Video Game Designer  What They Do

Just the Facts


Video Game Designers Career Video



Designs core features of video games. Specifies innovative game and role-play mechanics, story lines, and character biographies. Creates and maintains design documentation. Guides and collaborates with production staff to produce games as designed.

This career is part of the Information Technology cluster Information Support and Services pathway.


A person in this career:

  • Balances and adjusts gameplay experiences to ensure the critical and commercial success of the product.
  • Provides feedback to designers and other colleagues regarding game design features.
  • Creates core game features including storylines, role-play mechanics, and character biographies for a new video game or game franchise.
  • Devises missions, challenges, or puzzles to be encountered in game play.
  • Guides design discussions between development teams.
  • Develops and maintains design level documentation, including mechanics, guidelines, and mission outlines.
  • Creates and manages documentation, production schedules, prototyping goals, and communication plans in collaboration with production staff.
  • Conducts regular design reviews throughout the game development process.
  • Presents new game design concepts to management and technical colleagues, including artists, animators, and programmers.
  • Solicits, obtains, and integrates feedback from design and technical staff into original game design.

Insider Info

Dig into the details and check out what people in this job have to say about their work.

Working Conditions and Physical Demands

People who do this job report that:

  • You would sit most of the time. There's some walking and standing. You may have to lift and carry things like books, papers or tools weighing 10 lbs. or less.
  • Work in this occupation involves using your hands to hold, control, and feel objects more than one-third of the time
  • Work in this occupation requires being inside most of the time
  • Work in this occupation involves making repetitive motions more than one-third of the time
  • Work in this occupation involves sitting more than one-third of the time

Working in this career involves (physical activities):

  • Identifying color and seeing differences in color, including shades and brightness
  • Seeing clearly up close
  • Speaking clearly enough to be able to be understood by others
  • Identifying and understanding the speech of another person

Work Hours and Travel

  • Regular working hours and limited travel

Specialty and Similar Careers

Careers that are more detailed or close to this career:

  • Design Director -- Oversees the responsibilities of members of the creative team in developing video games.
  • Designer/Writer --
  • Game Designer --
  • Game Designer/Creative Director --
  • Lead Designer -- Takes nebulous concepts jotted down in brainstorming sessions and fashions them into clear, concise design documentation for game locations, characters, rules, story, objects, interface, and modes.
  • Lead Game Designer --
  • Lead Level Designer -- Takes the game design documentation and supervising the design of all the possible gameplay events and actions that take place within each level.
  • Mid Level Game Designer -- Conceives an idea for a level, and then takes that idea and fully realize it in the 3-D environment.
  • Senior Game Designer --
  • World Designer -- Responsible for planning and creating the environments for a game, including such details as the size and terrain of the landscapes and the objects that populate it, as well as any weather and time cycles required.