Game programmer

A game programmer is a software engineer who primarily develops computer or video games or related software (such as game development tools). Game programming has many specialized disciplines; practitioners of any may regard themselves as "game programmers". A game programmer should not be confused with a game designer; many designers are also programmers, but not all are, and it is rare for one person to serve both roles in modern professional games.

Compensation

Salaries for game programmers vary from company to company and country to country. In general, however, pay for game programming is generally about the same for comparable jobs in the business sector. This is despite the fact that game programming is some of the most difficult of any type and usually requires longer hours than mainstream programming. However, most game programmers feel it is worth the sacrifice for the fun and casual working environments.

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Generally, lead programmers are the most well compensated, though some 3D graphics programmers may challenge or surpass their salaries.

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A controversial subject in the game industry recently has been the issue of unpaid overtime, particularly as highlighted by an anonymous blog entry by ea_spousehttp://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/274.html, who described some of the darker aspects of working in the industry: at some companies, "crunch time" (a period where programmers will often work around the clock to finish a project) has become the expected norm through the whole development cycle. This is not true of all companies however, and many game studios provide excellent working environments and conditions.

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