Unit 2AB – Working in the Creative Digital Media Industry

There are many different sectors in the media, ranging from film and TV, radio, and animation to
publishing, advertising and promotion and computer games. Each of these sectors have a wide
variety of differing job roles, wage gaps, employment requirements and employee expectations. This
is shown from things like statistic charts that give detailed insight into all the sectors, their
requirements and, as stated above, things like wage gaps and job roles. People can get even more of
an insight into these stats by looking at the company’s website, or by speaking to someone who is in
a similar position to what you are looking at doing.

When going about finding a job within the industry, opportunities tend to not stray far away from
what is common in every sector, being internships and apprenticeships. Aside from the two stated
prior, one of the main sources of employment is through previous work within the industry;
employees are often seen coming from connections to people within the company, whether that’d
be originating from school or a previous job. Employees are placed on contracts the employment
company decide to set the employee on. Contracts can be seen as agreements that set out an
employee’s skills, limitations etc. For example, typically listed in one of these contracts are the
employment conditions, employee rights, responsibilities and duties (all of which are often referred
to as ‘terms’ by contractors). Many times, employees are viewed as contractors, implying that the
employee will work for the company until that contract ends or until the terms are changed. We see
this with many celebrities within the Film and TV sector most commonly, with many movies starring
icons such as Dwayne Johnson or Leonardo DiCaprio. Alternatively, we can see fixed staff working
for a company of who often have the skills to cover most jobs that need doing in the industry until
they’ve been let go, of which the recruitment process stars again to fill that role.

Professional behaviour is a form of etiquette in the workplace in which is linked primarily to

respectful and courteous conduct, of which can influence the direction a company is going to
success. Within the media industry, requirements of employees typically consist of understanding
the task at hand, and act appropriately to achieve the company’s end goal. Work ethics is an
important part of professionalism in the media industry, for example on average workdays can last
as long as 16-18 hours in most cases during production within the film and TV sector. Work ethics
maintain an employee’s pride within the industry they’re working in, making them more dedicated
to achieving the goal the producers are aiming towards. Organisation of employees is also a massive
player in how effectively a product can be developed in this industry. Many times, if a deadline is
missed within the media industry, thousands of pounds from the budget can be wasted on a project,
which makes ensuring employees remain organised a key part in making sure a product is complete
by the deadline. Repercussions of unethical and uncooperative employees can be very extreme in
the media, as workload can often be very heavy. Therefore, if an employee is unwilling to complete
a specific task it can hinder the entire team’s ability to accomplish a certain goal. Each of these
examples of professional behaviour within this sector are common throughout every media industry
discussed.

Film & TV Sector

In the Film and TV sector, there is many different ranging sub-sectors or job roles, these include
Concept artists, Budgeting, Screenwriting and Scriptwriting, Hiring and Recruiting cast & crew etc.
This shows that the Film and TV sector is not confined to just a small amount of job opportunities,
however multiple that all underlie the sector. This means that potential employees get a wide
amount of freedom when it comes to employment in companies in this sector, hence why the
income that this sector can be produce can be incredibly high; The U.S. movie industry alone is
worth $95.45 Billion and is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 4.1% from 2018 to
2025 (Zippia).

For job roles in the Film and TV sector, there are an incredibly considerable number of separate roles
that an employee can choose, there are concept artists who are often seen as the foundation of a
product by those in the industry, who work closely with other employees in the creative sub-sector,
understand the genre and aims the lead director is going for. For example, if the movie is agreed to
be an adventure movie, creating a mass murderer villain may not be the aim for the genre presented
to them, but rather in a horror genre. Sometimes when employees fail to understand their task
presented to them, they can be fired, however not regularly.

Another example of a job role can fall under the distribution sub-sector, some of these jobs being
marketing assistants and managers, distribution executives etc. These jobs are mandatory for
success of a product, as the better your advertising team is, the higher quality posters and adverts
the team will make, on top of the quality of the marketing however there is also the quantity of
which these are being made; a larger quantity means a large potential audience for the product
developed.

In the Film and TV industry, there are a mass number of genres, themes, characters, runtimes etc.
that a project in the sector can follow. For a short film, typically they stay under 10, or sometimes 15
minutes, meaning that work from each job role will be not small, but smaller than what there would
typically be from a 2+ hour film. Often, we see short film producers doing each job on their own.
Typically, we see short films from new producers to the sector that only have a niche audience,
typically either aimed at kids or adults depending on what genre that producers. YouTube is a
regular platform in which people upload these short films, this is good for feedback on how
producers can improve their work in a general, or more precise way. This is because people have
easy access to the short films they are watching since the platform is free to use, on top of this, the
producers can also grow a small community of people since again, the site is free and easy to access.

Something similar can be seen with TV shows, for example, some solo producers create and upload a
short episode or teaser for an upcoming mini-series they may be working on which can then already
start building a community. This community can then expand allowing more people to view the
producer’s work, and therefore can start moving to bigger projects that can perhaps then be found
on platforms such as Netflix or Hulu who are seen as some of the top performers when it comes to
film and TV streaming.

Radio Sector

Another sector in the media industry is the Radio sector. In the Radio sector, there are multiple job
roles of which can be occupied by employees, these include General Managers, Station Managers,
Sales Managers, Radio Sales / Account Executive, Sales Assistant, Music Director etc. All these have
differing objectives that must be met to have a successful radio production, which can range from
radio shows to the news. Over time the radio sector has had a severe loss in popularity, decreasing a
substantial 29% from 2010 to 2018 according to The Guardian. This decline in popularity has most
likely come about due to the internet. This is because you can now get easy access to the music you
want to listen to since the introduction of music platforms like Apple Music and Spotify. However, a
lot of adults do still listen in due to its convenience, adults can easily listen to the news, radio shows
or music on the radio while driving to work or while at home.

Expanding on job roles found within the sector, we can see that the varying jobs all have different
aims and objectives that must be met. For example, Sales Managers must hire, train, and provide
professional development for their teams and setting weekly, monthly, or quarterly goals based on
the team's performance to date (workable.resources), making sure that each employee is doing their
job appropriately and well. Sales Managers are one of the most important job roles in the industry
because of this.

This differs from a job such as a Music Director must ensure that playlists are made for radio stations
to use in things like the news or musical radio, making them one of the most important roles in the
radio sector of the media landscape. Not only this, but music directors must also keep track of music
logs, dictate the station’s schedule, and employ extensive market research to ensure that shows do
well in the time slots given. This makes Music Directors a mandatory role in any sort of radio
production in the sector.

One final job role that differs from the other two is in the financial side of things, being Marketing
Assistants and Managers of which, much like in the Film and TV industry, manage distribution of
promotion for the radio’s presentations, such as news, radio shows, sports etc. Which make the
distribution role in the Radio sector mandatory for mass success of a station. In 2020, American
radio stations amassed over $10 Billion, 940 million of which came from online streaming,
demonstrating the impact that the internet has had of many different sectors of the media industry,
this being no exception (Statista).

Computer Games Sector

Throughout the years Videogames were first brought about, we have seen a major advance in
technology and demand of these videogames, for example, in 1968 we saw the first ever virtual
reality simulation called The Sword of Damocles, created by Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull
which has now evolved immensely to the newly released Meta Quest Pro. These advancements are
a result of challenging work between many different job roles, these all fall under sperate departs
found within the sector itself, these departments include Production, Design, Art and Technical Art,
Animation, Audio, Programming and Quality Assurance. Each department have different jobs that all
play a key part into the development or marketing of a game.

Throughout the lifecycle of the computer games sector, we have seen a major increase in popularity,
especially in recent years. This may be caused by COVID-19 for example, as many people were stuck
at home and had no way of entertainment. However, this also led to the quality of games decreasing
as it progressively got harder to communicate with a vast majority of employees outside of the
studio, and having to communicate through applications such as Zoom, or over E-Mail. This made
gaming become boring later down the line as it seemed as if development teams globally had not
improved on their newer releases since the pandemic, slowly making the consumers become bored
of gaming as there was nothing new, creative, or inspiring been thrown into the mix.

In the computer gaming sector, the different job roles found within the industry are all key
components for making a successful game. Each role is important in their own way however there
are some that stand out more than others. These being Lead Developers, Art Directors, and
Marketing Executives. Lead Developers are a very key component into making a game as they are
the ones who pass ideas from other departments around a studio and bring them to fruition. While
doing this, they also monitor the performance of developers to ensure they are working enough to
meet the deadline for certain tasks.

Art Directors are also amongst the most important in the industry as they, and the rest of the artistic
department create sketches, mind maps, storyboards and more to function as a foundation for a
game’s intentions. This can be characters, plot lines, world design and character design just to list a
few. This is then gone through the development team to bring these ideas to life to create a world
which can function as a starting point for many games that are early in development. Not only do Art
Directors work on paper, but they also work on the game itself as well by maintaining the overall
aesthetics of the game and ensure the creative process runs accordingly.

Marketing executives work mostly offline, assuring that the game has a name for itself and can reach
the audience for which it is intended. To do this, they feature at, most commonly, gaming
conventions of which have a large amount of people going, therefore being able to spread their
project’s name to a wide audience and can start building traction for the game which can be very
promising overall. Without a Marketing Executive, there are a smaller number of ways that you can
get your product known in the sector, which can create severe losses for the development team’s
revenue and time which could be put into making a new game or expanding on the game that had
been worked on prior. All this together makes this job role especially important to the success and
feedback that a product can produce in the time it remains popular, which can either make or break
a development team depending on the outcome given to them.

Animation Sector

Animation has progressively gotten significantly better throughout the years, while its first
introduction was back 1908 with Fantasmagorie by Émile Cohl, a man from France who has been
labelled now as ‘the father of the animated cartoon’ which had been considered as the first
animated film ever made (theatlantic). To create the animation, Cohl placed each drawing on an
illuminated glass plate and traced the next drawing, reflecting the variations necessary to show
movement. The animation seems as if it was drawn by chalk, however Cohl used negatively printed
black lines that is used to create the chalk-like visuals.

Animation proceeded to increase in popularity, in which Walt Disney made a name for himself with
his first animation Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. When releasing this animation, the audience was blown
away with the skills that he possessed when it came to the animation industry. Snow White and the
Seven Dwarves was his next huge, making his name known globally as his animation skills where
incredible at the time of release, 1938 of which it is still know today as the most famous and iconic
Disney movie to date.

The animation industry has recently made its way over to the online world, in which we see
videogames that are completely made from hand-drawn animation, the most notable of which being
Cuphead, released by Studio MDHR in 2017. This gained a massive following in the community,
allowing the studio to later release an expansion to the game in 2022, building up the game’s
popularity once again. Cuphead is still spoke about today and labelled as one of the most ground-
breaking games ever and had an audience rating of 97% between Google users worldwide, also
making it one of the most well received games in recent years.
In the animation sector now, job roles consist of many distinct roles that all have their own
importance in the production and release of an animated product, whether that would be a
videogame, in which the studio would collaborate with that of the Computer Gaming Sector, or a
movie / TV show, in which the studio would collaborate with others in the Film and TV Sector. Some
of the most important job roles consist of Directors, Producers and Production Coordinators,
Concept Artists, Writers, Art Directors, and Character Designers just to name a small handful. Each
job role has a specific task that they must succeed in completing to release a well-polished
animation.

Directors are the heart of each product, ensuring that the story, character portrayal and action etc
are presented the way in which is intended. They also raise funds for the animation itself, and hire
the team that organise the project, making it become easier to develop. When an animation has
voice-acting, the Director also must ensure that the correct people are recruited for the job and that
they are working at the performance level needed to release the project in the deadline set.
Sometimes, actors also must act out of scenes for animators to capture Mo-Cap or movements.

Both Producers and Production Coordinators play a similar role in the sector, Producers take
responsibility over the animation production. They manage the director and all other departments
to ensure that the product is delivered on time, within budget and to the best creative brief.
Sometimes producers start with an idea for the animation, then they get financial backing from
distributors or broadcasters to produce it. This then means that producers need to be able to predict
production costs well and propose a budget. Production Coordinators do something similar by
keeping everything in check and supporting each department with their production requirements.

Interactive Media Sector

There are many examples of Interactive Media found throughout the industry, some examples of
which are found on websites, social media platforms, videogames and more. The sector itself is
immensely popular within the media, we can see that just Snapchat alone has over 363 million
users, which is comparable to Instagram’s 1.386 billion users. These two statistics alone proves how
big the industry is, generating millions off the in-app advertisements, with these platforms generate
more users daily, it allows them to put their funds back into the app to improve with security, adding
new features and more.

The industry was introduced into the media back in 1997 with Six Degrees, commonly known today
as the first social media platform ever introduced into the market. This combined much of what we
see today in social media apps in recent years; profiles, a friends list to chat with people over, and
school affiliations in one service. This sparked up a new industry that could be used by people
worldwide to message their friends who may live long distances away from each other.

There are many different job roles in the sector, some more important than others, however each
have their own role to play in developing and maintain a social media platform. Jobs in Interactive
Media can span across many other industries, including marketing and advertising. Typically, each of
these jobs require knowledge of advertising and marketing as well as graphical design. Some of
these jobs include Social Media Specialists, Video Editors, Digital Marketer and Digital Advertising
Specialists.

Social Media Specialists play an especially key role when it comes to developing Social Media
platforms, as they are responsible for carrying out social media strategies for competing with other
organisations. Their main aim is to improve a companies’ brand awareness and increase the
platform’s value. Social Media Specialists are also able to use interactive media to engage their
audiences more effectively, making it a valuable part of their jobs. When it comes down to
qualifications for Social Media Specialists, typically employees have degrees in communications,
journalism, or a field like these.

Video editors are responsible for editing video footage into finished, professional-grade videos. They
may also be responsible for adding special effects and graphics to videos, making it important for
Video Editors to be trained in a variety of video editing software programs. Video Editors may work
independently as contractors or work as an employee of an organization. Typically, video editors
have degrees in film or related fields as well as training and experience.

Digital Marketers are also play a particularly significant role when it comes to creating an interactive
media piece, this is because they carry out digital marketing strategies, one most common of which
being adding these interactive elements into their projects, which allows the consumers to become
more engage with the product than without these interactive elements. Digital Marketers usually
have degrees in marketing, communications, or related fields.

Digital Advertising Specialists are professionals in advertising who focus on creating digital
advertisements to promote brands or products. Digital Advertising Specialists can also create
interactive advertisements to further engage audiences on websites and social media, so skills in
interactive media can be useful. Usually, Digital Advertisers have degrees in advertising or other
communications degrees.

Publishing & Press Sector

In the Publishing and Press Sector, we can see that the audience of which most developed digital
and non-digital news is aimed towards all have varying opinions, likes and dislikes etc. This makes it
mandatory that the news covers all sides of an event, making each side’s argument equal, giving
justified reasons for the actions of them. This makes the audience feel more included as there are
people watching and reading from all different countries, ethnicities, preferences, and races. This
means that while inclusion of these other stories is mandatory for a vast majority of the public to
accept the news presented, it is also ethical for them to do some and gives them more to say which
can create more of a sense of inclusion in what they add.

In the sector, the job roles required for a company to create a successful news presentation is
diverse and inclusive when it comes to the skills required. Some of these job roles while being more
important than others can all lead to the success of a piece, whether that is online or offline news.
Some of these job roles include Editors, News-Editors, Photographers and Reporters to list the most
important. It is hard to distinguish which job out of all of these play the most crucial role in the
sector, as each must perform up to standard to release the latest information on time and
professionally written.

Editors are often seen as the bosses in the industry and are responsible for what is published; if the
audience do not like it, they have the editors to blame. Editors oversee the work of each staff
member in the team. They allocate articles, photographs to use in newspapers, advertisements etc
and decide which stories are and are not included into each news program or paper. They are also
responsible for the editorial voice, or opinion pieces placed in the editorial section usually at the end
of news pages.
A news-editor, similarly to that of an editor, oversees the news content of each edition. They will
assign stories to reporters, liaise with the sub-editing and photography departments, and decide the
priority and importance of news articles. They will also check for legal and ethical issues in a
journalist’s copy to ensure that the article or report that goes out is inclusive and hears all sides of
the story to reduce the risk of backlash.

A photographer takes photographs to record news and current events, this is a vital part for
newspaper and broadcasting stations alike as it helps the audience to better understand the
situation that is being reported. Many photographers are freelance, meaning they do not work for
any one organisation but sell their images to several media outlets, which can help many media
reporters throughout the industry to achieve their goal of selling unbiased and understandable news
to the audience that it is aimed at.

A reporter drafts stories on a range of topics including news, politics, sports, culture, and
entertainment. Some are correspondents, which means they specialise in a particular field such as
sport, health, crime, business, or education. Others are feature writers who cover topics in more
depth or write human-interest stories which can help broaden the audience that this news is aimed
towards, creating more meaning for the audience and more of a reason to tune in each time the
news is being presented or published, dependant on the market.

Task 2

In the Computer Gaming sector, there are a vast number of products that can be developed for
different genres, aimed at different people, for varied reasons. Producing these unique games
however takes an incredible amount of time. Most games now-a-days are easily comparable to
others in a similar genre, or sometimes even wildly different genres, making the computer gaming
sector of the media to become slowly obsolete as innovative ideas are hard to come about. Many
computer gaming companies are also falling into a lot of drama as of the last 3-4 years, making
gaming companies and developers become less respected throughout the years. In the marketing
aspect however, computer gaming is one of the highest grossing sectors in the media, making $220
Billion, making the industry comparable to that of the Film and TV industry of which comes out as
$272.21 Billion (thebusinessresearchcompany).

The Computer Gaming sector spans across most of the media, as well as most of the world. (Cross-
media and multi-national). The popularity of this sector has sky-rocketed since its first initial
videogame back in 1958, in which we have seen an incredible technological advancement since then,
ranging from full body tracking virtual reality to graphical advancements such as raytracing that has
entirely transformed the gaming sector as we know it, first being utilized in Metro Exodus, released
in 2019. Over time, these examples of technological advancements only get better and better
throughout the years, while also having the sector’s consumers expand with it.

When developing a computer game in the sector, there are many things that must be considered,
one of these things is the productivity of which employees are working at, and how well the
ownership of the company is being monetized. While all the jobs in the gaming industry are very
important, some of these jobs are more important than others, one major player in each computer
gaming company consist of the Game Developers and Programmers, who build the whole game
tasked and are responsible for taking the ideas that have been passed through the designers, writing
code required to build a playable videogame and world that the players can later explore at release,
planning and designing the game’s structure, its rules, character etc. This makes it vital for them to
able to understand and follow instructions given to them to bring these creative visions to life. While
developing games, there are multiple aspects of which employees can focus on. Some of these
include AI programming, Audio development, Controls, User interfaces etc. Ensuring all these tasks
are completed are important for a game to succeed past development.

A second major job role in the sector consist of Gameplay programmers. Gameplay programmers
code interactions in-game to make the players have a more entertaining experience once playing the
final product. While lead designers decide on combat, for example, gameplay programmers bring
that idea to fruition. They work closely with level designers to understand what needs to be done to
make the gameplay work. They write the rules that provide what different objects do, like if they are
destructible etc. and pay attention to balancing and tuning of the way the game plays. On top of this,
they play through the game to locate and repair bugs and broken elements of the game pre-release
and optimise the game for playing once it is released.

Lead developers, art directors, community managers, assistant game producers, marketing
executives etc. are all very valuable and important lead job roles to have in a development team, if
communication skills between lead developers, art directors and assistant game producers are high
in a computer games development studio, this can near enough guarantee at least a well-polished
and playable videogame, whereas job roles such as marketing executives and community managers
ensure that the game released is easily accessible through multiple different countries around the
world, allowing to bring in more profits overtime since the popularity of the game would scale with
the amount of people the product is aimed towards.

Lead developers are technology professionals who guide projects and manages development teams.
They are often experienced experts with lots of industry knowledge and skills that qualify them to
mentor teams and communicate with others outside their department. This makes lead developers
some of the most important assets of a development team, ensuring that each employee is fulfilling
their job to a respectable standard to be able to create a more profitable and sustainable level. It is
important that everybody is doing their jobs conjunctively as the team will only succeed if everybody
works together, meaning that lead developers are often having to promote a sense of cohesion
which are basic yet essential standards for a development team in the present day. If a developer is
working below standard and their work is uncoordinated and uncoordinated with others in a similar
department, there are diverse ways in which this can backfire, ranging from having the developer
move to a different department of development, or fired if the problem is persistent over multiple
development departments.

Community managers are also an especially important asset of a development team, while mostly in
their element post-release of a product, they do still have a significant effect on a game’s
performance before release, meaning that the impact they have on future updates and patches after
launch should be tailored to the community feedback given throughout the course of the game’s
development cycle. This is where community managers come into the industry, while helping with
promotion of the game pre-release at events like gaming festivals, writing newsletters, organise
social media accounts on different platforms, and sometimes set up live streams 1-2 hours before
the official release of a game to build a larger community and span out across more of the media to
promote their product and build potential expectations off of the community of which can be ran
through to the community managers to consider as an addition of the game post-launch. This builds
a bond between a development studio and its community over time in which can give good
suggestions in which direction the game can go. A good example of this is Pokémon, which has been
very heavily community driven over the course of its games, first releasing in 1996 with Pokémon
Red and Green, and still holding up their relationship with their community to their newest games,
Pokémon Scarlet, and Violet.

Marketing executives are once again another important employee job asset in the pre-release and
post-release of a videogame as they contribute to marketing campaigns that promote the product(s)
recently released. Marketing executives are usually part of a larger marketing team whose aim is to
raise awareness of the product that the development team has been producing. This can reach a
potential audience in many ways, incorporating different media sectors to reach a larger audience.
Social media is a common sector that is used to promote videogames. This can be done by pay
content creators on YouTube or Twitch to do special promotional videos / streams of the game
before it releases to the public. This can be done for many benefits, however some examples of the
most common among these benefits can be to receive feedback from the creator’s fanbase on ways
to quickly improve the game pre-release, or throughout its lifecycle post-release. A second benefit is
to test bugs, different gameplay elements or the world that the player is thrown into, doing this
allows the creative team at the studio to focus on improving these specific assets to make the game
more enjoyable and functional for the audience it’s aimed towards, and receive a name for itself in
the game genre they’ve developed their game around which can expand the number of potential
consumers in which the studio can put funds from the game sales back into the game to further
these improvements, and allowing it to stand out amongst competitors within the computer gaming
sector, however, it can be difficult for games to achieve that level of popularity since massive
franchises like Call of Duty can overshadow what people in the market call ‘hidden gems’ as of the
popularity of video game franchises like these, as seen from Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall 2,
which released in between Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1, being a part of the two
biggest game series in the FPS genre. Despite Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s below poor reception
from the fanbase, to this day, the Titanfall community still label this game as one of the most
underrated games of all time due to its unfortunate release time and poor marketing from EA,
showing the impact that each piece of a game has on the final product.

Usually in the Videogame industry, there are several options for how to finance a game. Publishers
are one of the main players when it comes to financing as they can work alongside a videogame
studio to assist with everything from advice and management of the game development process,
which long-term can have a positive affect and impact on the videogame’s publicity, performance,
and community reception. Financing, which can be used to increase a game’s budget to further
improve features, controls, performance, graphical optimization etc. and distribution to marketing of
the game via various channels. This marketing can be done through many external sources, some of
these are though news outlets, content creators, gaming events like Insomnia etc. Videogames can
also be financed through the developers / employees paying the team upfront to add to their
project’s overall budget. Like as previously discussed, the budget typically goes towards furthering
the developer’s and community’s expectations on release by adding new or updating existing
features that can overall lead to an increase in the game’s target audience by how far they go with
these updates or changes.

When working in the videogame industry, there are a large amount of ethical and legal issues a
development team can run into during the pre- and post-release lifecycle of a game. One of these
include, possibly the most common amongst the industry, copyright. When an asset, idea or game is
flagged for copyright infringement, it can lead to lawsuits, or the part of content flagged for
copyright being removed from the final product, however this decision down to the person who filed
for the copyright claim to be put in place.
An ethical issue that has risen in recent years is the inclusion of a diverse number of characters with
separate ethnicities, races, sexuality etc. This has been a hot topic for a long while because if a
character with these properties is done correctly, it can communicate to the audience that the
character(s) presented are included into this world that the player is put into. This can make
different real-life communities feel included and engage with these games at it may become more
relatable for them as the characters develop. Often now-a-days when videogames fail to include
character diversity, player reception will be found as poor, this is because players need to feel as if
they’re included in the environment they’re placed in, therefore if

Another legal issue that a studio can run into is their use of gambling, more often seen today in the
form of loot boxes or luck-determined bonuses of which can have cases of people losing massive
amounts of money to try and get the latest item or cosmetic. Qatar, Singapore, and North Korea all
ban these in-game gambling mechanics in their country entirely, sometimes even completely
removing the game from stores, however quite rarely. In North Korea, the government are strict
with their law enforcement, however when it comes to gambling, the laws are lifted for tourists of
which are allowed to participate in both online and offline gambling across the country. Qatar is one
of if not the strictest country when it comes to gambling, even going to the extent of banning sports
betting of which is very uncommon for countries to do so if you look at gambling bans around the
world. The contrasts from Singapore’s gambling laws as they only have these laws in effect for online
gambling, whereas offline gambling is allowed. This can be detrimental to a game’s performance as
sometimes this is their only way of making money, making them stand at a point where if more
gambling laws are put in place in different countries, it can make a companies' only source of income
become redundant, making the company go bankrupt. This affects the market in which some
videogames operate in, such as Blizzard’s Overwatch of which its main source of revenue comes
from players having the option to purchase loot boxes rather than playing to get free ones. This can
often hinder the income sourced from the game, giving the game studio less money to put back into
the game to benefit its players, games of which get content updates post launch often go by ‘live
service’ games and often profit more than that of a game without live service. This is an example of
something that has become modernized throughout the videogame industry.

Stereotyping is also a major ethical issue when it comes down to developing characters in a game. A
lot of the time in videogames released 2000-2010s we see a lot of this stereotyping being used,
having men as the main character who is strong willed and determined going on his journey to save
a woman, who is typically seen as weak, or as a ‘damsel in distress’. This is seen even in the Super
Mario games where Mario, a man capable of beating his spiked turtled rival, Bowser to save Princess
Peach, who gets captured throughout each game, unable to escape on her own. This stereotype
later down the line had mostly been scratched, and instead of a lot of story roles becoming
repetitive, development teams started presenting genders in separate ways, with many women
having revealing clothing or not being as powerful as some of the male characters found within the
game.

Moving back over to job roles, there are many different departments that one can work in in the
industry. The Production Department are filled with people of which organise the games creation
and monitor many of the employee’s performances to make sure the game is released on time, they
also account for the budget that the game must develop the title, this ensures that the company
never goes over budget and can freely develop the game to it is needed. Typical entry requirements
in the sector consist of Business, English Digital and Media Production degrees when applying for
this course at a university. For someone to go straight into an apprenticeship or a job, they need to
meet the same grade requirements as listed above, however to a higher level.
In the Design Department, employees capture the videogame feeling by adding mechanics, visuals,
and stories. This department typically are the ones who decide how the game is played and work
closely with many other departments to ensure coordination, budgets, timing, and performance is
all accounted for to release the game in the most polished state possible. To get into the Design
Department, the potential employee must have level 3 BTECs in a combination of art, science and
graphical design if applying for a university course. For an apprenticeship, level 3s or higher in
Creative Computing and IT Programming, however if it is a job someone is looking for, typical entry
requirements consist of mostly levels 4-5 qualifications in the same subjects.

The Artistic Department is filled with employees of which create the artwork for a game, whether
that is 2D or 3D. This is done for characters, plots, environments, and vehicles to list a few. In this
department, employees work closely with the Design Department and Animation Department, who
constantly are sharing ideas on which direction the game will go in the development stage and how
the characters will act. The Artistic Department are often the fire-starters in the videogame industry,
i.e. they construct the first ideas for a videogame. Many people who work in the industry like to
promote videogames as ‘pillars’, Andrew C in particular states that “It’s usually about setting some
sort of pillars for the game so that any idea that is generated can be measured against those pillars”.
To get into the Artistic Department, the typical entry requirements for a university course consist of
BTECs or UALs in Art and Design, BTEC diploma in Create Digital Media and a BTEC in Graphical
Design. For apprenticeships or jobs, Game Animation, Digital Media, IT or Computing for Creative
Industries must be achieved at a level 3 or higher.

In the Animation Department, employees bring the ideas and characters to life, giving them
movement, facial expressions different tendencies etc. This can be done with either 2D or 3D
artwork, which makes them, and the Artistic Department collaborate closely with one another,
trading ideas for how a character should act, how they should be portrayed etc. Entry requirements
are mostly the same or like what would be seen in the other Departments, being Art & Design,
Graphic Design / Communication, Computer Science, Maths and Biology for a university course,
whereas for an apprenticeship or job, typically an employee would have a Level 3 qualification in
Digital Media, IT or Computer Science.

In the Technical Art Department is like that of the Artistic Department, in that they create concept
art and expand on what the Artistic Department have achieved, almost acting as a bridge between
programmers and artists by making much more advanced and complex art as possible to give the
detail needed to create the character that is tasked for completion. The entry requirements are the
same throughout college, university and jobs are all like one another in which requirements consist
of Level 3 BTECs in Maths, Physics, Computer Science, Graphic Design, Art and Design, Digital Media,
or Computing, which gives those looking to get into the industry a lot more freedom when it comes
to course selection, allowing them to pick from a wide range of subjects to take at college or
university.

In the Audio Department, employees compose the music, environmental sounds, weapon sounds,
vehicle sounds and other SFX and integrate them all into the game, ensuring they are all put in their
correct moments or button inputs. This means that they work closely with the Design Department to
get briefed on where certain audio tracks should be placed in-game. For entry requirements, jobs in
this Department typically consist of Level 3 BTECs in Music, Computer Science, IT and Creative Digital
Media, while being remarkably similar for apprenticeships and university courses, which makes it an
effective way for audio students to get into a fun and well-paying industry.
In the Programming Department, employees and coders are typically tasked in improving the engine
that the game is running on to make the make look better, feel better and control better. Some also
work in creating AIs, or NPCs as known in-game, making it their job to make them characters seem
intelligent and move like how a real person would. This helps bring the game to life and creates a
bond with that audience, which can make the player more engaged with the videogame. Entry
requirements for university courses consist of Level 3 BTECs in Physics, Maths, Computer Science
and Psychology. This is so the programmers have a better idea of how humans should function,
which adds to the realistic feeling of the in-game characters. When applying for a job or
apprenticeship, the subjects and grades are the same as when looking for a university course.

In the Quality Assurance Department, employees put a stop to mistakes in the game before release,
this could be anything from graphical issues to character movement issues, meaning they work
closely with departments like the Programming Department and Design Department to address the
issues at hand and give the game a hasty yet polished release. The also check for bugs in-game and
spelling errors that may throw off the player or confuse them as they struggle on what to do or
where to go. For university courses, apprenticeships and jobs, the entry requirements are the same
in which they consist of Level 3 BTECs in Game Animation, Art and Design and Creative Digital Media.

When talking about professional behaviour within the computer gaming sector, employees need to
ensure that timekeeping is kept as a standard, for example, if an employee is consistently late for
meetings it can impact the state of a finished product by incorporating misinformation which can
completely turn the tables on what game is being developed. Personal appearance is another part of
professional behaviour within the industry and is generally kept at a low. For example, we can see
most development studios attending work in own clothes, which allows for every employee to be
able to attend their job without having to buy any expensive clothing to fit other development
team’s standards. One last subject that falls under professional behaviour is the reliability and
availability of an employee’s skills, employees need to ensure they’re able to work as frequently as
possible to ensure that a game’s development is both up to pace in both time and quality and can be
relied on to commit to certain tasks that are a requirement to the development cycle. Therefore, we
see many employees with calendars or diaries to note down important talks or work that needs to
be done, which in return allows for a more organised work environment to set a standard for new
employees and will also ensure employees both understand and learn from the work.

When looking for job opportunities within the computer gaming industry, many can be found online
of which potential employees are able to register for. This system has changed a lot throughout the
years, as before the introduction of job finding websites & apps, interviews and job opportunities
would take place in person at the location the company is situated, whereas now with the
advancements in technology, it is able to be done digitally. When going through the interviewing
process, regularly the interviewee is expected to show examples of previous work, gradings in
school, college or university and if the interviewee is up to date on the latest technology, which can
be indicated by how long they’ve worked within the industry. With the industry itself growing more
popular with time, it gets harder to both find and maintain a job with little experience, which may be
seen as detrimental to some development brands since employees are fought for between 2 or
more companies at a time (indeed.com). Most employees are typically signed as permanent salaried
staff, whereas sometimes a contractor may be signed onto a temporary contract for fixed periods of
time of which is dependent on the role that needs fulfilling on the project, for example, musicians
and writers are usually only on a fixed contract whereas managerial roles, programming and art
roles are all tailored towards full-time staff. When interviewer look for any previous work, the
interviewee can present jobs, products etc. that all suggest a person’s time in the industry. External
education such as apprenticeships or work experience also have an impact on how an interview can
go, the more education / background a person has with the industry, the higher odds they have of
getting a job.

When it comes to employee attendance, the impact on a project can differ from minimal to massive
depending on the job assigned, for example if an employee doesn’t show up to work regularly, the
impact on the finished product can be detrimental depending on the scale of the job that the
employee had tasked e.g. if the employee had been tasked with world design, the massive amount
of employees in that same job role would be able to get the job done still in time for the product’s
release, however may be of a lower quality. However, if the employee in question is tasked with a
more important job such as modelling, it can be detrimental to the final product as some models
may look below standard or below what may have been advertised in the case of if the product has a
trailer.

Often in the present day we see videogame development teams working alongside other companies
in the Film and TV industry to create animated or real-life adaptations of these games. More recently
we’ve seen HBO collaborate with Sony to create a real-life adaptation of The Last of Us, one of the
best-selling PlayStation exclusives. This can be a good way to promote a specific videogame that had
prior released, increasing sales and allowing the developers to, more commonly, add further content
or begin production on another title. This can also work the other way around, having videogames
promote movies in such a way that brings publicity toward the production. We’ve seen this done
before with the 2 Sonic the Hedgehog movies, of which they have references to the movie through
the form of quotes, events etc within the games.

Other skills consist of having good knowledge of the coding language presented to you. Andrew C
states that when working in the videogame industry, “it helps to be a rounded individual”, implying
and urging employees to think with different perspectives and roles in mind, e.g., while primarily
being effective at one skill, for example coding, it is more beneficial to both you and the company if
you have simple knowledge in another region, such as level design. This can act as somewhat of a
safety net for the company if an employee is late on a deadline or is unable to do a certain task.

Maintaining and understanding skills within the industry is a necessity when working for the
computer gaming industry. Looking at other releases and taking inspiration from their actions,
technology and expansion on existing resources is also something that many employees in the
gaming industry must involve themselves with. This helps to stay relevant in the industry and stay in
a good competitive position in comparison to other games and companies. For example, if we look
at Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, we see the first fully open-world adaptation
the series has seen, creating a massive world for players to explore, the audience of which gave the
game near perfect reviews across the board with very little reviews under 4*. Due to the success of
the game, other studios started to create their own games influence by the world that The Legend of
Zelda: Breath of the Wild had brought to the table, the most notable of which being miHoYo’s
Genshin Impact, of which the game scored consistent 4 and 5* reviews from critics such as IGN,
similar to the reception The Legend of Zelda’s version of the open-world style of game achieved from
the player base. This left players wanting more from the open-world style of game these two
examples had invested time into creating, with the latest of which being SEGA’s and Sonic Team’s
Sonic Frontiers of which unsurprisingly got an overall rating of 4.4 / 5 according to Google’s reviews,
creating a reputation that open-world games have on the gaming community as a whole and how
games should be perceived, of which may be detrimental to the success a videogame can receive
from the audience.
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