Different Types of Video Game Designers Explained

To explain all the different types of game design sub-disciplines and seniority system, I will first go into the different types of game designers, then I will go into the seniority system that the careers will progress through.

How are game designer roles categorized?

Most game design sub-disciplines fall into the content or systems design category.

While the graphic below is not perfect, it’s a solid representation of the difference between two types of disciplines and mindsets.

Different studios blur the lines between roles, other studios have very clearly defined roles and objectives for their designers and hiring managers look carefully for the right person to fit their niche.

1. Content Design

Content design is the umbrella term for all the sub-disciplines that fill the game with content such as quests, monsters, NPCs, etc.

This means game content designer is the catch-all role for designers who fill in the game after the core is built focus on the quality of an individual piece of the game experience

For example:

• League of Legends: Champion designers and skins & personalization designers are content designers
• Legends of Runeterra: The card designers who make new cards are content designers
• World of Warcraft: Quest designers, raid designers, class designers, item designers, and combat content designers (spell & monsters) are all different types of content designers
• Match 3 games: Puzzle designers are the content designers.
• Call of Duty series: Mission designers (single-player quest/level mix) and enemy designers are content designers.

Digital content looks very different in each studio you work for – because each game type has its own unique properties.

2. Systems design

Game systems design is the umbrella term for the sub-disciplines involving one or more parts of the process of designing the harmonious interactions between different elements of the game loop through systems of core mechanics and balance the gameplay through the iterative process.

A game system designer creates interlocking parts to encourage the players to grow, explore and experiment through mechanics, systems, and rules that govern how the game is played.

Before you continue to read further, let’s clarify some common confusions.

What’s the difference between systems, gameplay, mechanics, combat and balance designer roles?

They are all different sub specializations to design game mechanics (mechanics design) in a scalable way (system design) that are consistent throughout the core gameplay loop (gameplay design) and the overall player experience.

The following are the core responsibilities that applies to all these derivatives of systems design:

• Design core mechanics
• Create systems to scale the mechanics
• Design rules that govern how the game is played
• Balance game’s pacing, difficulty, and progression
• Create prototypes, iterate on the mechanics, and playtest the game extensively

These can all be one single role or completely separate roles depending on the game studio.

And oftentimes they are used interchangeably depending on the context since they are all different niches of the same function.

The Different Types of Game Designers

So now, I’ll cover the roles that are more common across most studios, I will also clarify whether they generally fall under systems or content umbrella.

Game Mechanics Designer

Mechanics design is a type of systems design discipline that focuses on designing the specific game mechanics, rules and systems that govern how the players interact with the game’s characters, objects, and environment.

A mechanics designer is responsible for:

• Designing the rules and behaviors of specific gameplay elements, such as combat mechanics, movement, or puzzle-solving mechanics
• Ensuring that the mechanics are balanced and offer meaningful choices to the player
• Iterating and refining mechanics based on playtesting and feedback

Mechanics designers collaborate with level designers, narrative designers, game artists and programmers to cohesively implement the specific mechanics they are responsible for into the overall gameplay.

Gameplay Designer

Gameplay design is a type of systems design discipline that focuses on defining the core gameplay elements, the player’s objectives, and the overall game progression and guiding the mechanics and systems that shape how the players interact with the game world.

Gameplay designers  are often senior and lead level in a studio because their responsibilities dictate the overall direction of the gameplay (which are high stakes).

A gameplay designer’s responsibilities include:

• Defining the main objectives and challenges the player will face
• Designing the core gameplay loop, including actions the player can take and how they interact with the game world
• Balancing the difficulty and pacing of the game to maintain player engagement
• Ensuring that the game’s mechanics and systems align with the intended player experience and game vision

What’s the difference between mechanics and gameplay design roles?

• Mechanics designers build individual concrete, functional mechanics that make up the game.
• Gameplay designers focus on the big picture of how all those game mechanics fit together to create a cohesive and satisfying experience.

Game Combat Designer

(This role only applies to games with combat as a central gameplay element, such as action games, FPS, RPG with real-time combat, and etc.)

Game combat design is the specialization under both content and systems design depending on the studio that focuses on content, mechanics and systems related to combat and battles.

Note: While combat itself is a form of game content, the design of the underlying combat systems and mechanics that govern the interactions is considered part of game systems design.

Key responsibilities of combat designers include:

1. Designing the rules and systems that govern how combat works such as attack & defense mechanics, hit detection, movement during combat, dodging, and blocking (systems design)
2. Creating a variety of unique abilities, skills, or spells that players and enemies can use during combat to add depth and strategic options (content design)
3. Balancing and designing the different types of weapons, armor, and equipment available to players, each offering distinct advantages and drawbacks (content design)
4. Designing the behavior and tactics of computer-controlled opponents to provide engaging and challenging combat encounters (systems design)
5. Ensuring a balanced and rewarding progression system, where player characters become more powerful over time without causing gameplay imbalances (systems design)
6. Incorporating environmental elements that can influence combat, such as destructible objects, traps, cover systems, or elevation advantages (content design)
7. Collaborates with VFX artists and character designers to ensure combat feels satisfying and responsive to player actions, with clear visual and audio cues for successful attacks, hits, and damage (general design)

Combat designers collaborate closely with other game dev team members including level designers, artists, and programmers, to integrate the combat systems seamlessly into the overall gameplay experience.

Level Designer

Game level design is the type of content design discipline that specializes in the creation of engaging, challenging, and visually appealing levels, environments and spaces for players to navigate, explore and interact with during gameplay.

A game level designer is responsible for:

1. Creating the layout of the game level, including pathways, rooms, open areas, and points of interest to guide the player’s progression
2. Incorporating narrative elements into the level design, such as clues, environmental details, and set pieces, to enhance the game’s storytelling
3. Designing puzzles, obstacles, and challenges that players must overcome to advance through the level
4. Placing enemies and non-player characters strategically to provide engaging and balanced encounters
5. Designing hidden areas, secrets, and rewards to incentivize exploration and reward curious players
6. Crafting the visual style, theme, and ambiance of the level to create a cohesive and immersive experience
7. Ensuring the level provides a smooth and enjoyable gameplay experience, with appropriate pacing and variety of encounters

The level designer role can be divided into specializations such as world designer, room designer, and on rare occasions map designer depending on the studio and the game.

Over all they work closely with gameplay designers, artists, and programmers to integrate the mechanics and systems seamlessly into the specific environments.

Narrative Designer

Narrative design is the process of integrating the story and theme of the world throughout the game’s environments, characters, dialogues and quest content to provide an immersive fantasy.

This discipline is especially important and prominent in games emphasizing storytelling and player immersion such as role-playing games, adventure games, and narrative-driven experiences.

Narrative design is a hybrid role that involves both systems and content design work (which might be done by the same designers, depending on the studio).

A game narrative designer is responsible for:

1. Writing the dialogues and interactions between characters to advance the story and provide player choices when applicable (content design)
2. Designing narrative choices and consequences that allow players to shape the story based on their decisions and actions (systems design)
3. Crafting narrative-driven quests, missions, or objectives that players will undertake throughout the game (content and systems design)
4. Designing the personalities, morality, and motivations of the game’s characters, both player-controlled and non-player characters (systems design)

Narrative designers collaborate closely with other game designers, artists, programmers, game writers, and voice actors to ensure a seamless integration of narrative elements with gameplay and visuals.

Note: Narrative designers don’t develop the lore, history, and setting of the game world. These are more of game writers’ responsibilities.

For example: George R.R Martin is the game writer who developed Elden Ring’s lore, history, and world setting that FromSoftware Inc. narrative designers used to merge with the gameplay.

Game Economy Designer

Game economy design is the specialized systems design discipline that’s responsible for designing the in-game economy and balance of virtual resources, currencies, items, and rewards that players can earn and use within the game.

With the overall goal of enhancing player engagement, retention, and satisfaction by providing meaningful rewards and incentives for player actions and accomplishments.

A game economy designer is responsible for:

1. Designing how players earn in-game resources through gameplay, achievements, or other actions.
2. Creating virtual currencies and determining how players can obtain and spend them in the game.
3. Balancing the availability (supply and demand) and usefulness of in-game items, ensuring a fair progression and meaningful player choices.
4. Designing the pace of player progression in terms of unlocking new content and acquiring more powerful items.
5. Monitoring and adjusting the game economy to prevent excessive inflation or deflation of resources and currencies.
6. Works closely with game monetization designer to integrate monetization strategies such as optional purchases and microtransactions into the game economy without compromising the player experience.

The game economy designer collaborates with gameplay designers to ensure that the acquisition and expenditure of in-game resources are aligned with the overall gameplay experience and player progression.

Game Monetization Designer

Game monetization design is the content design specialization (with minor systems design responsibilities) that focuses on developing revenue-generation strategies and mechanisms to support the game’s ongoing development and maintenance.

A game monetization designer is responsible for:

1. Designing and implementing systems for players to make optional in-game purchases of virtual goods, cosmetic items, or gameplay enhancements (systems design)
2. Creating micro transactional opportunities for players to buy small, incremental items or resources within the game (content design)
3. Designing subscription plans that offer players access to premium content, features, or benefits on a recurring basis (content design)
4. Incorporating advertisements in a way that complements the game’s experience and generates revenue without negatively impacting the player’s enjoyment. (general design)
5. Setting prices for in-game items, bundles, or special offers that encourage players to make purchases. (content design)
6. Designing monetization strategies that maintain player engagement and encourage long-term spending without being overly intrusive or exploitative. (content and systems design)

Game monetization design works closely with other aspects of game design, business and marketing teams to ensure that the monetization strategies are well-integrated with the overall gameplay experience.

It requires a careful balance between generating revenue and maintaining a fair and enjoyable experience for players.

What’s the difference between monetization designer and economy designer?

Both roles deal with the different, yet complementary aspects of the financial aspects of a game to ensure that the game remains enjoyable and fair to players while also being financially sustainable.

• Economy designer concentrates on designing the in-game systems and balance of resources and rewards to create an engaging and rewarding experience for players
• Monetization designer concentrates on all the revenue generation aspects (outside of specific business and marketing responsibilities)

Technical Designer

Game technical design is a specialized discipline that effectively implements design ideas and concepts in games through the use of technology and programming tools to ensure the game’s design translates to a playable and interactive form.

Similar to technical artists, technical designers are the bridge between the creative vision of the game designers and the technical implementation carried out by the programming team.

This means you are required to have a strong understanding of both game design principles and programming languages commonly used in game development, such as C++, C#, Python, or scripting languages specific to the game engine being used.

A technical designer responsibilities include:

1. Taking the high-level design ideas provided by gameplay designers and translating them into functional gameplay systems using programming languages and game engines
2. Using physics engine and collision detection systems created by programmers to handle object interactions and environmental reactions
3. Writing scripts and code to enable the behavior of game objects, interactions, AI, user interfaces, and other in-game elements
4. Developing and maintaining tools and workflows that aid in content creation, level design, and other aspects of the game development process
5. Integrating animations and designing character control systems to enable smooth and responsive player movement

Technical designers work closely with systems & content designers, animators, QAs, and programmers to ensure a seamless integration of all game elements.

Game UI Designer

Game UI design is a specialized area of content design that deals with creating the visual and interactive elements of the game’s user interface (UI) that the players can smoothly interact with throughout the game.

A game UI designer is responsible for:

1. Creating the visual layout and functionality of main menus, options menus, pause menus, and other interactive screens
2. Designing the on-screen Heads-Up Display (HUD) elements that provide essential information to players during gameplay, such as health bars, ammunition indicators, mini-maps, and status icons
3. Creating intuitive and visually appealing icons and buttons that players use to interact with the game’s interface
4. Selecting appropriate typography (fonts and text styles) to ensure readability and consistency throughout the UI
5. Designing visual cues and animations to provide feedback to players when they interact with UI elements or perform in-game actions
6. Considering how the UI design contributes to the overall user experience and ensuring it aligns with the intended player journey

Game UI designers collaborate with all the different types of game designers and game artists to integrate enjoyable and complimentary user interface elements through the gameplay from the very beginning to end.

By the way, what got me the initial job offer from Blizzard leadership was the World of Warcraft Cosmos UI that I modded using the WoW editor.

Game UX Designer

While shaping the overall player experience is a part of most game design roles, the Game UX Design role is most often associated with performing real-time playtests of the game with outside groups of playtesters and bringing their feedback to the rest of the team in a useful format.

If you’ve ever seen an image of someone watching 20 total strangers play a brand new game in the same room, the one at the head of that is a game UX Designer. Their mission is to see what other designers have missed and streamline the overall experience to be clear, comprehensible and consistent.

Most types of designers we’ve covered so far contribute to the overall user player experience, but UX Designers are often the closest to players who may have never picked up a controller before.

Game Balance Designer

Balance design is the craft of carefully calibrating and adjusting the game systems through iterations to ensure fair and enjoyable gameplay.

Almost all the game design roles that I’ve covered so far have an aspect of game balance once the game is shipped and live.

For example:

• Level designers may need to consider balance issues when designing encounters or challenges to ensure that they are appropriately challenging but not overwhelmingly difficult.
• Economy designers may need to adjust the distribution of items or resources based on the game’s overall balance.
• Combat designers may need to make sure the enemy and/or different playable characters’ combat difficulty is balanced.
• Etc.

All the different types of game balance designers are responsible for:

1. Ensuring that player characters, non-player characters (NPCs), or units in the game are relatively equal in power and effectiveness, preventing any single character or unit from dominating the gameplay
2. Balancing the effectiveness and capabilities of different weapons or items to provide players with meaningful choices and avoid overpowered or underpowered options
3. Regulating the availability and scarcity of in-game resources to maintain a balanced economy and progression system
4. Adjusting the difficulty of the game to provide appropriate challenges for players at different stages of the game
5. Ensuring fairness and balance in multiplayer games, particularly in competitive environments, to create a level playing field for all players (aka live balance design)
6. Balancing the in-game economy, including pricing, rewards, and progression, to create a balanced and rewarding player experience
7. Designing risk vs. reward systems that motivates players to take on challenges with difficulty and effort investment that’s proportional to the benefits

Career Growth and Seniority Hierarchy

When you are starting out in the game design field, you’re most likely to first get hired for a generalist entry level game design position such as junior, assistant or associate.

In these roles, you are not expected to have mastered design, and will instead focus on clear, discrete tasks assigned by a more senior designer.

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Usually, these tasks are time consuming, but helpful to learn the fundamentals of the game you’re creating. Rather than designing the game, you’re handling the implementation and execution of content.

After 3-4 years as an associate, you will usually have spent enough time designing games and working alongside experienced designers that you have a better sense for the structure of the team and have a sense of where you would like to specialize, if you haven’t already.

Some designers prefer to remain generalists, or work in small teams where that’s required, while others prefer to go deep into a specific niche of game design.

Here are the title modifiers​:

• Assistant – Essentially someone else is responsible, you’re just learning the tools
• Associate – You’re usually responsible, but there’s always someone else who has your back.
• Junior – The 3-tier version of the entry-level game design position. You’re just learning the tools and the fundamentals.
• Senior – You’re the one who has someone else’s back.
• Lead – Managing others is your primary role.
• Principal – Focusing on your craft is your primary role.
• Technical – You have the ability to code in addition to design.
• Director – Your job is to set the goals and vision for the design teams.
• I, II, III, IV – Larger companies (such as Riot Games) have multiple levels within game design to help people have a clear sense of progression through their careers.

Now I will further clarify in details for each tier of the game design career growth and what are expected.

Game Design Internship

While rare, an internship will allow relatively inexperienced aspiring designers to work alongside more senior designers to learn the craft, tools and philosophies of the studio.

However, these positions are highly contested. You will be judged heavily on your understanding of the studio, their products and the critical thinking skills you apply to those design problems in the test.

Entry-Level Position

Entry-level design, called ‘assistant’ or ‘associate game designer,’ has similar requirements as an internship – with the caveat that applicants who have developed their own games, performed an in-depth analysis of existing games in the genre, or formed online communities to discuss these types of games are heavily favored.

What’s the difference between “junior game designer” position to “assistant” and “associate” positions?

The “junior” position belongs to the 3 tier system while “assistant” and “associate” belong to the 5 tier system.

Entry-level work education and experience requirement: While college degrees are nice, ultimately showcasing your technical and critical thinking skills via portfolio, projects and interviews matter more than any specific work experience.

Anyone who showcases a blend of communication, critical thinking and design-focused thought patterns have a good chance getting hired for these positions.

Mid-Level Position

Mid-level design position is just called “game designer,” which kicks in when you’ve shown that you can consistently handle small or moderate sized projects with occasional input and direction from your leads.

You should also have enough social skills to be able to communicate effectively without aggravating your colleagues.

Mid-Level Work Experience Requirement: In general, you would need 3 years of game design experience to get a job as a game designer.

Ideally, you would also have shipped or significantly contributed to shipping a game to obtain this title.

In my case though, it took me almost six years before I went from ‘associate game designer’ to ‘game designer’ at Blizzard Entertainment.

This had a lot to do with my stubbornness though 🙂

Senior-Level Position

After another six to seven years, many designers will reach the ‘senior game designer’ level.

It’s not guaranteed though – senior game designers not only can consistently execute on projects without supervision, but also are aware of the social and political environment on their teams and consistently use relationships to ensure projects go over without drama.

They also mentor and perform as role models for newer designers on the team, often mentoring new associates.

Senior Level Work Experience Requirement: Senior-level game designer experience can vary widely here. 7-10 years of design experience isn’t unreasonable here.

However, designers who are more in tune with the working environment or had significant experience working in other organizations may reach this point sooner.

Senior level is not a guarantee though – some people are content to remain at just the game designer level for most of their careers, focusing on creating content rather than mentoring or training new designers.

Principal and Lead Level Positions

Branching decision trees for the most senior level game designer roles.

When you reach senior game designer, you reach a fork in the road where you have to choose to specialize in leadership or craftsmanship.

In other words, do you want to be a manager or a maker?

Those who choose to refine their skills to a polish are called ‘principal designers,’ while those who choose to help lead teams are called ‘lead designers.’

Did I miss any game designer roles that applies across most game and studio context?

Let me know in the comments below and I’ll add them to this post. 👇