Game Programming – Perfect Package for Fun Loving Freelancers
Gone are the days when options for freelance programmers were too limited. They would write system software utilities, develop business application software or design a website. Now, the whole scenario has changed, thanks to the latest developments that have taken place in the field of information technology and electronic communication and entertainment mediums such as cell phones, computers, other electronic gadgets like music players and voice recorders. It has opened doors for freelance programmer to venture into a new field called video and animation programming. Due to the incredible increase in the number of users of these devices, we now have an ever growing demand for programmers who can develop game applications for these devices. Designing video game applications not only provides programmers with a challenging programming exercise that will brings a feeling of job satisfaction but it also offers enormous job opportunities, impressive payment rates and an amazing opportunity to showcase creativity and fun involved in the whole development process, making it an exciting new option for freelance programmers to go for.
Video game programming is a fairly complex and demanding job and upon completion, it gives a great sense of achievement to developers. Most of the freelance developers never join any company because they want to learn to deal with variety of challenges to become a successful and dynamic computer programmer. Game programming is all about that. Being a game programmer, one will get the best possible opportunity to hone his skills in all the different areas such as designing the user interface and game characters, creating the animations, sound effects, database programming and off course, the real system programming. For passionate freelancers who look for challenges and wants to hone their technical skill in system programming, game programming is the best to place to be at. It gives immense job satisfaction and increases all around knowledge about the whole system.
The demand for gaming application is enormous; hence there are huge job opportunities for freelance computer programmers in this area. According to a popular website gofreelance.com, freelance games programmers are one of the most highly sought out resources in video game development (“Freelance Game Programmer”).
Being a freelance programmer I can completely understand what bothers us the most, it is definitely the demand for what we develop. The demand of application software is limited as we ourselves have to find projects, and clients. For system utility programmes, the situation is even worse. Corporate giants like Microsoft and Apple do not outsource their work to freelance programmers neither do they accept applications made by them. Open-source Linux based platforms such as Fedora, Ubuntu, and FreeBSD either do not pay for development work or they pay very less making job opportunities from them very less. On the other hand, there are many companies and platforms for video game applications. Freelance programmers can develop game applications for cell phones, computers, music player and other palm-top electronic gadgets. There are many companies in each of these segments who want to put gaming applications or animations on their products. Besides all this, freelance programmers can develop lightweight gaming applications for websites also. On the Internet, there is an abundance of websites that are dedicated to online games. These websites always look for interesting games developed by independent programmer. This huge demand for gaming applications in the market have created great opportunities for freelance programmers and exciting reasons to switch to gaming programming from their conventional business application and system application development areas.
One of the most appealing reasons for getting into game development is the availability of open-source software development tools. Open source tools are freely downloadable from Internet. Developers do not need to pay anything for downloading and using them for their personal or commercial purposes. It greatly reduces the investment cost for the developers. Besides this, there is a plethora of information on how to use these tools, making them easy to understand and then use them for developing gaming application. This is one of the main reasons that can excite and attract freelance programmers to make a shift and dive into video game programming. I recall that two years ago when my friend asked me to develop a small gaming application for his website, I did not spend a dime for it. I went onto the Internet, downloaded the software, its development tool kit and IDE and began developing the gaming application that he wanted. At a later point during the development process, I felt that I need a book to further understand the advanced features of the software, I again looked for it on the Internet a found an e-book on it and it was completely free. I spent almost twenty hours to develop that little game without spending anything from my pocket but made almost one thousand dollars from it. Since then, I became a big fan of open-source software and start using those more often than ever before.
Game applications are sold at higher rates in the market as there is a huge demand for them. Once a programmer develops a game application, he becomes responsible for its future development and future versions as well. This continuous involvement with the application keeps him with the purchaser which, in turn, brings him steady income. Besides this, freelance game programmers are often hired by the companies on short or long term contract basis and are paid handsomely. The Game Salary Survey Report 2007, states that the average salary across all experience levels is over $80,886 (Jill Duffy).
This survey report indicates that game programmer enjoy better payment rates compared to programmer in other streams. My friend, who got laid off six months ago, spent all his time in learning game programming and developing small applications for websites. He earned some good experience and now got placed with Electronic Arts. He is now making twenty percent higher than what he was on his previous job. He now jokingly thanks his previous company for laying him off. Many of the websites that allow users to bid for available software projects shows a steep increase in the number of software projects that are for game programmers and have higher payment rates posted against them. This increase in demand and payment rates clearly shows that switching to video game programming would be a beneficial in terms of finance and earnings.
Game programmer needs to be creative, imaginative and fun – loving. Game programming is not all about writing tons of lines of codes or serious programming. It involves creativity and fun to a great extent. The main purpose of all the video games is to entertain their users. It requires programmers to be imaginative, creative and fun-loving too. The programmers have to think creatively while designing the different character in the games. They have to keep the “fun” element in their minds while finalizing the shapes, colours and sounds in the game. All of these tasks demands creativity and fun-filled imagination. Freelance programmers who are into designing websites can be a best fit for such jobs.
Video game programming is complete package for freelance programmers. It can provide perfect job satisfaction to passionate hardcore programmers who just want to programme. It has immense job opportunities with impressive payment rates. It is also a great call for those freelance programmers, who want to show their imagination and creativity, and since it is all about creating software that entertains people, there is definitely FUN involved in here.
References
1. “Freelance Game Programmer and Developer.” gofreelance.com. Go Freelance, N.d. Web. 29 June 2010. .
2. Duffy, Jill. “The Game Industry Salary Survey 2007.” GameCareerGuide.com. N.p., 03 Sep. 2007. Web. 21 June 2010. .
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