Concept Artist In The Video Game Industry

Introduction

A concept artist is an individual who generates a visual design for an item, character, or area that does not yet exist. This includes, but is not limited to, film production, animation production and more recently video game production. It is necessary to have the skills of a fine artist; a concept artist must also be able to work to strict deadlines in the capacity of a graphic designer. Some concept artists may start as fine artists, animators, or special effects artists. Interpretation of ideas and how they are realized is where the concept artist's individual creativity is most evident, as subject matter is often beyond their control. (Flew, 108)

Thesis statement

“A concept artist may be required for nothing more than preliminary artwork, or may be required to be part of a creative team until a project reaches fruition.”

Video game industry

The video game industry is the economic sector involved with the development, marketing and sale of video games. It encompasses dozens of job disciplines and employs thousands of people worldwide.

Early on, development costs were minimal, and video games could be quite profitable. Games developed by a single programmer, or by a small team of programmers and artists, could sell hundreds of thousands of copies each. Many of these games only took a few months to create, so developers could release several titles each year. Thus, publishers could often be generous with benefits, such as royalties on the games sold. Many early game publishers started from this economic climate, such as Origin Systems, Sierra Entertainment, Capcom, Activision and Electronic Arts.( Bloom, 329)

Video game industry practices are similar to those of other entertainment industries (e.g. the music recording industry), but the video game industry in particular has been accused of treating its development talent poorly. This promotes independent development, as developers leave to form new companies and projects. In some notable cases, these new companies grow large and impersonal, having adopted the business practices of their forebears, and ultimately perpetuate the cycle. (Walsh, 637)

Discussion

However, unlike the music industry, where modern technology has allowed a fully professional product to be created extremely inexpensively by an independent musician, modern games require increasing amounts of manpower and equipment. This dynamic makes publishers, who fund the developers, much more important than in the music industry.

As computing and graphics power increased, so too did the size of development teams, as larger staffs were needed to address the ever increasing graphical and programming complexities. Now budgets can easily reach millions of dollars, even if middleware and pre-built game engines are used. Most professional games require one to three years to develop, further increasing the strain on budgets.

Some developers are turning to alternative production and distribution methods, such as online distribution, to reduce costs.( Bloom, 330)

Today, the video game industry has a major impact on the economy through the sales of major systems and games such as, Grand Theft Auto IV, which took in over USD$500 million in sales during its ...