GDP2 - Knowledge Keeper #5: Game Development Team Structure

In one lecture, we learned about the structure of a game development team, and how each department works with each other in order to make a successful and fun game.

Before talking about the team structure, we discussed about the fun in game and the importance of accessibility for user testing.


Fun
Players can have fun in many ways from the same game. It can be ambiguous to know what is fun to players, however, we can identify the things that make it not fun to avoid fun killers. Basically, we do not want to have too repetitive, insurmountable, or predictable design because it will bore or discourage the players.


Accessibility
Having people to test the game can ensure its quality. We should always consider the right people for accessibility. This includes people from your target market, and who have never played the game before. Their opinions are always right because they are all based on intuitive reaction whereas we, the developers, are often too numb from developing to notice the details that could influence players' game experience. Overall, one-one testing is the most effective.


Game Development Team Structures

The development team can be divided into 2 parts, internal and external. The internal team is the developers where they focus on the game creation; the external team is the publishers where they focus on marketing the audiences and ensure they can deliver what the audiences want. The leaders of both teams work closely together in order to bring good games to the table.

Development Team
Producer
The leader of the developer's team who communicates with the publisher's team and acts as a manager to ensure the development team gets the work done.

Game Designer
To brainstorm and create high concept that can help the development team to make the game.

Programmer
To handle all the technical aspects of the game ranging from the game engine to software prototype.

Visual Artist
To create all visual aspects of the game ranging from characters design to animation and cut scene.

QA Engineers
To test and solve all issues happen in the game to make sure it works properly.

Specialized Media
This includes any other people that can contribute to the game with their skills such as writers, musicians, motion capture operators, actors, and so on.

Level Designer
To design level concept and have skills with level editors. One thing I learned about level designers is that they do not just design the level and tell other people to do what they say. In fact. they have to have certain amount of knowledge in all aspects to know what is capable to implement into the game and what is not.


Publisher Team
Producer
The leader of the publisher's team who communicates with the developer's team and coordinates with its team departments to handle tasks such as scheduling and forecasting.

Marketing Team
To identify the group of people who are interested in buying the game and maintain strong connection to them.

Executives
The people who pay everyone else to make the game.

QA Engineers
To ensure the game exceeds minimum requirements and players' expectation.

User Researchers/Usability Specialist
To collect and analyze data from the research on targeted market.


The team size may vary and some people might have multiple job titles. Nevertheless, many studios follow this structure to develop their games and release them to public.