles and when heading teams.

Game Audio Engineer

A game’s soundtrack, voice acting, and audio effects can easily make or break a game, and the craft of audio engineering has become far more complex in recent times with the advent of more open-ended gaming experiences.

Game Audio Engineer Career Path: Sound engineering degree preferable, but an audio engineer’s portfolio is everything when it comes to attracting paid work in the gaming industry. The ability to compose and perform scores will be highly attractive (since this will save the development studio on commissioning/copyright costs), and understanding of major audio suites such as Logic is essential.

Pros: More varied than one might expect, from organizing recording sessions with voiceover artists to soundtrack scoring or simply working out what a character splitting a zombie’s skull with a hatchet should sound like.

Cons: Sandwiched in between multiple departments and having to work within the (often complex) engine of the game can result in a lot of pressure.

Game Audio Engineer Salary: Video game audio is one of the fastest growing fields in music, and the competition is tough. This has forced down the pay for entry-level positions (a junior audio assistant is around $18 per hour, or $30,000 annually) but this rises to $70,500 for experienced professionals salaried to a studio.

Game Designer

Right at the bedrock of the production process is the game design itself, with one or more designers working tirelessly to devise concepts and bring them to life to form a playable experience.

Game Designer Career Path: Aside from the odd success story from indie hobbyists, most working in a professional capacity nowadays have graduated from game design school.

Pros: Pretty much the rock stars of the gaming industry. The public might not know the audio engineer of their favorite game by name, but the likes of Notch and John Romero are legendary.

Cons: Nobody can claim to know stress quite like that of a game designer spinning a thousand plates in the months leading up to release date.

Game Designer Salary: Anywhere between $45,000 to $120,000 and beyond. This huge variance is accounted for by a number of factors, including seniority and studio size.

Game Programmer

The designer dreams it up, and the programmer makes it happen… in theory, at least.

Game Programmer Career Path: Being able to code in C++ is essential, and other programming languages, a degree in computer science (or related), and a portfolio of work can all be hugely beneficial.

Pros: As with the rigors of animation, there can be a lot of satisfaction to be had from compiling a day’s worth of code and seeing it all just work.

Cons: Things rarely ‘just work.’

Game Programmer Salary: Not too bad at all  even with less than three years of experience, a salaried programmer in the game industry can expect an average of $72,000, and those with experience can command $95,000 (based on 2010 figures).

Creative Game Director

The chief in charge of shaping the artistic vision for the entire game, and one of the most senior positions on the development team in terms of responsibility for the overall quality of the game as a whole.

Creative Director Career Path: There isn’t one route in particular that will lead you to landing a role as creative director, though climbing the career ladder from more junior design and artistic roles is usually the way forward.

Pros: The “creative” part of the title really is just that; you’ll be calling the shots at the highest level.

Cons: Any substandard work from your team falls squarely on your shoulders, and it can be tough to marry all of the various departments and individuals together into a cohesive whole.

Creative Game Director Salary: Between around $54,000 to $81,000 per year. Some celebrity-level creative directors can double this.

Game Artist

Working directly under the creative director, the hierarchy of artists (mainly comprised of a lead game artist and those working beneath him or her) collaborate with the designers, programmers, and animators to create the visual elements of the game.

Game Artist Career Path: Qualifications from a graphic design school are common amongst those working within the field, and a strong portfolio demonstrating a variance of styles and techniques (from 3D modeling to texture design) is highly favorable. Starting off as a game artist before working up to a lead artist and then creative director is a common career path.

Pros: A great role for anyone looking to flex their creative muscle, and it’s very rare for any two projects to be the same.

Cons: You’re likely to spend a lot of time out of hours updating your skillset to stay ahead of the competition… and there’s a lot of it out there.

Game Artist Salary: Not bad, but the increased availability of talent has pushed salaries down over the years for game artists. The average starting salary used to be around $79,000 (adjusted for inflation) fifteen years ago, but is now around $45,000. Of course, this does improve with experience.

Game Marketer/PR

The hard work of all the professionals on this page would come to naught if nobody ever hears of the game, and that’s when the PR and marketing staff come into play. Getting the word out there, inspiring people to purchase the title and managing online reputation of both the studio and game are all part of the job, which can be easier said than done on some projects.

Game Marketer Career Path: A related degree in either marketing or communications (or both) is all but essential, with qualified individuals then going on to either work for a third party marketing agency or in some cases salaried directly by the game design studio itself.

Pros: Video game marketing is in high demand right now, so there’s no shortage of work and also the possibility to jump to other entertainment media with relative ease. PR staff members also get a lot of perks including traveling around to wine and dine others in the industry.

Cons: At some point in their career, a video game marketer will inevitably be tasked with promoting something that’s totally un-promotable, and a PR professional will have to quash a negative media firestorm. That said, for some, this is the thrill of the job.

Game Marketer Salary: Once again, a huge amount of variance here given that game marketing is filled with numerous sub-roles and levels of seniority. The average for all marketing jobs in the gaming industry is around $56,000, but megabucks are on the table for those who work their way up to management.

QA Game Tester

If there’s a single bug or way to ‘break’ a game, you can guarantee the paying public will discover it so it’s the job of the testing team to find such glitches and identify areas for improvement before release. Widely considered to be the bottom rung of the production ladder despite the essential service they provide to the team.

Game Tester Career Path: Testers—or Quality Assurance Technicians—aren’t often required to have qualifications, though any programming knowledge or game design school experience will make the candidate more attractive. The majority of testers work on a freelance, per-project basis.

Pros: A good entry-point to a further career in programming or game design.

Cons: The job is nowhere near as fun as the general public assumes. You won’t get to “play games for a living;” it’s more a case of repetitiveness testing a single part of the game to the point of monotony and rigorously logging all observations into a spreadsheet.

Game Tester Salary: Very low—between $19,000 to $22,000—with little job security, but again, it’s a good springboard for a more established career in gaming.

Video Game System Designer

Everything above covers the creation of video games themselves, but who’s responsible for making the machines on which they’re played? That comes down to the system designer…

System Designer Career Path: Given the already advanced nature of modern consoles (and the lightning fast rate at which they continue to advance), system designers these days almost always hail from a computer-related engineering and industrial design backgrounds.

Pros: If you dream in circuitry and have no qualms about spending hours reading up on semiconductor theory just to get 0.1 extra teraflops out of your GPU, this is the job for you (especially since the pay isn’t too bad, either.)

Cons: Having to explain the limitations of what’s achievable to your non-tech savvy peers and superiors on a near daily basis.

System Designer Salary: A cool $80,000 as an average but $100k and up isn’t unheard of at the top console companies.

If there’s one mechanic that has stood the test of time and transcended genres, it’s stealth. Stealth elements can be seen in today’s action-adventure titles like Batman: Arkham Asylum, third-person shooters like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, first-person shooters like Dishonored, and even 2D side-scrollers like Mark of the Ninja.

Since its introduction by early games like 005, Castle Wolfenstein, and Metal Gear, stealth has been a popular and captivating challenge in a lot of games. To the untrained eye, stealth is the same in every game—sneak around to kill people and/or complete an objective without being seen. But to stealth fans and game designers, there are different ways to look at stealth, including newer mechanics currently bringing innovation to the genre.

Below are only three of the many types of stealth found in games that are worth looking into if you ever find yourself working on a similar project:

Hiding To Avoid Visual Detection

Stealth doesn’t get any more basic than this. Avoiding visual detection means that the player character is not discovered by an enemy, which is usually done by line-of-sight mechanics. Some enemies merely see the player visually, while others can smell them or even sense them with fictional powers. The goal of the player is to avoid detection by hiding behind objects, in the shadows, above their line-of-sight, etc.

It’s amazing to consider that the recent Metal Gear Solid V would not exist if a ground-breaking NES game hadn’t been released more than 25 years ago. Metal Gear was one of the first titles to have a line-of-sight mechanic where players had to avoid the guards’ front view to not be detected. If you were seen, you had to fight the guards.

Since then, the number of games that employ this simple style of stealth has grown dramatically, with recent titles including Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, and of course, the latest entry in the Metal Gear Solid franchise. Whether they make heavy use of stealth or players can get by without using it, players tend to appreciate the option of either jumping into combat or taking a slower, more calculating approach that involves picking off enemies one by one.

Hiding Via A Disguise

Using disguises to blend into groups and not stand out has been used in everything from movies and television shows to classic novels written ages ago. Everyone is familiar with the Trojan Horse from Virgil’s Aeneid, a Latin epic poem written more than two thousand years ago. After a decade of failing to conquer Troy, the Greeks used the massive wooden disguise to infiltrate the city’s impenetrable walls and lay waste to it, ending the war.

This kind of stealth, which is also referred to as social stealth, normally uses NPCs and a disguise as its two main ingredients. To avoid detection, players wear a specific costume that allows them to blend into a crowd of NPCs. This fools patrolling enemies into thinking that the player is just another bystander, party guest, etc.

One of the best examples of this is found in the multiplayer portion of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which involves players hunting and killing each other in an area filled with NPC characters. Most of the NPCs on the maps look identical to the player characters, which means you can walk casually or join a group of them to fool your pursuer. There are even abilities that change your look temporarily to have a better chance of blending in.

Hiding To Hunt

As opposed to games where detection means losing the game or a difficult combat encounter, games with a hunter stealth element have players find and kill targets. This mode empowers players with a sense of control and dominance as they strike fear in the hearts of enemies while taking them down, one by one.

One of the best examples of this stealth are the Batman games by Rocksteady, which include Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Arkham Knight. Players are usually more than free to run up to enemies and beat them to a pulp, but sometimes this isn’t the best approach. Instead, players must move undetected through vents and on high-placed gargoyles to single out enemies. There’s nothing better than hearing thugs panic as they notice more and more of their comrades lying unconscious.

Like Batman himself, this type of stealth mode is satisfying because it makes players feel like a hunter stalking its prey. The trick to making this kind of stealth work in your game relies heavily on the reaction of the enemies. The more frightened they get as this mysterious force hunts them, the cooler the player feels.

[su_note]Learn more about the School of Game Design at the New York Film Academy by clicking here.[/su_note]

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