In this article lets take a look is game development a good career and worth it or not by looking at all the pros and cons of game development and future, scope of game development in detail.
This is the most comprehensive article on this topic so i would recommend you to bookmark the article and share it with your friends to let them know about game development as a career option
So without further ado lets get started
Is game development a good career & worth it?
In my opinion game development is definitely good career and worth it because it is not only lucrative industry but also high demand, a good future, and You can turn your hobby off playing games and ideas of games into reality and you can have a really very purposeful life by helping millions of people worldwide.
There are some disadvantages with game development as well like there are few jobs and you will have to deal with copyright issues competition and many more.
Let’s take a look at all the pros and cons of game development to understand whether you should choose it as a career option or not.
Pros and cons of game development
Pros of game development
Games are in great demand & bright future
One of the main advantages of game development is it is in great demand.
As a matter of fact,
- There will be 3 billion active gamers by 2023
- The global gaming industry will grow at a CAGR of 12% between 2020-2025
- The global Esports industry is growing at a rate of 30% year-over-year
- The mobile game industry is growing at a year-on-year rate of 25.5%
- Some 50% of all mobile users open at least one gaming app during the week.
Source: fortunly, exploding topics, tech jury.
One of the primary reasons for exponential growth of gaming industry is because of covid pandemic as it made everyone to remain indoors so people started playing online games from cloud gaming platforms using their mobile not PC or
console because mobile is more convenient, accessible to anyone to pass time and entertain themselves and this is how there has been a significant growth in gaming industry especially in mobile gaming and more people started playing games than ever before
Adults young people and even old people have started playing games after covid pandemic and this is how the gaming industry has blown up.
Gaming is one of the fastest-growing sunrise industries in India, clocking 40% growth in 2019–20. The industry generated US$ 1.5 billion in net revenue during this period and is expected to surpass US$ 5 billion by 2025.
All of this statistics and data show there is a huge demand for gaming industry and it also has a good future as we have seen earlier that the gaming industry will grow by 12% in the coming years which is really great.
It is a lucrative industry to be in
Another advantage of game development is it is very lucrative industry to be a developer.
The mobile games industry could be worth $169.7 billion by the end of 2025, and it is estimated that the video gaming industry to be worth $268 Billion by 2025.
The US gaming market is worth almost $100 billion, China and America are the leading markets for gaming industry which are both developed countries, Gamers spend more money on in-game downloads and streamer support than on full games, In 2021 what’s amazing is, video game subscriptions were estimated to be worth $7.5 billion worldwide.
All of these numbers clearly show that gaming industry is not just growing rapidly but also very lucrative industry to be in.
And you should also know 57% of the game developers are from America and the average salary is $115,846, your salary will depend upon various factors including your total experience, location, the company you are working for and your portfolio, projects etc.
And of course you can make a lot of money if you create your own game which is free to play and gamers will start purchasing in-game downloads and also purchase subscriptions which can make you a lot of money in the long run as a business.
for example candy crush saga is one of the most popular games in the world by which the developers have made more than 3 billion dollars from the game so far so creating a game is highly profitable thing.
You can have very purposeful life and also turn your hobby and ideas into a career
Another benefit of becoming a game developer is that you can have a purposeful life, also turn your hobby of playing games and all of your ideas of games you want to create, you can turn them into reality using your coding and designing skills and start making money from it which is really cool thing because whatever you imagine you can make it reality.
As you have already learnt earlier that billions of people play games online and one of the main reasons people play games is to reduce their stress of job and also to entertain themselves in free time, improve their mood and this can give you a lot of happiness and job satisfaction and
also a purpose in life as a developer because you can create something that can help add value in millions of lives of people across the globe by reducing stress and making them feel happy and energetic.
It is also thousands of people stream playing your games online on YouTube and twitch and it is a kind of livelihood and a source of income for many streamers and influencers by playing your games and
entertaining other viewers online so you are not just helping millions of people reduce stress and improve their mood but also create an opportunity of livelihood and new career option with your idea of any game and code knowledge.
This in my opinion is one of the big advantages of game development as a career option because you are not just making a lot of money from your ideas and coding skills but also adding significant impact in others life through your work.
You don’t need a degree
Another benefit of game development is that you do not need a degree to become a developer.
The main benefit of software development as a career option is that you do not need a degree and certificate to get a job and you also don’t need to spend a lot of time in college for education & degree rather you can learn game development and
programming languages like C and Java which are important for game development in any boot camp or from online coding courses or you can learn them yourself for free online and
you can get internship and entry level job in any startup and then move up from there as you grow with more experience and more projects in your portfolio and
this is how you can slowly build your career in game development also without ever having a degree in game development in any college.
As long as you have the skills required such as programming and game design then you can definitely get a job because ultimately skills are what matters to the employer along with experience and projects not any degree or certificates.
You can check out more pros and cons of coding boot camps and benefits of getting online courses for coding in detail here.
These are all the advantages of gaming industry and game development now let’s take a look at the disadvantages.
Cons of game development
It is very stressful and time consuming
One of the main disadvantages of game development is because of the nature of the job.
Video game developers write code for games for a variety of formats, such as PCs, consoles, web browsers and mobile phones.
And best programming language for game development is C++, Java but with C++ & Java is hard to learn because of its multi-paradigm nature and more advanced syntax. It is very difficult to learn for both new and experienced programmers who have less knowledge of low level programming languages.
And C++ is one of the top three programming languages which has the most bugs errors and flaws which means you can have more chances of getting errors and bugs while executing the code with this language compared to others like python which is a lot more easier and this is why when you will be coding in this language it can be very stressful and time consuming task in debugging process.
Growing competition & shorter lifespan
Another big disadvantage of gaming industry is it is also growing with competition.
This is an no brainer thing because when there is a growth & demand and also has a good future and on top of it if it is a lucrative then why not, other people would also jump into it and this is what is exactly happening with gaming industry.
The steam platform initially released just seven games in 2004, but this number has rose, reaching 10,696 in 2021. In the first two months of 2022, 1,514 titles have been released on the platform so far,
25 new games are released on Steam every day and most games have average lifespan of less than 5 weeks because a players cannot play a game for a long time as he can get bored of it, they want to upgrade to new game to get new experience so you will have to frequently update & release new game to hook users with gaming company.
And because more number of games are released every year on Play Store and online so it becomes hard for you as a individual game developer to make your game stand out from the competition so it requires not only good coding knowledge and ideas but also a lot of branding and marketing of your game online so that the target audience can view your game try and start playing the game.
This is why you cannot do all those things yourself, if you want to become a game developer and create games to make money then you will have to create a team of members assigning different tasks to each like marketing designing support
and many more to build a gaming business and this is a disadvantage because you not need all of these things if you want to get into other specialisations like full stack development or app development.
You can have less jobs
Another disadvantage of game development as a career option is you can have less number of jobs as compared to other specialisations in software development.
Just think about it if we compare game development with full stack app or software development then obviously there are less number of companies in game development as compared to the number of students who want to get into game development.
Of course the game development industry is growing with 12% in 2025 but it does not necessarily mean you can have as many jobs as you want because there are more people getting into game development as compared to jobs available, the industry is getting competitive even with less jobs.
You can do a quick search on job platforms like indeed to see, there are more than 12000 jobs to apply for full stack developer whereas only 1000 jobs to apply for game developer so you can clearly see the difference between the two.
You will have to deal with copyright issues
Another thing about game development is you can have to deal with many copyright issues when you are creating games.
Video games are basically digital properties protected by copyright. the game’s presentation can be copyrighted as a literary work or dramatic work, while elements like character design, art and sound and music can also be copyrighted.
Hence you should be very careful regarding what type of characters, sound and music you are using when you are creating your own game as it can lead to copyright infringement sometimes.
These are all the advantages and disadvantages of game development.
With that said let’s end the article.
Conclusion
These are all the things you need to know about game development as a career option.
Do comment down what are your thoughts about game development as a career option in the comments section below.
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