Career in Gaming Industry

Career in Gaming Industry
The gaming industry is still in its nascent stage in India but internationally, gaming is bigger than Hollywood, and according to NASSCOM report, expected to grow to $300 million industry by 2009. From broadly a hobbyist career to a mainstream multibillion-dollar industry demanding individuals with engineering, programming, art, writing and management skills supported by the revolution in technology and media and easy access to internet, the gaming industry offers plethora of career options. Universities and colleges all over the world are now trying to turn out qualified individuals for this demanding industry.

The games industry consists of tow major sections-video games and computer games apart from the hugely popular mobile phone games. While the computer games market has been dominated by the PC games, Sony’s Playstation2, Nintendo’s Game Cube and Microsoft’s Xbox have dominated the video games market. The few Indian players in this space are concentrating on both segments. These include Dhruva Interactive, Paradox Studios, Indiagames and Escosoft. In India Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd, The online gaming company from Reliance Anil Dhurubhai Ambani Group, will invest $100million over three years to cash in on the gaming boom in the country.
Job Requirement
The number of job options available in the industry is mind-boggling. Typically, a games development team consists of programmers, games designers, artist and the management. The following is a brief schedule of the skills requirements of the basic careers.

Programmers: and engineering and/or technical degree, a computer skills sets required are C, C++, Direct X Open GL, computer graphics, data structures etc.
Image artists: a diploma in animation and skills in 3D packages like 3D Studio Max, or Alias Wavefront, Maya, Adobe Photoshop.
A concept Artist/ Illustrator : a concept illustrator is someone well versed in drawing storyboard and concept sketchers. These sketches are used to communicate designers views to the rest of the team.
Graphic Designer.: a graphic designer should have basic of computer drawing basics in animation, and mastery in Photoshop and pixel
Product Manger/ Producer-Leading the team from star to finish is the product manager/producer. He supervises the team and takes care of budgeting financial and management matters.

Game tester: Producer is assisted by game tester. Whose basic jobs include bug testing and reporting? Game balance and game feature testing and ensuring the quality of the fame

Designer: A general art background is very useful when crafting levels for 3D games, as is some knowledge or architecture and design concepts. General programming knowledge is recommended for the scripting aspects of design