Venita Pereira is a Senior Game Designer for Full Fat with over 8 years’ experience in the games industry, and the author of Learning Unity 2D Game Development by Example. She has worked for several AAA developers and on a vast range of genres and platforms. Recently, she worked on the Agent Dash update in Unity and was the sole designer for SEGA on the highly successful Sonic Dash also using the Unity Engine. She tweets as @Atinev and you can also find her on LinkedIn and Facebook.
The big question – Unreal Engine versus Unity
As the most widely used engine in the professional games industry, learning Unity is a great investment for a future career in games. Whilst some may argue that the Unreal Engine is the preferred choice (and I for one was previously an avid user of the Unreal Engine), Unity has caught up in leaps and bounds and many now consider it ahead of the curve.
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Many more games, especially indie and mobile games, use Unity; Unreal is better suited to AAA console games. That said, Unity has caught up – and even exceeded Unreal – with the introduction of physically based shaders. It is far more accessible and allows easy deployment on multiple platforms, so developers no longer need to work more to port their game.
The most essential skills for the modern game developer
Aside from technical knowledge, the essential skill of a games designer include an extensive understanding of game design principles, level design, and knowing how to design core game mechanics and features within a game design document. Communication and collaboration are also key, especially when you’re part of a professional team.
Game developers need to understand revision control systems, data analytics, agile methodology and bug tracking.
Knowledge of scripting and an understanding of the technical aspects of game development as well as the limitations are very beneficial. Thus, learning to use Unity, Word, Excel, Wiki, SVN or perforce and Confluence (or other tools with similar functions) are vital.
The biggest challenges currently facing game developers
The biggest challenge facing game developers today is retaining players in our games. This is nothing new! However, it is more challenging today due to the vast amount of games available. This makes user testing and marketing skills very valuable if you want to get ahead in the industry.
The next big thing in game development
The next big thing in game development will be smartwatches!
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This is part of the continued moment for mobile gaming – the improvement in mobile hardware allows for more graphic and gameplay intensive games of console quality on mobile platforms. We’ll likely start to see a merging of consoles, PCs and mobiles.
In addition, the growth and spread of Internet of Things means that we’re going to see improvements in networking, servers, cloud computing, and reactive systems. Programming languages like Rust and Go that are responsive, scalable and reliable are also going to mean big things for programming in general – and game development is no exception.
My advice for anyone wanting to start out in game development or to take their career to the next level would be to keep learning and improving your skills!
What is Skill Up?
During June 2015, we surveyed over 20,000 IT professionals to find out what technologies they are currently using and planning to learn in the next 12 months. Download the report for free below to find out how you can Skill Up in games development.