Job roles within an indie company pt1
After looking into some companies I started to come across some job roles within the industry, so I decided to look more in depth at them to see if I can find a job role that I could fit into in an indie company.
When looking at 'ThatGamecompany' I came across two job titles whilst researching the founders. Here are their dictionary (internet) definitions:
Creative director
'The Creative Director is the key person during the game development process, overseeing any high level decisions that affect how the game plays, looks or sounds.' Giblin, T. (2013, para. 13) [1]
Lead designer (also known as a game designer)
'Game Designers devise what a game consists of and how it plays. They plan and define all the elements of a game: its setting; structure; rules; story flow; characters; the objects, props, vehicles, and devices available to the characters; interface design; and modes of play. Once the game is devised, the Game Designer communicates this to the rest of the development team who create the art assets and computer code that allow the game to be played.' Creative Skill Set (n.d., para. 3) [2]
Looking at these two roles I don't think either are suited to my skills so I decided to look on Linkedin and tried to find as many job roles as I could with in a company. Here are my results:
people that claim to work at Automaton UK [3]
Concept artist
Managing director
Character Artist
VP engineering
Animator
Sound designer
Software engineer X2
3D environment artist X2
people that claim to work at Small Impact games [4]
Director
Producer
Game Developer & Animator
Artist
Environment artist
Community Manager
people that claim to work at FreeJam [5]
3D Artist
Recruitment Manager
Audio Director
CEO X2
Game Designer
Lead Game Designer
Game Programmer X11
Producer X2
Artist
Art Director
Community Manager
VFX Artist
QA Technician X2
Lead QA Technician
2D/3D Artist
Communications manager
Developer
UI/UX Artist
people that claim to work at Hello Games [6]
Junior Programmer
Programmer
Senior Programmer X4
Audio Director, Sound Designer & Composer
Independent Consultant
Junior Artist
Artist
Adviser
Senior Producer
Customer Support
Facilities manager
CEO
After exhausting everything I could find on Linkedin I went on to look for indie game websites and found the following people:
"The team consists of 1 artist, 1 programmer and 1 musician." Iconic Games (2015) [7]
Matt Vile- Game Director, Writer, Character Artist/Animator, Level Designer
Stefan Langeder- Game Programmer
Daniele Zandara- Musician & Sound Effects
The Untold Legacy [8] [9]
"two very talented artists, two programmers and a composer/sound designer/writer" Antagonist (2016) [10]
Job roles at Antagonist [11]
Environment Artist/3D Artist
CEO/Sound/Writing
Gameplay Programmer
Concept/Character/3D Artist/Animation/Graphic Design
Graphics/Gameplay/UI Programmer
Job roles at Ghost Ship [15]
Game Director
Lead Artist
Lead Programmer
Programmer
CTO
CEO
Deep Rock Galactic [16] [17]
This is just the start of some basic research towards jobs in the industry; Look at pt 2 where I will get more in depth with what roles I'm interested in, what they entail and from the information that I have gathered how they split up their teams.
Bibliography:
[1] GIBLIN, T. (2013, para. 13) Job roles in the games industry. [Online] SlideShare. Available from: www.slideshare.net/Thomas_Giblin_16/job-roles-in-the-games-industry-21097601 [Accessed 09/11/16]
[2] CREATIVE SKILL SET (n.d., para. 3) Game Designer. [Online] Available from: http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/331_game_designer [Accessed 09/11/16]
[3] LINKEDIN (n.d.) Current Company: Automation UK. [LinkedIn] Available from: www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?f_CC=10221392&trk=rr_connectedness&rsid=3055984711478695099268&openFacets=N,G,CC&page_num=1&pt=people [Accessed 09/11/16]
[4] LINKEDIN (n.d.) Current Company: Small Impact Games. [LinkedIn] Available from: www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?f_CC=5236080&trk=rr_connectedness [Accessed 09/11/16]
[5] LINKEDIN (n.d.) Current Company: FreeJam. [LinkedIn] Available from: www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?f_CC=3081712&trk=rr_connectedness [Accessed 09/11/16]
[6] LINKEDIN (n.d.) Current Company: Hello Games. [LinkedIn] Available from: www.linkedin.com/vsearch/p?f_CC=3522511&trk=rr_connectedness [Accessed 09/11/16]
[7] ICONIC GAMES (2015) The Team. [Online] Available from: www.the-untold-legacy.com/ [Accessed 09/11/16]
[8] ICONIC GAMES (TBD) The Untold Legacy. [Online] Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Wii U. Oklahoma: Iconic Games
[9] ICONIC GAMES (2016) The Untold Legacy. [Online image] Available from: www.indiedb.com/games/the-untold-legacy [Accessed 09/11/16]
[10] ANTAGONIST (2016) About. [Online] Available from: http://antagonist.no/about/ [Accessed 09/11/16]
[11] ANTAGONIST (2016) About. [Online image] Available from: http://antagonist.no/about/ [Accessed 09/11/16]
[12] ANTAGONIST (2016) Through the Woods. [Online] Microsoft Windows. Moscow: 1C Company
[13] STONE, M. (2016) Through the Woods Releases – Contests and Prizes Accompany. [Online image] Available from: www.blotgaming.com/news/woods-releases-contests-prizes-accompany/ [Accessed 09/11/16]
[14] GHOST SHIP (2016) About Ghost Ship Games. [Online] Available from: www.ghostship.dk/about-ghost-ship-games.html [Accessed 09/11/16]
[15] GHOST SHIP (2016) About Ghost Ship Games. [Online image] Available from: www.ghostship.dk/about-ghost-ship-games.html [Accessed 09/11/16]
[16] GHOST SHIP (2017) Deep Rock Galactic. [Online] Microsoft Windows. Copenhagen: Ghost Ship
[17] GHOST SHIP (2016) Deep Rock Galactic. [Online image] Available from: www.ghostship.dk/ [Accessed 09/11/16]