Beyond Code and Art: The Unexpected Degrees Shaping the Games We Play
There is no question that the video game industry has boomed in recent generations, quickly shooting past other entertainment industries in profits. In 2022, the music and movie industry both made approximately $26 billion each, while in contrast, the video game industry made a whopping $184 billion. Due to this, universities have been pivoting and developing majors that focus on video game development (one of the most prestigious and involved being Rochester Institute of Technology’s program) which gives students a great opportunity to get in the space. Even if you don’t go to a school with a similar program, most universities have coding/computer science-oriented degrees with a focus or classes involving video game development (the same is also the case typically with art degrees, specifically #D modeling/art). But what if you aren’t interested in coding or making art, or if you started in a particular field and want to pivot into video games?
Esports
Esports is the perfect combination of sports broadcasting and video games, and a lot of institutions are already looking into how to tackle the future of sports. Interestingly enough, a lot of the new technology in esports and traditional sports overlap and they often share technology (for instance all of those new interesting graphics you saw on the field during the Super Bowl). For those interested in the game but not so much in making them this is a great alternative in a new and growing industry, which previously alluded to connects to other sports broadcasting (and if you are in a sports broadcasting major transferring will be seamless, even without a direct degree change).
Advertising/Public Relations (PR)
Often overlooked but essential to the video game industry is advertising and PR. To start with the prior, advertising is essential to get games sold and in the public eye, and indie developers have been using this to their advantage especially lately with short-form content on platforms such as TikTok to develop hype around their games and get it directly to their audience with there needing to minimal budget allocation. The other side of that same coin though is public relations, which is essential to make sure your customer base stays on your side and has good feelings associated with your game and your company for when you decide to release the next content patch, DLC, or game. Essentially, adversity and PR may be for you if you are more interested in the social media aspect of the industry rather than the creation pipeline.
Quality Assurance
Have you ever wondered if you could make money playing a video game? Or maybe like many, you’re fed up with how many video games released today are riddled with bugs (especially with those being released by larger studios lately). Quality Assurance testers play your games before they get released to help eliminate bugs and glitches. The main issue with this career path is it tends to be a high quantity of people wanting to play the games before release, but a lower amount of actual positions. Something to keep in mind too is it takes special skills to break a game in the same particular way to reproduce a glitch so it can be fixed. An alternative in this field to keep in mind though is running the testing, which could be done in a position within the parent company or as a private third party.
Composition/Sound Design
The path that I followed in college ended up being composition and sound design, which is a part of the industry we often overlook. If you have a music background like me and have a knack for writing little tunes, transitioning into game music composition is pretty straightforward (most people I know in the industry are classically trained). On the other hand, sound design is such a crucial part of the industry and often doesn’t get a lot of love. With programs like Wwise, that allow for dynamic/situation-dependent sound design (and music progression) the industry is developing further. Sound design can be done either with foley (recreating the sounds in a studio using other objects) or manipulation in a DAW, sound is a rabbit hole with endless opportunities. Just think how many games and movies have a sound that brings you right back into a moment (such as Mario’s jump noise or the no-shield sound from Halo).
Bonus: Photogrammetry
A newer technology in the 3D-modeling industry is photogrammetry, which is essentially the process of taking photos or videos so they can be converted into a 3D model using software such as RealityCapture. As we start heading towards (photo) realistic games being a reality, photogrammetry and other similar methods such as NeRFs and 3D Gaussian Splatting will be the go-to way to gather assets for games, making realistic graphics more accessible to the indie developers lacking 3D-modeling skills.