Video Game Design Careers: 6 Benefits To Working In The Industry

By Andy West

Most want to earn a living doing something they know and love. Video game design is a career choice that appeals to many avid video game players. Designing video game graphics isn’t all fun and games, though. Video game design is a real career with real benefits, such as the six listed below.

1: Challenge your creativity. Most of those in the industry will agree that one of the best parts of video game design is the opportunity to challenge your creativity. Like any other form of art, designing video games keeps your creative mind active. Whether you are planning the game’s story line, graphics, characters, or all of the above.

2: Enjoy a casual work environment. When people are asked what they value in a job, a casual work environment often ranks quite high on the list. People don’t want to feel stressed by a conservative workplace while they are trying to work, especially if the job generates plenty of stress of its own accord.

Luckily, careers in video game design typically boast casual work environments. Video game people are relaxed and fun loving, rather than uptight and traditional. This is definitely a good thing, for both employee and boss: Not only do people tend to be more productive and successful when they can relax and let their creative juices flow, they also find that their entire quality of life improves.

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3: Get paid for your work. Don’t listen to all of those party-poopers who insist that you need to decide on a real job while you pursue video game design as your hobby. Video game designers actually get paid rather well. For instance, the average entry-level designer earns a yearly salary of about 43,000, while more experienced designers average about 70,000 a year. Also, full-time designers enjoy the usual benefits, such as health insurance, 401K, and other employer-sponsored programs.

Alternatively, video game design is one of those careers where self-employment or freelancing is possible. Freelance and contract designers typically command even higher per-hour rates than full-time employees; although this is in part to make up for the loss of benefits and the need to spend time marketing oneself, there is also a greater potential to work more hours and, therefore, earn an even higher salary than your full-time counterparts can boast.

4: Know your job is secure. Like any industry, video game design has its ups and downs. However, game designers have a certain amount of added job security, due to the immense and growing popularity of the video game industry. For example, consider Xbox’s smash hit Halo 3, which made more than 300 million in the first week after its release.

The video game industry has come a long way from its early days of the Atari and Nintendo. New and more powerful systems are constantly being developed, and increasingly more individual games are released every year. As a result the video game companies are always on the lookout for the bright new talents in the field.

5: Brag to your friends. We’d be lying if we didn’t admit that this is a major benefit of designing video games. There is nothing cooler than being able to point to game on the shelf at the store and say that you worked on that game. You’ll never worry again about the question regarding what you do for a living.

6: Getting paid to do what you love. No matter what the other benefits, almost nothing compares to the soul-deep pleasure of getting paid well to do what you love every day.

Working in video game design obviously has its benefits. The pay is good, the work environment and the likeability factor of the job even better. If you love to play video games and have a creative personality, then a career in video game design would be a great choice.

About the Author: Andy West is a writer for Virginia College. Learn more about Video Game Design at Virginia College. Higher search engine rankings by Vertical Measures.

Source: isnare.com

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