What does the industry want?

As a personal goal of mine, I want to eventually hold the role of lead designer within a AAA or large studio environment. More specifically, a studio which works within the area of recreational virtual reality (VR) experiences. Aside from my general interest towards this area, it has been found that it is a rapidly and steadily growing zone of the industry (Fortune Business Insights, 2021); hence potentially indicating a higher level of job availability and security. This growth can also be seen here in Australia, with studios such as Halfbrick recently moving to open VR projects in addition to their usual content (Halfbrick, 2022). To pursue one of these lead design positions, however, I will have to begin building out my portfolio with content which makes it more desirable for VR recruitment teams.

For a designer role in this zone of the industry, the requirements and preferences of different studios vary in minor ways. However, factors such as professional experience, VR experience, certain game engine experience, programming skills and design procedures are often commonly referred to. Below, a table breaking down these five factors can be seen for five different job listings:

	Experience			Skill
Studio	Professional	VR	Game Engine	Programming	Design
Accenture	3 Years	7 Years	Unity – 5 Years	C#	Prototyping
Oculus	3 Years	3 Years	Unity – Familiarity Unreal – Familiarity	C# C++	Attention to Detail
Two Bulls	5 Years	5 Years	Unreal – Familiarity	C++	Well-Rounded
Alta VR	7 Years	7 Years	Unity – Familiarity	C#	Well-Rounded
Firesoft	Lead Years >	–	Unity – Familiarity	C#	Well-Rounded

 

In the above table, it can be seen over all other factors experience within the industry, and working with the platform and game engines are the largest barriers to entry. In particular, experience working in VR appears to be usually of the highest importance to employers. Additionally, it can also be seen that Unity is very commonly used across VR studios; and in turn, C# programming skills are often seen as an added benefit.

One factor which varied heavily, however, was the preferred designer skillset. Many studios’ preferences leant towards a well-rounded skillset, often detailing how interactions across all areas of design would be preferred. Alternatively, as can be seen above, some studios preferred more narrower and specialised skillsets; often related to a hands-on approach to development. Overall, however, after performing the above research, it would be reasonable to assume that having a well-rounded skillset, in addition to an area of design specialisation, would be acceptable.

One other commonality was the preference for experience with hands-on design work and iterative design methodologies. Employers appear to be progressively preferring designers who have experience contributing to scripting and programming, in addition to their usual responsibilities. This correlates with past literature, where in which it is suggested that game designers will need to constantly adapt to an ever-evolving industry as time goes on (Thompson et al., 2007).

Overall, after analysing these industry trends and common applicant preferences, it appears it would be suitable to build up a portfolio which demonstrates: high amounts of experience with designing and working in VR, generalised design knowledge with specialisation in some areas, skills and familiarity with the unity or unreal game engines, and lastly, a familiarity with iterative and detail focussed design. Furthermore, if possible, it would also be suitable to seek out professional experience, as this has been established to be an important factor.

Where are Gaps in My Current Skillset & Portfolio?

With reference to the above findings, there are many areas in my skillset and portfolio that can be improved to meet these standards. Firstly, I have only ever worked on a singular VR project in the past (see Understaffed at the Interstellar); and in that instance, I took on an assistant programmer role as opposed to fully understanding and implementing the entire planned functionality. Hence, a possible avenue for improvement would be working on a new VR project; and prioritise building my experience implementing the planned design decisions entirely by myself.

Another gap relates to my lack of specialised design skills. In the past I have worked on a variety of projects and across many areas of design in each. This has lead to me having a generalised skillset in design, but not specialised in any manner. This can be solved by focussing on a few of the smaller elements of design for this project in particular; areas such as environment and sound design I have rarely worked in, aside from minor projects (see 183 Cells Street), so these can potentially also be explored more.

The final gap I can address in this project is my lack of experience working in a detail-focussed mindset. In the job listing for Oculus (2022) it is stated that applicants with a close attention to detail will be considered highly, as often this will generate more thoughtful outputs. In my career so far, I have rarely spent extra time in projects to add smaller details to build immersion in an environment or mechanics. Therefore, this project could also be an opportunity to build upon my experience in this area; by ensuring the game environment and mechanics are detailed, and hence immersion building as a result.

In short, to solve the gaps and shortcomings in my current portfolio, I could possibly develop an immersive VR experience which focusses on absorbing players into a tense situation and detailed environment.

Project Pitch: Apparatus

Apparatus is going to be an immersive horror VR game which places the player into the shoes of a researcher, investigating a mysterious apartment complex overrun by dangerous spore emitting vegetation. The goal of the researcher is to photograph the three central cores of the infection with a polaroid camera, and return to the entrance of the building alive. The game will be created within the Unity engine, as this has been established to be a common base for numerous companies.

The core gameplay loop of the experience will centre around the researcher’s gasmask; as its filter will require constant changing and cleaning under the taps throughout the apartment complex. In addition to this, there will be a variety of hazards around the level that will immediately clog up the mask’s current filter, forcing the player to either switch it out for a new one or rush to a cleaning station to clean it out. This core gameplay loop, as planned, will be detail and immersion focussed in its mechanics. This will be achieved through keeping all user interface elements, and tutorial sequences, diegetic to the world of the game (Archiact VR, 2021), whilst also keeping all control schemes and object interactions heavily affordance based (Nöll, 2021).

In addition to this, the environmental design will be given extra priority to ensure it is explored in the project. It will be detail focussed, through utilising elements of environmental storytelling to teach the player the core mechanics of the game and allow for object interactions with the miscellaneous apartment items and props.

Overall, if this project is successfully put together, it should better fill out my portfolio to suit progression towards my ideal role in a studio. It will achieve this by giving me more experience with VR game development and designing, more opportunities to specialise in immersion and environment design and a greater understanding of the inner workings of VR applications.

References

Accenture. (2022). XR Lead Game Designer. Job Search Canada | Indeed. https://www.indeed.com/q-Vr-Game-Designer-jobs.html?vjk=eaaa4bb26cf1caa0

Alta VR. (2022, February 3). Lead game designer – Full time. https://www.altavr.io/lead-game-designer/

Archiact. (2021, June 29). Using Diegetic UI in VR games? https://www.archiactvr.com/post/uncharted-territory-3-diegetic-ui-in-vr-games

Firesoft People. (2022). Senior Game Designer. Seek. https://www.seek.com.au/job/58055112?type=standout#sol=73e8965649ae3c9ab3f23ab3d02d11105d7168db

Fortune Business Insights. (2021). Virtual reality in gaming market size | Global analysis [2028]. Fortune Business Insights | Global Market Research Reports & Consulting. https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/virtual-reality-gaming-market-100271

Halfbrick Studios. (2022, August 21). Games. Halfbrick. https://www.halfbrick.com/games

Oculus. (2022). Senior Combat / Enemy Encounter Designer – Twisted Pixel Games. Job Search Canada | Indeed. https://www.indeed.com/q-Vr-Game-Designer-jobs.html?vjk=a9a4ea25aa554e98

Nöll, R. (2021). Can’t touch this? – Exploring the Concept of Affordance in Virtual Reality [Bachelor Thesis, Cologne Game Lab]. ResearchLab. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353351476_Can%27t_touch_this_- _Exploring_the_Concept_of_Affordance_in_Virtual_Reality

Thompson, J., Berbank-Green, B., & Cusworth, N. (2007). Game design: Principles, practice, and techniques – The ultimate guide for the aspiring game designer. John Wiley & Sons.

Two Bulls. (2022). Senior Game Designer. Job Search | Indeed. https://au.indeed.com