What different kinds of programmers are involved in making a game? I'm a coder at heart, but I realise not all coders are the same!
There are all sorts of programmers in game development. Before I begin, I wanted to talk a moment about âhigh levelâ vs âlow levelâ in programming terms. Usually, the higher your level, the better/more experienced/etc. you are. However, when it comes to programming, the level actually describes how far removed from the hardware/machinery you are. The lower you go, the closer to machine language it becomes and the fewer tools you have. The higher you go, the closer to the user you get.
Here are the more common ones
Gameplay Programmers. They create the rules of the game, using tools and systems that other programmers build for them.
Graphics Programmers. They take the assets that the artists create and decide what to display on the screen each frame, as well as what and how to apply effects.
Network Programmers. They are primarily responsible for the sending and receiving of data online. Their primary skill lies in the creation of systems that can allow for latency and still work.
Server Programmers. Very similar to Network programmers, but more about scale and how to handle and organize huge amounts of data and large numbers of users at once without the system collapsing.
Engine Programmers. They work under the hood in order to get the most out of the hardware. They work with and/or create drivers to actually harness the hardware so that the higher-level programmersÂ
Tools Programmers. They build the tools used by designers and artists to create the assets for use in the game.
User Interface programmers. They specialize in making the UI work. All of the meters, displays, timers, button prompts, options, etc. in the game are handled by these people. These folks also typically handle localization.
At some point, I'd like to fill out the rest of these with more in-depth descriptions, but I'm just going to go over the bird's-eye view today. I've linked to the two more in-depth descriptions (gameplay programmer, and graphics programmer) for further reading. Hope this helps.
Roles in the Industry: The Gameplay Programmer
Roles in the Industry: The Graphics Programmer