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What does a game programmer do?

A game programmer is a software engineer who specializes in making video games. There are many tools, platforms, and roles involved in creating a video game. Game programmers tend to work on code at a low level, developing game engines and creating tools that other team members, such as graphic artists and level designers, can use as part of their role in making a game.

There is a great variety in the types of teams and projects that game programmers may work as part of. Some games are made by a tiny handful of developers and are typically released for cheaper platforms, such as Android or iOS. Other game developers may work as part of a team of hundreds on AAA games released for platforms such as the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X. Within these platforms a plethora of game engines and programming languages are used, so game programmers will often choose to specialize in one or a small handful of game engines and programming languages.

What skills do I need to become a game programmer?

Video games are among some of the most challenging types of applications to create. This is because they can have very computationally heavy requirements that must be run at sub second latency. For example, many modern games are expected to run at 60 fps (frames per second). This means games programmers must be able to write code that is efficient enough for the game to draw 60 frames within a second while keeping up with all the other demands placed on it, such as physics and projectile calculations, responding to player inputs, and optionally interacting with other players in an online world.

Game programmers must have a solid understanding of mathematics as it relates to physics. A good grasp of concepts such as trigonometry, geometry, vectors, and translations is a requirement for game programmers, who will be expected to calculate and manipulate interactions for both 2D and 3D objects. They must be able to write code for how different physical objects interact with each other within a game world while taking into account the physical properties of those objects.

Due to these common requirements, video game development blends fundamental programming principles with mathematics and physics. As such, many game programmers often have at least a bachelor’s degree in computer science. However, there are many self-taught game programmers, and many clients are just as (if not more) interested in a finished interactive portfolio piece as in a computer science degree.

What tools do I need to become a game programmer?

Although game programmers are required to write a lot of code to create a video game, they rarely create everything from scratch. Instead, game programmers often use a game engine to help create the game. A game engine can be thought of as a toolkit with many features a game programmer will need—things like calculating the correct lighting, drawing shadows, responding to player input, and handling object collision. There are many game engines, but the most popular include Unreal, Unity, Amazon Lumberyard, and Godot.

Video games can be written in many programming languages, but due to the need for very fast processing power, a few languages tend to be more popular for games. C++ is the most widely used programming language for video games and is used with the Unreal engine, though C# is a popular alternative thanks to its compatibility with the Unity engine.

What are the core game programmer job responsibilities?

Due to the scale and complexity of modern video games, the core responsibilities of a game programmer will vary wildly depending on the type of game being made and the size of the team.

For very large teams, a game programmer will often work on a smal, dedicated area of the game. This may involve anything from developing the physics system or the lighting system to simply fixing known issues in other developers’ code.

For small teams, a game programmer may be expected to fulfill many other responsibilities themselves. Virtually every aspect of a game requires attention from a game programmer—not just the obvious pieces such as making a character move and interact with the world, but also making the menus work, ensuring sound effects and background music play properly, integrating third-party antipiracy tools and downloadable content from online storefronts, responding to feedback from testers and publishers, and much more.

A large part of a game programmer’s job responsibilities will be writing code and working with testers to fix code. Video games are very large and complex projects, so bugs are very common. Triggering these bugs and tracking down the root cause is often difficult in a project with as many moving parts as a video game, so often game programmers will work with testers to find the source of an issue, but it is the game programmer’s responsibility to fix it.