Unit 12: Understanding the Interactive Media Industry

Unit 12: Understanding the Interactive Media Industry

Assignment 12.1a:  Job Roles

Hand-in Date:  November 19 2012

Word Count: 1000+ words

Write a report on the following job roles of a typical interactive company

Use research to explain what each role entails, and how the job roles relate to each other.

Also use your own experience of producing a product to inform your answers.

Task List: explain how the company should organise team members to:

·         Games designers

·         Programmers

·         Scripters

·         Artists

·         Sound designers

·         QA / Testing

·         Producers / Project Managers

·         Marketing

Grading Criteria
Pass	Merit	Distinction
P1 describe organisational structures and job roles in the interactive media industry with some appropriate use of subject terminology	M1 explain organisational structures and job roles in the interactive media industry with reference to detailed illustrative examples and with generally correct use of subject terminology	D1 comprehensively explain organisational structures and job roles in the interactive media industry with reference to elucidated examples and consistently using subject terminology correctly

Every typical interactive company have a basic set of job roles that are a necessity when being successful in the industry, the components that compose the team very important and so is the co-operation between each of the individual elements of the team. Each of the roles link in with at least one of the other part of the team, making interaction with other team members a key skill needed when going into the industry. These job roles consist of very different jobs within a company all as important as each other as without one of these products could not run.

Firstly there are game designers, who are in charge of the creating of the storyline/rules of a game during the pre-production stage. They require good writing and artistic skills with typically a good technical competence; there are different roles among game designers, such as head designers, level designers and writers all with different creative roles and responsibilities. Designers normally come across programmers, artists and the scripters on a day to day basis and work directly under the producers. After they have created the basic idea of the game they have to work with the more visual side of the creation and help them see the idea from their point of view, this means their communication skills must be above par.

Secondly there are programmers; these are the members of an interactive team that actually write the software. To be programmers you have to have a very good understand of primary computer language or code. Their job is to write the coding, maintain its upkeep by fixing any bugs or flaws and test their coding. Programmers often connect with all members of an interactive team especially the; designers, testers, sound designers and artists. We had a go at writing code for a basic game and re skinned it to create our own basic game, this was no easy task and took us several attempts to perfect our basic programming skills.

Next there are the scripters; whose job is to create the initial story board and outline of a games story line. They create the basic elements which a programmer would then build upon to create the end product. They are the ones who lay down the ground work and foundations which pave way for the designer’s ideas to be implemented. Scripters are normally found in between the designers and the programmers and in direct contact with the artists.

Following the scripters you have the artists, as you would imagine they are in control of the media within the game, they are in first hand contract with all other members of an interactive team due to their wide involvement in all aspects of any game. They are employed to create and edit graphics which become characters, background and other interactive elements. They provide the images in which designers and scripters work with, under the supervision of the project managers with input from the marketing team whose research and targets will have a huge influence on what the artists create and promote.

Next you have the sound designers, they are a very important element of the interactive team when designing anything yet they are often the first to be overlooked in terms of credit. They design and script all sound media involved in a project, editing and fitting it to a strict design brief. They are under constant scrutiny from project managers and have to fit in their work with the artists initial creations of characters and environments. If they did not do this it would be off key and would not be successful.

QA and Testers are often seen as the bottom of the pile in terms of importance by other members but they have the very important job of finding out how popular game is after being released whilst testers find faults in the game before it is released. They also offer new ideas and improvements when a fault is found allowing them to meet most members of a team, which is important as an entry level into the industry. To be successful in this part of the team testers have to have good communications skills, great attention to detail and other traits that allows them to pay attention for a long period of time.

The people in charge of these teams are known as the producers or Project managers, they have the job of organising the team and delighting what a games overall aim is to do. They take in all information from the marketing and research team and decide what they are going to create via vacancies in the industry. The pressure involved in their job ensures they work with all parts of the team to ensure success in terms of popularity, remaining in budget and overall profits from a completed project.

The marketing team are the ones who provide the spark for the game; their initial research inspires the idea for any game. They have the job of researching spaces in the industry which allows companies that produces games to exploit. Their primary role also includes taking care of public relations and PR, they are in charge of getting the game out there in the public’s eye and are generally the reason a game hits it off or flops. If a company has a poor marketing team they will not know what to create, furthermore the public will not know that they have created anything. They are often in contact with most elements of the team also, especially the product managers, games designers and the artists.

These are the elements in a team involved in producing and creating games, without each of these team members a company will not function and be successful. Complete cooperation provides functionality in this industry and is imperative in the popularity of a game in the modern industry. Although each role entails different tasks and jobs the communication between departments equally as significant making the ability to work as part of a team and communication huge skills when getting into this industry.

Firstly when developing software you need to take in to count the customers’ needs and what is good at the time, this is the initial analyzing of the market. these ideas are then approved by a bigger external company to finalize the rights to a product for example: a company like coca cola put out a request for a design team to design their newest coca cola game, the design team are chosen and given the rights to the game, they analyse the market and come up with a rough mock-up of the game, if this is approved the game goes into the production stage if it isn’t approved it will go back to the drawing board to be worked on. The client always wants perfection as it is their money going into the project and their company’s reputation on the line.

A software development company would then go onto mocking a basic piece to show to the client, this is then approved by several external factors and it is then going into the creative stage. The initial mock up is then taken to a new level and completely re-created. After weeks of creating and then perfecting it is sent to testers who spend hours and hours rifting through all elements of a game trying to find faults before it is released to the public eye. This is to ensure they have nothing to complain and reasons to pick holes in a piece of software.

The piece of software is then released to the public which is the most risky part, if it had been released too early it could be catastrophic for the creators and their stead with the client. Being very specific whilst in the process of the software development is vital for development teams as they more often than not get paid more if their piece is successful and is fully functional.