Video games are modern phenomena that have existed and persisted over the last 40 years. In a typical game development firm you have a lead designer who is in contact with the publishers and leads the team through the journey of designing and developing a game. The lead designer manages the game designers, the art lead, tech lead and audio designers. For larger studios there may be other positions such as writers and voice-actors.

what does a game designer do? 
A video game starts as an idea and moves on to become a concept. After this a proposal is written up and drafted by a team of designers who deal with the most pressing issues (age of the target audience, deadlines, budgets, number of staff, requirements, etc). The designers come up with ideas and solutions to many problems they may encounter in the process of game development. These solutions are then enacted by the technical members of the team like the audio designers, artists and programmers. Therefore, in a sense, the game designers can be seen as managers or even directors.  

Game designers have many responsibilities beyond designing the characters, plot, maps and other aspects of the game; in fact, concepts and ideas are a very small portion of the work a game designer does. These other responsibilities include meeting deadlines, play-testing the game for bugs and difficulty and communicating with different leads. If you’re interested in pursuing a career in game design, you’ll need some very specific skills including knowledge of programming languages, coding, problem solving and critical thinking, sketching and drawing skills, communication skills and knowledge of video and audio equipment.

other positions in a studio
audio designer - These guys work with the sound engineering in video games, as well as how to appropriately add sound to the game. They are often in charge of developing sound effects and linking them to actions that the programmers write out.

programmer - Programmers are the backbone of many game studios; they provide the framework the game is built on, the code that runs the game and the interactions between all the different objects, the animations of models and sprites, the control interface that the user would need to interact with the game world and much more.

artists - The artists are in charge of designing sprites, textures for models and terrain, concept art, cover art, environments and much more. In general they design any graphics-related content that would be required in the game development process.

how to become a video game designer
The video game industry is extremely fast moving and competitive. With the recent advent of indie gaming there are more possibilities available but they are often low paying with extremely high workloads. This is not to say that the majority of the industry doesn’t suffer from both of these problems. To become a video game designer you could choose to get a college degree in video game design, computer science or a similar related field. Most designers start off as interns in large companies as QA testers and work their way up. Many designers also start off as artists, web designers or programmers who want more say in what happens in the game. 

education - There are many colleges and universities that offer programs specifically in game design; in Southern Ontario this includes Sheridan, Algonquin, George Brown, Seneca and Carlton, Brock and Laurier. Beyond this, you can also find diplomas degrees in information technology, animation and digital design, which are all wider in scope allowing you to have more prospects in your future.

If you plan on becoming a video game designer, then you should develop - and keep developing - a portfolio to show companies. This portfolio should include any design work or games that you have created. Examples include mods to existing games using development tools such as the creation kit in Skyrim. You can also use tools like Unity 3D or Gamemaker to develop and publish games independently. Gamedev.net is a popular resource that offers free tutorials, paid work and hobbyist projects for future and current game developers and designers. To really shoehorn your way into the industry you will need to take initiative and complete your own projects.

An alternative to getting a degree or diploma in game development is to get a bachelor's degree in programming and then find work in the game industry, or you can also get a degree in art/design and also try to find a position in a studio. These are the more common ways to get into game development since programs that are purely meant for game design are relatively new.

work environment
There are many misconceptions of the gaming industry; many people wish to pursue a career in the gaming industry due to stereotypes of relaxed atmospheres, a lack of hierarchies and casual or ’fun’ work (doing what you enjoy) - but this is fairly distant from the truth. Large companies such as EA, Ubisoft, Valve and Paradox have very different and unique work environments which can range from what was described above to working 70 hours a week with very heavy workloads.

According to the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the average game designer is 31 years old with a salary of $51,375—this is an increase of of $1,950 from the year before. The salary for a game designer can vary heavily within the industry. For example, at Electronic Arts a designer can expect a salary of $71,500, while those employed at Gameloft can expect $48,667.

While the industry is very competitive, it also has room for advancement. In choosing a career in game design, you will be required to work in audio/fx design, graphics/art or programming for a long time before becoming a full-fledged game designer, and you will still have to work with these areas afterwards - so make sure that you have a large and vested interest in becoming a game designer!

A good friend of mine once spent a great deal of time sewing an exquisite hand-crafted doll as a gift for her daughter. Imagine my friend's disappointment when her daughter quickly dismissed the one-of-a-kind doll to open the next gift and later formed no particular attachment to it. And why should she? She had received innumerable dolls in her short lifetime—from Bratz to a Build-a-Bear—and with way too many dolls and other toys to choose from, she did not understand why her mom wanted her to choose the 'right' doll... and in fact, she chose to play with none of her dolls!

The overwhelming number of choices in education today remind me of that doll. It's hard for any of those educational options to stand out as 'right' and hard for students and their parents to make a decision and not just move on to the next option, agonizing all along the way. This is what Canadian author Douglas Coupland dubbed “option paralysis” in his 1991 debut novel Generation X: Tales from an Accelerated Culture. Option paralysis is defined as “the tendency, when given unlimited choices, to make none.” (To see a fan's listing of all the expressions Coupland coined in this book, click here.)

The plethora of educational options no longer begin after high school. More than ever before, it begins with picking the 'right' school—maybe a learning daycare, all-day kindergarten, French immersion program or private preschool—and it continues right through for fourteen years of what is very tough decision-making for many. Today, with the Pathways model in our Ontario public schools, parents and students can choose between different programs at high school, such as academic or applied, specialist high school majors or international baccalaureate... and on and on go the options.

After high school, look at the number of programs offered at Ontario Colleges:
“28 Colleges. 5000 Programs. One that's right for you.”
You read that right: One (1)... out of 5000 programs is right for you. Talk about trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack!

There are many research studies supporting the positive effect and motivation of personal choice... the more choice the better, right? No! There is a limit! “Choice overload” actually leads to a decrease in motivation to choose and less satisfaction with the final choice. Lab and field experiments with choice have actually revealed a limited number of choices—for example choosing between limited gourmet chocolates instead of many resulted in more purchases, and writing an optional essay from a limited array of topics led to better essays. To boot, greater satisfaction was reported with their choices with the limited selection! (Click here if you want to see more of that oft-cited study.)

So let's summarize. Choice overload results in either choosing none, or less satisfaction and more stress. And you wonder why so many kids today do not know what they want to do?! Many parents will remember their experience as very different from that of their children because there simply were less options. Look at choosing a phone today. You have several platforms, many styles, many plans... choosing a phone used to be dial or push-button, basic black or a colour! Educational decisions were for the most part made by your parents and your school... until you entered high school and persuaded your parents to let you drop gym or take accounting.

So what is the solution to combat choice overload? I remember the suggestion I read in 2002 in Barbara Colloraso's parenting book Kids Are Worth It where she agreed with the idea that too much choice is stressful. She advised parents to keep choices simple. “Do you want to wear your blue pajamas or your red pajamas?” (And if I remember correctly, one of her kids chose the blue top and the red bottoms!)

When you apply this pajama approach to educational options, the question remains—how do you narrow your choices to red and blue? The answer is to learn how to filter what's relevant; in other words, to develop discernment, to judge well. I've seen some effective approaches used by students I've worked with to help them filter options for after high school. One approach is to pick a college or university they like—this could be based on size, reputation or knowing someone who is happy there. Another common approach is to pick a program based on interests and find out where it's offered; for example there are only two engineering programs in Canada offering mechatronics in first year--UW and SFU—whereas others have a general first year.

If a student is skipping decision-making by avoiding the question of their future or by taking a really narrow view, you can help broaden their vision using their personality and interests and talents before bringing their scope back in with more confidence. If another student has way too many choices and is having problems narrowing down, you can use their personality and interests, and their preferred environment, the audience they want to work with, etc. to begin to narrow down their career choices.

Developing discernment—the ability to judge well based on knowing yourself through objective input or simply gut feeling—is the key to reducing options, reducing stress and making the choices that are right for you!