What Is the Best Way to Learn Game Design?

Video game design is an exciting opportunity for you to turn your passion into a career and use your creativity to create products people enjoy using. To develop the necessary skills you will need as a game designer, you can focus your efforts on pursuing certain degrees, taking online courses, and growing your programming skills.

Explore the gaming skills you can learn and how to develop those skills, and find out if you need a degree to be a game designer. Ready to start designing? Consider enrolling in the Game Design: Art and Concepts Specialization from California Institute for the Arts, where you'll establish a primary foundation for experimentation and exploration of video game design, story, character development, and winning gameplay before programming begins.

What is game design?

Game design is the process of developing ideas for a game environment and its various components, such as the storyline, mechanics, characters, and scenery. While game design is often used simply for entertainment, because of the rise of gamification, game design principles are spreading to other industries, such as education, science, art, medicine, and business.

Some of the most common genres in the gaming industry are adventure, role-playing, sports, and action. Game design incorporates components of computer programming, digital media, and software design to help transform ideas into playable games that you can enjoy on a range of devices, like gaming consoles, mobile phones, and computers.

The gaming industry is currently thriving. It has experienced positive growth for seven consecutive years and is likely to grow another 45.53 percent from 2024 to 2029 [1]. As a result, video game designers are in demand and job opportunities have a positive outlook over the coming years.

Game design vs. game development

Within the video game industry, two similar yet different roles coexist: game designer and game developer. While game designers primarily focus their efforts on the artistic details by creating sketches, concepts, and storylines, game developers utilize coding and programming to handle the physical development of games and make them playable based on the ideas from the game designers. In the end, you need both game designers and game developers working together in order to bring games to the end user.

Do I need a degree to be a game designer?

While game designers often possess a degree, it’s not a requirement for landing a game designer job, as you can take different paths to acquire the skills you need. However, earning a degree is certainly a viable way for you to learn key game design skills. Degree options where you have the opportunity to gain valuable information in areas such as software development, user experience (UX), and user interface (UI) include a bachelor’s degree in game design, software engineering, computer science, digital media, or computer graphics. 

Continuing your education and earning a master’s degree can also be beneficial for this career choice. Master’s degrees are available in computer science or software engineering, but bachelor’s degrees are far more common. 74 percent of game designers earn a bachelor’s degree, compared to just 10 percent who have a master’s degree [2].

What is the best way to learn game design?

The best way for you to learn game design is truly up to you and your interests, as you have several options for how to proceed. If you prefer learning at your own pace, online courses can give you the freedom to do so. If you’re looking to acquire game design skills quickly, a short-term boot camp could be the best option for you. Or you can choose to do what many do and earn a degree.

Learn programming

Learning programming skills can help you turn your creative vision into an actual playable game that users may interact with. In the gaming industry, top programming languages include Python, C++, C#, Lua, and JavaScript. While courses in related degree programs like computer science will include programming languages, you can also learn them through boot camps or online courses.

Understand game engines

Game engines are software frameworks used to create video games. The optimal game engine depends on the type of video game and the platform on which the user will play it. A game engine can render graphics, deal with user input, and incorporate the laws of physics into the game, which allows you to focus on other tasks. 

Two of the top game engines in the industry are Unreal Engine and Unity. Unreal Engine is a 3D creation platform that meshes with integrated development environments (IDEs) and version control systems like GitHub to accelerate the development life cycle. Unity is a game engine supporting more than 20 different platforms. Unity offers significant flexibility with the ability to develop 2D and 3D games, whether for web platforms, mobile devices, desktops, consoles, or extended reality environments.

Take an online course

You can learn game design online on Coursera. Whether you’re looking to develop foundational game design skills or further advance your current abilities, you can find options on Coursera’s learning platform. For example, Game Design and Development with Unity Specialization from Michigan State University can help you learn to design both 2D and 3D games. Additional topics you can learn about in this Specialization are prototyping, user interface (UI), storytelling, and computer programming.

Become a gamer

Video game designers often end up in their current position largely due to their passion for gaming. Being a gamer with a deep interest in gaming is a beneficial quality for you to possess; you can utilize this perspective of yours to understand the types of games people want to play and implement that knowledge in your designs. If you’re a creative person who loves playing video games, becoming a game designer can allow you to practice this skill set while doing something you enjoy.

Game designer job outlook and salary

Now is a great time to start learning game design, as the sector of the economy providing game designer jobs is likely to grow 8 percent from 2023 to 2033 [3]. Additionally, the Entertainment Software Association states that 61 percent of the population in the US plays a video game for at least one hour every week, which suggests a continuing need for more games [4]. In conjunction with the high demand for game designers, you can earn a good salary as well. The median total pay for game designers is $99,000 [5].

Learn game design on Coursera

Learn more about growing your career in the gaming industry by subscribing to our LinkedIn newsletter, Career Chat. You'll find job-relevant insights, tools, and tips for growing your career, including an issue on how to become a game developer.

Whether you want to develop your design skills, get comfortable with an in-demand technology, or advance your abilities, keep growing with a Coursera Plus subscription. You’ll get access to over 10,000 flexible courses. 

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