All gamers welcome Riot Games explains range of roles in video game design
All gamers welcome Riot Games explains range of roles in video game design
All gamers welcome Riot Games explains range of roles in video game design
By Matt Goisman
February 26, 2024
Summary
"A game development studio has different roles, skills and types of people to make the types of games that we make, operate the business, distribute the games around the world, market and publish the games, translate them, and run eSports tournaments and events," said Mark Yetter, who earned an A.B. in computer science at SEAS in 2008 and is now game design director at Riot.
As game design director, Yetter has designed many of the characters for the studio's signature gaming franchise, "League of Legends," which has more than 180 million active players and is one of the most popular competitive eSports games worldwide.
"You need to define the mechanics, define the content, set goals and iterate the actual game experience to hit those goals. You're often asking questions about what the player does, what the world is, and what the challenges are." Riot's technology infrastructure has changed dramatically since Yetter was first hired in 2013, evolving from games based on servers to games that are hosted on cloud-based Amazon Web Services.
Game design often produces the most obvious elements of a game, such as its characters, story or mechanics, but the best video game in the world still needs a system in place to support it.
Her advice to students interested in applying to gaming companies: for software engineers, focus on your technical portfolio; for designers, focus on the overall user experience of games in your portfolio.
Ter recommended studying computer science, visual arts or production-style project management, creating an independent game in your spare time, or even designing a board game.
"My advice is to develop whatever your skills are outside of game design, because they're helpful to pair with it later, and then moonlight the game design," Yetter said.
Reference
Goisman, M. (2024, February 26). All gamers welcome. Seas.harvard.edu. https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2024/02/all-gamers-welcome