Video Game Deisgner

Game Designers and programmers often do different things depending on the size of the develpment team. In a "large" development team, such as EA, you would either be a designer or a software developer(programmer). From my experience in industry, software developers make between $60-120K depending on your level of expertise and your title. These guys do graphics, AI, and general programming that make the games run.

Designers usually work at a higher level of abstraction in the workflow and either delegate tasks to programmers, or indirectly tell the programmers how the game needs to function.

of course there are many other kinds of jobs in the games industry, such as sound and graphics design.

If you want to do the programming part, you will likely need a BS in Computer Engineering or Computer Science with some industry experience programming. Most game developers like their programmers to have at least 3+ years of development experience. Your mileage may vary though. I'm sure there are quite a few developers witout degrees.

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