Task 2 - Job Roles

Creative Development

• Game Designer

The Game Designer has a big say in how the game turns out, he helps come up with the characters, settings and game play, their duties are to create a game in a limitless environment where anything is possible. The avergae game designer in the UK (with some experience)  can earn upto £19,000 with that rising to about £35,000.

Markus Persson is a game designer who is most recognizable as notch, created the company Mojang and helped develop Minecraft which was later sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion.

• Level Editor

Also known as level designer, this person is responsible for the oversll architecture for the game, he creates the layout for the game, the atmosphere of the game is usually set out by the level editor who designs the game with help from the artists.

The level designer for 'Super Mario Galaxy' was a collection of 5 people: Futoshi Shirai, Daisuke tsujimura, Haruka kakinuma, Ryutaro kanno and Toshihiro Kawabata who helped to develop a very good game.

• Lead Artist

Sometimes known as the Art Director, this role is responsible for the entire look of the game, without this person the game would have no visuals, while working with the producer, the artists create the environment of which the game is set, the characters, etc. He also has to ensure that the team is in control of the budget and is on time for the deadline.
The average salary for a lead artist for a game £35,000 with that rising to about £60,000 with experience.
The lead artist for 'The Last of Us' was Nate Wells who was incharge of developed a game with amazing visuals

• Technical Artist

The technical artists job is to act as a link between the artist and the programmer, their main criteria is to ensure a game can be incorporated into a game, the role is relatively new to the games industry but is becoming very important as PC and console hardware becomes tougher.

The technical artist can earn up to the same amount as the lead artist.
The art technical director for 'Assassins creed 1' was Danny Oros who's job was to implement the art on the PC.

• Artist 

The artists work with the Lead Artist to create the visuals for the game from the scenery and objects to characters and clothing, they start by creating concept art for the game and sometimes implement this into a 3D model.
The main artists involved with The Last of Us were Erick Pangilinan and Nate Wells who created a game with amazing visuals, the concept art for 'The Last of Us' was astounding.

• Animator

The animators main focus is to bring life to the characters and the portrayal of movement within the game. They work alongside the art team to provide a great experience for the players. Because it can be a complex combination of movements, the animators make extensive libraries so that they can reuse the animations for each character.
The leads in charge for 'Call of Duty - Modern Warfare' were Mark Grigsbury and Paul Messerly and they helped to developed a very good game.

• Audio Engineer

The Audio Engineer is responsible for every sound in the game, they create the soundtrack, sound effects and the games action such as, a gun firing or an explosion going off, things like character voices, sounds of a crowd or a car driving past are all the responsibility of the sound engineers.

The Audio Engineer can earn around £30,000 - £50,000 depending on how much experience they had

(for a AAA game that is).
The 'Call of Duty - Black ops' senior audio engineer was Stephen McCaul and with his team they developed all the sound for a very good game.

Technical Development

• Game Programmer

The Game Programmer is at the main of the game, he runs the code that runs the games dynamics. Once they tested the code they fix the bugs that it has, code is added on all platforms ( PC, Xbox, PlayStation, etc.). As the code gets more complex the size of the group of programmers increases, the sometimes may work on specific jobs like the physics of the game. Beginners can earn around £19,000 to £25,000.
The team of six programmers for 'Gears of War' were Laurent Delayen, Jeff Farris, Rob Mclaughlin, Amit Mahajan, Stephen Superville and Martin Sweitzer, who all conributed to coding the game and fixed all the bugs.

• Lead Game Programmer

The lead Programmer is the head of the other Programmers, he makes sure that everything within the team is running smoothly, whilst also doing the duties to better the development of the game, if a member of the team doesn't spot a bug he can step in and point it out.
For being a team leader, this role can earn you up to £70,000 +.
The lead programmer for Gears of War was Ray Davis, who with his team made an outstanding game.

Project Implementation 

• Project Manager/Producer

The Project Manager is in charge of the well being and successful delivery of the game, they control how well the game comes out and whether it is on time and on budget. They function in between the team and act as a link between everyone. They have a basic understanding everyone's role. Before the production starts for the game, the project manager has to find the specifications and the targets that have to be met by a certain date.

This job has an average pay of £62,000 because they are responsible for the financial status of the game and how well it works i the end.

• Assistant Producer

The Assistant/junior Producer works with the team to the delivery of the game is on time and that the game is at its highest quality possible. The Assistant producer will work between the marketing team and the production team and help them to the best of their abilities, the roles can vary in the particular product they're developing. Some of the main tasks include, task and milestone planning and tracking.

• External Producer

The External Producer is responsible for the delivery of the game whilst working externally from the development team. He works close to the internal producer who is part of the development of the game. This role acts like a consultant who advises the game developer without having to deal with the day-to-day problems. He is the go between for the developers and the producers.

• Creative Director

This role is key during the development process of the game, he oversees any high-level decisions that are being made about the game that could affect how the game looks or is played. Not all companies employ Creative directors and instead just stick to have lead programmers or lead artists.

The Creative Director can earn anywhere between £28,000 and £83,000.

Quality Assurance 

• QA Tester

Quality assurance testers play a vital role, they test, debug the product and suggest ways for the game to become better. Acting as the games first audience, they find all the bugs and little glithces in the game before it is then shipped out. The are responsible for assuring the quality of the game. They work in teams and usually play together. This is a tough task and often take up a lot of work hours.

The QA tester has an average pay of £35,500 a year but this can change depending on how often you test games.
The QA tester for 'Assassins Creed 1' was Adrian Simpetru who tested the game for bugs and explained how the game could be improved in the long run.

Business Development

• Public Relations Manager

The Public Relation manager deals with helping clients and tries to persuade people to buy the product that is being sold. These people come up with the stratergies to sell and promote the upcoming game, they have different wayas of doing this, things like: showing off thier game at events like E3 and gamescon, also TV advertisiments if their budget will allow it. This is a tough task and often take up a lot of work hours.

• Product Manager

The product manager is there to help create marketing campaigns to help push the amount of sales the game gets. They typical work for game publishers like Sony or independent marketing companies who then work for the publishers. The job has some key features to it like publicity, sales and outside contractors that are involved in making a complete campaign. This job can earn you about £56,200 a year depending of your experience. 

• Marketing Executive

Marketing Executives have a fast paced work environment, they have the strenuious task of adevertising, planning, ditribution of the product, etc. they often help plan events that promote the game. Marketing executives are found in both private and public sectors that help aq variety of things form finance to retail. The responsibilities of this job depend on how big the company is, the bigger the company tghen the bigger the task at hand. The salary for this job can vary from £17,000 - £19,000 for beginners, with that rising to an average pay of £45,000 a year.

• Marketing Manager 

A marketing manager, who like the marketing executive, helps out in the popularity of the product and how well the game is ditribnuted to retailer and players. Their main task is to make the game look as good as possible before it being shipped off, they do this in forms of posters, TV advertisments, etc.
 They have a starting salary of about £25,000 with this elvating to about £50,000 with the needed experience in this field.

Sources:

http://study.com/articles/How_to_Become_a_Video_Game_Designer_Education_and_Career_Roadmap.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/334_level_editor
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/332_lead_artist_game
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/339_technical_artist_games
http://www.indeed.co.uk/Technical-Artist-jobs
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/330_games_artist
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/325_animator_games
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/327_audio_engineer
http://www.indeed.co.uk/Game-Audio-job
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/336_game_programmer
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/337_project_manager_producer_games
http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/salary-checker/average-project-manager-salary
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/329_external_producer
http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Creative_Director/Salary
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/338_qa_tester
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/335_product_manager
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/marketing-executive
https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/Marketingmanager.aspx
http://www.totaljobs.com/careers-advice/job-profile/marketing-advertising-pr-jobs/pr-job-description