It is very rare to create a successful game completely on your own. You may be a great game designer, but that is only part of the game creation process. Often it takes a group of people with an array of talents to build a well rounded game.
The exact number of people on a team will vary from game to game. Also depending on the size of the game being built, some roles may be filled by the same person. For example, on a smaller team, the roles of Tester and Community Advocate may be filled by the same person. On a larger team you may have multiple testers and multiple people representing the community.
The purpose for our discussion here today is not to find the exact balance of roles on a team - but rather - explore different roles available. Not every role will be fully represented here.
It should also be noted that companies have differences in the roles that they utilize. A Producer at one company may be a Project Manager at another. For that reason, don’t over focus on the titles below, instead focus on the roles being portrayed.
Game Designer
The game designers challenge is to focus on what the user should be doing within the game from a high level. The game designer will evaluate a game user's session and overall progression to understand what the user should or should not be doing.
For example, if progression in the game is too easy, users will get bored and leave. By contrast, if the game is too hard, then users will get frustrated and stop playing. A game designer needs to understand how to balance a games challenge and progression levels to maintain a fun and exciting game.
Product Manager
The product manager is primarily responsible for the business of the game. Product managers identify needs within the game. This may include some of the following topics:
New user conversion (do new users stay after installation)
User engagement (do users interact with various features)
User drop off points (where/when in the game do users leave)
Monetization (does they game make enough money to support its development)
When product managers identify a gap or issue, they work with designers to connect a feature idea that can help fix the identified problem. Product managers are generally in charge of prioritizing items within the feature pipeline. Product managers also work with designers to create specification documents (spec docs). These spec docs are like blueprints for artists and developers to use to create a feature.
Software Engineer
The software engineer is primarily responsible for writing the code that makes the game work. The software engineer typically works very close with the product manager to code features according to established feature design documents.
Software engineers are also responsible for the health of the code once released to the public. They spend a great deal of their time dealing with unforeseen issues (bugs) within their code once it is exposed to millions of users.
Artists
The artists are responsible for creating the 2d, 3d or video assets needed within a game. Artists work very closely with the product managers and designers to bring to life the ideas that they have described within their feature planning documents. Artists generally hand their work off to the engineers for implementation once the artwork is completed
Producer
The producer is often responsible for generating content that the application needs. For example, if your game has a level progression concept to it, then the producer may be responsible for creating all of the various names that are assigned to each level. A producer may also be responsible for developing character background stories or deciding what type of content to place within certain designed features.
Specialists
Within each of the above areas, there are several opportunities for more defined specialists. Some companies may utilize these specialists as designated resources, while other companies will have a single person wearing multiple hats. Designers / Artists and Engineers are the most common example of generalize roles that may utilize specialists.
UI Designers: The UI designers are concerned mostly about user flows and progressions within the game. The UI designers will evaluate an idea from a product manager / designer and provide guidance on how to set a feature up so that it makes sense from a users perspective. While the artists are working on bringing that design to life the UI designer will work very closely with the artists to ensure the work will be appealing and easy to use to users.
Engineering Architects: As games grow in size, the complexity of the systems and code grow. Engineering Architects are responsible for working with the engineers and the designers to ensure that proposed designs do not conflict with each other within the code. For example, if you are building a Leaderboard mechanic and a Collection mechanic, the Architect will want to ensure that there are no unintended interactions between the two systems (other than those specified).
Quality Assurance Agent
The quality assurance agent is the individual that tests the game 1,000 times over and over, to find as many issues as they can with it. They generally report their finds in tickets or reports and give them to artists, producers or developers to fix as appropriate.
Quality assurance agents need to pretend that they are the end user and act like they would act. This means that even if the application designed a feature to be used in a certain way, the quality assurance agent should use it how an actual user would and then report their findings and issues.
Customer Service Agent
The customer service agent is responsible for monitoring, collecting and handling user feedback. It is common for a bug or flaw to slip past developers and quality assurance agents. users then need a way to reach out to customer service agents to resolve their issues. Customer service agents interacts with these users, resolving the problem if they can and then fosters good will for the future with this user.
Community Manager
The community manager is often in charge of community facing aspects of the application. For example, the community manager might manage a dedicated Facebook page representing the application. The community manager might make regular content posts to this page to share announcements, application updates and more. The community manager can also collect user feedback through these channels for issues that are being experienced and may even offer help and assistance as appropriate for users to get around the problems.
Statistician
The statistician spends time analyzing the player data to identify trends, reports, issues and more. For example, the statistician might analyze user level progression to see at what level user play starts to fall off. The statistician can then provide this data to the Product Manager who can design changes to game play around the levels where drop off is experienced. The statistician often has a very challenging job of not only how to collect an enormous amount of data but also what to do with the data once collected.
Release Manager
The release manager is responsible for getting new releases out to the public. This requires a lot of work with the individual App stores as well as with the internal team members. For example, a version of the release needs to be tested by the quality assurance agents in an isolated fashion. Pending the results of those tests, the release manager may need developers or artists to fix issues and make a new release candidate. Once the version being tested is given the ok from the quality assurance agents the release manager can work with the app stores to have the release candidate reviewed and published.
Project Manager
The project manager in a way is the glue between all of the various internal teams. A lot of moving parts occur in an active game studio. From art to design to developing to testing, etc. The project manager is responsible for watching and maintaining all of the various schedules and pipelines. The project manager identifies when a particular blocker is preventing a team member from accomplishing their goals. The project manager works to help resolve the blocker so that the team can stay on track.
Product Manager
Primarily responsible for the business of the game identifying needs to fix to keep the business healthy.
Game Designer
Focuses on what the user should be doing within the game from a high level.
Software Engineer
Writes the code that make the game and feature ideas work.
