CAREERS withwith STEMSTEM - Game - QUT
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CAREERS
JOB KIT
withSTEM
™
• x + • • + x • • x + • • x
Game
Designer+
Developer
Insights, information and advice
on cool careers in the world of gaming
Take game design to the next level.
Pierre Medeiros was excited to study “Studying at QUT helped me gain a much
QUT’s Bachelor of Games and Interactive deeper understanding of the industry I want
Environments. “My enthusiasm for playing to work in, and a surprisingly diverse range
games has always fed into a desire to of sectors looking to apply game theory.”
make them.”
Pierre now has a firm eye on working in
Pierre chose QUT because he recognised game production alongside passionate
the priority placed on providing industry professionals who are invested in creating
relevant knowledge, skills and experience. meaningful online experiences.
He was looking to learn within a real‑world
To discover more of Pierre’s story and learn
context that led to genuine outcomes.
about studying game design at QUT,
visit our website.
qut.edu.au/study-games
CRICOS No: 00213J
• x + • • + x • • x + • • x FOREWORD
More than
fun and games
Gaming tech is so much more than just entertainment,
with applications in fields ranging from medicine to defence
O
y seem like a fun
n the surface, gaming ma
on line with friends
activity you take part in
er the world, but this
or fellow gamers all ov
s deeper than that.
fascinating career area goe ing
nufacturing all use gam
Defence, medicine and ma ind ust rie s.
to enhance their
design and development ’t ben efit
ny fields that don
In fact, there are not ma
-ga mi ng tech. Think: data
from the use of 3D
al simulations, text
protection, environment
They all start out with
mining, wearable tech…
a creative idea.
technology at the
We are a university with
r CL EVAR (Cognitive
heart of what we do. Ou
nts in Virtual and
and Learning Environme
ch lab enables
Augmented Reality) resear dr ross brown
and the ability for
gaming-specific learning Associate Professor
s to expand their maths
designers and developer
along with exploring the
and programming skills,
man experience.
culture of gaming and hu y
t Diploma in eSports of an
QUT now offers the firs you r
Designed to kickstart Enterprises (constructio
university in Australia. n) and
d Int eractive Environments Raytracer (space and def
Bachelor of Games an n of ence) to
it’s an exciting recognitio experience industry up
(Games Design) degree, ess all ben efi t from We have exciting things
close during their degree
.
s and busin
how IT, creative industrie ski lls. augmented reality (AR)
coming in virtual (VR) an
d
d design
the right development an med
to evolve digital environm
ents
Compute r graph ics are a synthesis of beauty for even further, and the opp
ortunity for employment
a is
tical systems. It’s truly growing. For example, gam
from traditional mathema get e developers who graduate
an d work in. QUT students from QUT have gone on
fascinating field to study s, ass isti ng It is interesting, visually
to work at places like Am
azon.
real-world scenario
firsthand experience in World
oriented work you can ada
pt
VR companies such as Next to many disciplines.
on projects with local I was inspired to pursue
this career by programm
real-time icosahedron an ing a
d realising I was creating
beauty. That was specia
l enough to keep me intere
for the last 28 years. Wh sted
There are not many development passion beg
ere will your game design
and
SUPPLIED / SHUTTERSTOCK
fields that don’t benefit from in?
the use of 3D-gaming tech” Dr Ross Brown, Associat
e Professor, Faculty of
Science, School of Comp
uter Science, QUT
Check out Careersw
inspiration and advi ithSTEM.com for more insights, info
ce about a game desi rm
gner and developer ation,
career!
3 GAME DESIGNER AND DEVELOPER
DEEP DIVE • x + • • + x • • x + • • x
Careers with consoles
Controllers at the ready…
I
f you’re streaming Free Guy on Disney+ and have
10,000 hours on Steam, this page is for you! You
totally appreciate the design and development
of gaming, plus all the layers of code it takes to
simulate worlds and characters for your playing
pleasure. Want to make a career out of it and join the
industry that’s worth $4 billion dollars in Australia
alone? Here are some hot facts you need to know.
We’ll call it homework for gamers. – Pippa Duffy
Skills list
✔ Scoping
✔ Teamwork
✔ Creative thinking
✔ Time managemen
t
✔ Problem-solving
✔ Eye for detail
✔ Critical reasonin
g
✔ Imagination
Professor and
t from a pro? Dr Ross Brown, Associate e lowdown on
Wanna hear it straighQUT’s School of Computer Science, has th /QUTtube
VR researcher from d of gaming design and development. bit.ly
SHUTTERSTOCK
click
the diverse worl here
CAREERSwithSTEM.com 4
Digital dyn
amos
Edu-tainment is
Book ma rk th
you r futu re
ese stud ios fo
job sea rch in
g…
r having a moment
• Gameloft • Sure it’s all fun and games
Nintendo (geddit?!) but gaming
• Epic Game is playing a huge role in oth
s er sectors, too.
• Activision
Blizzard From online safety for the 170
,000 new users (i.e. kids)
• Animal Lo clicking on the internet each
gic day, to integration in health,
• Riot Game government, security and env
s and development in the digital
ironmental organisations, des
ign
space goes way beyond an
online multiplayer session.
ms such as
• Schools use gaming platfor
Studyladder and Re adi ng Eggs to help
students with their learning.
guage
•D uolingo is reducing the lan
lion use rs across 19
barrier for 120 mil
dialects.
e of
• The humble Solitaire is a gam
in exe rcise for people
patience and a bra
with Alzheime r’s dis eas e.
• CSIRO’s Human Centric Sec
urity Team have integrated
Cyber Circuit, an ‘old-schoo
l’ style game to test and
increase cyber security knowle
dge for employers.
• The United Nations Enviro
nment Programme has teame
up with big games like Angry d
Birds 2 to incorporate things
such as climate change into
their gaming options.
Translation station
Like many industries, the ga
ming world ha s its own lingo. Take note of
list of helpful words and the this
ir meanings — but remembe
on the job, so you don’t need r, yo u’l l also learn
to be an expert to enrol!
Milestone: Each step in the
development process is a mil IxD: Interactive design is how designers
estone. switch from their initial idea and
Bugs: Bugs in the gaming world infiltra vision to thinking about how
creative
programming and create pro te the user will
blems that play their game.
need to be solved by QA testers
people, can play without hitt
so we, the Alph a and Beta: Major stages
ing any probs. in gaming design. Alpha refers
Dev: Literally developer, just abbreviate build of a game, when it’s rea
to the first
d. dy for testing.
No ob: This is an inexperienced player Beta is when it gets to the alm
ost-ready-
in a gaming environment. Des for-the-public stage and all the
igners and bugs are
developers work hard to ensure (hopefully) fixed.
user
experience (UX) and user inte
rface (UI) Ping: The location of a mark within a
are premium, by considering gaming simulated world.
IxD
(interactive design; see next
every turn. So noobs don’t sta
point) at VC: Voice chat. Very important in online
y noobs gaming, so making this seamle
for long! ss in
development is a no-brainer.
5 GAME DESIGNER AND DEVELOPER
REAL PEOPLE • x + • • + x • • x + • • x
Welcome t o th e w orld
of Edu-tain m en t!
With a double degree
A
isha Darmansjah is a fan of
2D design, animator Aisha Darm in science and games,
Honours student, IT,
ansj
old-school gam es tha t edu cat e and entertain, love of the natural ah is combining her
study practice. world and tech
her cat Susu and shaking up
anities, Aisha completed
Loving both STEM and hum
QUT
same uni her parents
a double degree at QUT — the
h arts people”) and
graduated from (“They’re bot
rese arc h assistant while
where she now works as a
completing her Honour s in IT.
and a Bachelor of
“I did a Bachelor of Science
ments,” Aisha says.
Games and Interactive Environ
the game side of things
“But I’m continuing on with
for my Honours.”
Research Assistant,
thought she’d go
IT wasn’t always the path she
dre ams of becoming an
down — originally, Aisha had
had an interest in the
archaeologist. “I’ve always
QUT
hum anit ies and STEM, which led
connections bet ween
haeolog y. However, the
me to look into pursuing arc
s to the lack of jobs in
uni open days opened my eye
ead, I turned to another
this field in Australia. So, inst
yed — games.”
meeting of disciplines I enjo
e that really caught
It was playing one such gam
ted asking the big
Aisha’s attention and she star
the y des ign that? What was
questions like, “Why did
Bachelor of ScienceEnvironments (Animation), QUT
r of
their thinking put ting that in
this game?”.
“I was playing Pokémon Em
erald and, upon arriving
(Geology) / Bachelo
in Mossdeep City, I was sho
cked to notice mangroves
growing there,” she says. “Gr
owing up near the coast,
mangroves were a common
occurrence for me in real
life, but it was at this point I
realised I’d never seen
them in a game before. It mad
e me want to know why
that was. And so I star ted pav
ing the way that would
eventually lead me to game
development. Being
a natural sciences nerd, I’m
ver y interested in
mes and Interactive
environments and how they
can be represented in aisha darmansjah
games to impart experience animator
s on the player.”
Thanks to the opportunity at
QUT to combine her
love of tech and the natural
world, along with the
suppor t of her teachers, Aish
a was able to double up
on her degree and achieve bot
h. “I’m an animator so
I do a lot of asset creation,
but it means I get to flex my
Ga
artistic muscles and my scie
nce-y thinking muscles,
too,” she says.
Aisha also rates the relation
ships you get to form at
QUT by working in smaller coh
orts. In her project
work, she’s been able to coll
aborate and form
Noosa Shire Council
friendships with programm
ers and game developers
who she needs to make her
animations come to life.
IT Trainee,
Her ultimate bring-to-life job?
mechanisms that make edu
“To study the I got to flex my artist
ic
SUPPLIED
-tainment games work and muscles and my scienc
apply that knowledge to get e-
world around them.” — Pip
people thinking about the
thinking muscles, too” y
pa Duffy
CAREERSwithSTEM.com 6
A day in the life of a… A s a QA (quality assurance
Miles Hatcliff is living his
) tester,
dream,
QA TESTER
working in games develo
pment at
Gameloft. Having alread
y travelled the
world with his QU T stu
dent team
to compete in the Global
VR
ce he got his very first
Hackathon in China, as
en ob sessed with ga mi ng sin well as
Miles Hatcliff has be
publishing award-nomi
what he loves is a bonus!
nated game Isle
fact he no w gets pa id to do of Ewe on Steam store, Mi
Xbox as a kid. The
les soa ked
up all the opportunities
and industry
connections along the wa
y to score
a job before he even gra
duated.
Now, with his Bachelor
of Games and
Interactive Environments
, with a major
in Games Design and a
minor in 3D
Animation and Marketin
g, Miles hopes
to eventually move into
a 3D artist
role and maybe one day
open his own
studio. — Pippa Duffy
miles hatcliff
qa tester
9:30am
Design stand-up
meeting. Sit in on the
design team’s stand-up
This is what a typical day meeting and take notes.
for Miles looks like… 9:45am
7:30am Begin testing the (latest)
k.
Wake up and get ready for wor game we’re working on. Log
any
issues to project-tracking soft
8am ware
Jira. If anything insightful cam
Catch public e out of
the morning meetings, I mig
transport to the ht have
something specific I want to
office in the city. test.
1pm 2pm
8:45am Investigate any issues that a
developer
Lunch time. We normally wal
Arrive in the office k down
saw. Gather more information
and
to a Japanese place near the
and head up to the office
log it to Jira .
and get sushi. Other times, we
roof to make a coffee do
and have a bite to eat.
a team lunch. 3pm
1:30pm Quick tea break.
9am
Begin the workday at my des
k. Check to see if there is a new
build and 3:10pm
any
Check emails and our wor k cha t re-download it. Review issues
marked Run a test plan to check for
Log any issues
(Mattermost) mes sag es. Inst all by devs as completed. This is
to check unexpected behaviour.
k as “pa ss” or
the latest build of the game
for that fixes that happened hav
e worked. found to Jira and mar
r. “fail” on spreads hee t.
testing late
9:15am 6:15pm
er.
QA stand-up meeting. Ver y brie
f Arrive home. Make and eat dinn
SUPPLIED / SHUTTERSTOCK
catch-up on what we did yes
terd ay, I hope to one Chat to my par tner abo ut our day s.
what we will be doing today and day open my own 8pm
us.
whether anything is blocking games studio.” Play some video games or do
a little
sleep
portfolio work before going to
around 10pm.
Bachelor of Games and Interactive Environments
(Games Design / 3D Animation and Marketing), QUT QA Tester, Gameloft
7 GAME DESIGNER AND DEVELOPER
• x + • • + x • • x + • • x
Get the job!
Pay grade?
You ca n ex pect to
kinda ca sh when em pocket th is
ployment ca lls…
Product designer: $5
2K–$108K
Industr ial designer:
$48K–$87K
Ready to kickstart your future career as Quality assurance (Q
A) tester: $49K–$99
User experience (U K
a game designer and developer? Begin here… X) designer: $58K–$
109K
Animator: $44K–$80
K
Developer: $49K–$87
K
Marketer: $56K–$12
1K*
*Sou rce: salaries acc
ord ing
to payscale.com
Find your niche
s — er,
There are so many character
rld of
we mean roles — in the wo
gaming! Find your match !
can develop
Designer: You’re creative and
t will translate to a digital
visual ideas tha
environmen t.
to take visual
Animator: You have the skills
Study corner into moving parts
cues and turn still images
Tertiary education is your key to the gamin on a screen.
g and creative computer sciences faculties.
was once a fun thing to do on weekends, caree Where gaming ear for motion.
r options are now only as limited as your imagi Sound designer: You have an
nation. g, the sound
QUT offers cool courses like eSports and doub
le degrees with everything from business to You create the game theme son
IT and marketing. Hit up these courses on science, “fol ey” — think
Open Day to find your fit! bites/character voices and the
g, bac kgr ound
footsteps, crashes, cheerin
Bachelor of Games and Interactive Diploma in eSports — kickstart your long-term noise — in-game.
Environments - major in animation, game design gaming studies or flex your skills and specialise in puter and can
Programmer: You speak com
and software tech esports with this epic diploma to put the
write code to enable the tech
the right
Bachelor of Business / Bachelor of Games and Bachelor of Design (Interaction Design) creative aspects of a game in
Interactive Environments - hone your sales skills — awesome on its own or combine with sequence.
once you’re done designing your game engineering for a more product-development- the game from
Developer: Your job is to take
specific pathway piec es of code to a playable/
Bachelor of Creative Industries - combine with concept and
IT or data science degrees for all-round know-how interactive masterpiece.
tap into the
Marketer: You know how to
generate interest to make
buyer’s thinking and
i.e. gam e! — financially viable.
your product —
Take it in(tern) Sell. Sell. Sell.
way to amp up your
Internships are an excellent
a taste for the
skills while still at uni and get
s IRL . Hit a Google search on these
career vibe
nity.
companies to score an opportu
Wargaming Sydney
TikTok
Ubisoft
Atlassian
Gameloft
SHUTTERSTOCK
Canva
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