Game Development Roadmap: Guide For 2022 And Beyond

The global gaming market was worth 173 billion dollars back in 2020, and it's estimated to reach 314 billion dollars by 2026. Game development is trending right now and will remain like that for 2022 and beyond. Huge opportunities are on the horizon, especially with the emergence of web 3.0 technologies and the metaverse and with big tech companies building their own metaverses. So you might be asking how to ride the wave and profit from these opportunities? And what is the roadmap to becoming a game developer in 2022? In this post, I'll walk you through the key steps of the game development roadmap and what you need to know to get started as a game developer.

Game Developer Job

Game Developers are in high demand worldwide, and as of Dec 24, 2021, the average annual pay for a Game Developer in the United States is $101,644 a year (or $49 /hour) according to ZipRecruiter.

There are many fields in the game development industry. you can be a:

• Game Designer
• Game Programmer
• Ai Programmer
• Level Designer
• Gameplay Engineer
• Character Artist
• Environment Artist
• Asset Artist

But I'm assuming that you'll be doing all of that for your first indie game (independent video game which is typically created by individuals or smaller development teams).
Now that we have seen some insights on the game developer job, let's move forward to the first stop on your game developer journey.

Choose Your Game Engine

Besides having some basic understanding of mathematics, physics and algorithms, the first step is to figure out what tool to use to build your games. Here we are talking about the game engine, which is a collection of software components that perform geometry and physics calculations used in video games.

Of course, you can build your own game engine, but good luck with that as nowadays most game engines are super advanced and will do all the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on your game mechanics rather than basic calculations.

There are several game engines at your disposal like Unity, the Unreal Engine by Epic Games, Godot and Roblox.

Choose Your Programming Language

Once you've chosen the game engine to use, the next step on your game development roadmap will be to learn about the programming language that is compatible with that engine.
If you are using Unity for example you need to learn about C#, you need to learn about C++ if you've chosen Unreal and if you want to make games
for Roblox, you need to learn Lua.
You can also use javascript to build html5 games and web games. For that, you'll hear a lot about canvas and there are many rendering engines like PixiJS, Phaser and Three.js.

Establish Your Game Design and Mechanics

Now, this step is the most important one, as you need to figure out how will your game look? will it be 2D or 3D? What are the rules, the rewards, the quests that you want to put in your game? The characters? And what will they look like?
You should answer all these questions and always keep in mind that people love playing fun games. A perfect example of that is Among Us which got worldwide recognition with a simple idea and game design.
You should also think about the assets that you'll be using in your game and where to get them. You can either go ahead and make your assets using software like Blender or use marketplaces like the Unity Asset Store if you're using Unity for example.

Make Your First Game

Now you need to take action and remember that :

Great achievements have humble beginnings.

In this step on your game development roadmap, your task would be to build a very basic game. Just try to build a simple single-player 2D game. Don't overthink things. It's your first game, forget about advanced topics like networking, 3D aspects like shadows cameras, etc.
The goal at this stage is to get familiar with common game development mechanics and to implement basic game features. You can build for example the snake game to get started.

Make More Games

After your first game, things can get easier but just keep making games. You can now approach other aspects of game development like 2D characters animations for example and build other games like flappy birds and Bricks breaker.
Then you can slowly move forward towards learning 3D game development and all the aspects that come with it.

Build A Fan Base

Nowadays, building a following or a community is very crucial for any business, and game development is no exception to that.
There are two reasons for that:
The first is that you can get feedback, suggestions and improvements from your community which will result in a better outcome.
And the second is that you can get your community hyped about a game project you're working on, and thus make successful launches on game stores. 

You can also ask your community to wishlist your game on Steam and they can also buy your game if it is something that they got really excited about.

Resources For Your Game

Now you might be asking where can you find the best resources to get started with your game development journey? This article covers 38 Great Resources for Game Developers.
You can also find some good tutorials to get started with Unity game development on their youtube channel.

Final Thoughts

Game development is going to grow a lot more in the future. AR, VR, cloud gaming, and The metaverse. Big tech companies are in the rush to make the next big game and improve the gaming experience.
Whether you are seeking a position in this industry or dreaming about releasing your dream game, huge opportunities are ahead of you and a bright future is as well.

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