What Can I Do with a Bachelor’s in Game Design Degree?

Call­ing all gamers!

Have you ever asked your­self, what can I do with a game design degree? Or, what degree do I need to be a game design­er? Or, How can I do what I love as a career? These are all great questions.

The world of game design is the cre­ative appli­ca­tion of art and tech­nol­o­gy in a dig­i­tal envi­ron­ment — with a pri­ma­ry pur­pose to edu­cate, to enter­tain, to train, or any com­bo there­of. A game’s final prod­uct requires many tal­ent­ed pro­fes­sion­als, each con­tribut­ing the game design fun­da­men­tals required to cre­ate dynam­ic, engag­ing game content.

The game design indus­try is colos­sal. Just one seg­ment of the game design indus­try — video games in the US — is antic­i­pat­ed to exceed a val­ue of $20 bil­lion in 2020. And world­wide, econ­o­mists project near­ly $140 billion.

Relat­ed:

• Best Bach­e­lor’s in Game Design Degree Programs
• Best Online Game Design Degree Bach­e­lor’s Programs
• Fastest Online Game Design Degree Bach­e­lor’s Programs
• Most Afford­able Game Design Degree Bach­e­lor Programs

Who is a Game Designer?

A game design­er is tasked with the respon­si­bil­i­ty of detail­ing the concepts/rules of the gam­ing expe­ri­ence. These include:

• Art, Style and Game Feel
• Dif­fi­cul­ty Level
• Game Require­ments
• Play­er Char­ac­ter­is­tics, Behav­iors, and Missions
• Scor­ing Mechanisms
• Sto­ry­line Fea­tures and Direction
• Type of Game — i.e. casi­no, card, sim­u­la­tion, or role-playing
• Usabil­i­ty

Essen­tial­ly, a design­er is respon­si­ble for cre­at­ing the world in which the game exists.

From an aca­d­e­m­ic per­spec­tive, the art of game design requires rig­or­ous edu­ca­tion and hands-on expe­ri­ence in game the­o­ry, strat­e­gy & deci­sion-mak­ing, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and prob­a­bil­i­ty, among others.

So, if you are still ask­ing your­self, is a game design degree worth it? The answer is a resound­ing yes. Let’s learn how and why.

Accreditation for Computer Science and Game Design

Accred­i­ta­tion, sim­ply put, is a third par­ty-peer review process with ori­gins trace­able back to the ear­ly 1900s.

Accred­i­ta­tion is a review method where­by inde­pen­dent over­sight agen­cies (often reg­u­lat­ed by the spe­cif­ic indus­try or the gov­ern­ment) eval­u­ate a school or a degree pro­gram against a set of pre-defined cri­te­ria. Aca­d­e­m­ic accred­i­ta­tion in the 21st-cen­tu­ry edu­ca­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty has been rad­i­cal­ly decen­tral­ized. Cur­rent­ly, teams of indus­try experts and edu­ca­tion­al pro­fes­sion­als define the stan­dards by which accred­i­ta­tion is mea­sured. These are reviewed annually.

The accred­i­ta­tion process sets forth a bench­mark on which an indus­try (most­ly edu­ca­tors and stu­dents) has a con­sis­tent yard­stick by which stu­dents can deter­mine if a school will deliv­er on its edu­ca­tion promis­es. Employ­ers, when deter­min­ing the qual­i­ty of job can­di­dates, con­sid­er if the stu­dent holds a degree from an accred­it­ed school or degree pro­grams — before decid­ing on which job appli­cant is the right candidate.

From a game design student’s per­spec­tive, an accred­i­ta­tion for com­put­er sci­ence pro­grams is a valu­able way to ensure the game design pro­gram or school meets fun­da­men­tal game design indus­try stan­dards. An accred­it­ed game design pro­gram sig­ni­fies a des­ig­na­tion of approval, sim­i­lar to a seal of qual­i­ty assurance.

Accred­i­ta­tion is gen­er­al­ly divid­ed into three cat­e­gories — Nation­al, Region­al, and Spe­cial­iza­tion. Pro­grams, Col­leges, Schools, and insti­tu­tions are capa­ble of receiv­ing accred­i­ta­tion from a vari­ety of indus­try-approved accred­i­ta­tion agencies.

Regional Accreditation

Region­al accred­i­ta­tion is a vol­un­tary process that is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of each school’s admin­is­tra­tion. A region­al­ly accred­it­ed school typ­i­cal­ly allows for the trans­fer of cred­it units earned from a dif­fer­ent region­al­ly accred­it­ed insti­tu­tion of high­er learn­ing. Although most region­al­ly accred­it­ed schools are reluc­tant, some will allow the trans­fer from a nation­al­ly accred­it­ed school, on a case-by-case basis.

Region­al accred­it­ing agen­cies admin­is­ter their over­sight ser­vices to a defined geo­graph­ic region with­in the coun­try. Region­al accred­i­ta­tion is con­sid­ered the stan­dard for high­er edu­ca­tion by the US Depart­ment of Education.

Specialized Program Accreditation

Spe­cial­ized Accred­i­ta­tion fol­lows the same eval­u­a­tive process; the dif­fer­ence is that the accred­i­ta­tion process­es focus on a very spe­cif­ic top­ic or pro­gram. The gold stan­dard to engi­neer­ing and relat­ed fields is ABET.

ABET Accreditation

The ABET accred­i­ta­tion process (which was for­mer­ly known as the Accred­i­ta­tion Board for Engi­neer­ing, and Tech­nol­o­gy) focus­es on STEM edu­ca­tion degree pro­grams. Grad­u­ates from ABET-accred­it­ed pro­grams bring for­ward a des­ig­na­tion that impacts their career path as future employ­ers under­stand their edu­ca­tion includes ABET accred­i­ta­tion requirements.

ABET accred­its post­sec­ondary pro­grams offered by insti­tu­tions of high­er learn­ing that have been region­al­ly accred­it­ed. ABET does not accred­it doc­tor­al degree pro­grams or cer­tifi­cate programs.

Is ABET Accreditation Important for Computer Science Degree Programs?

ABET-accred­it­ed schools, includ­ing ABET-accred­it­ed online schools, offer stu­dents an assur­ance that the game design pro­gram of inter­est meets the ABET accred­i­ta­tion require­ments– set forth by pro­fes­sion­als and indus­try experts in the fields of Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing, Com­put­ing, and Applied Science.

Note: ABET-accred­it­ed online schools meet the exact same require­ments of pro­grams offered on-campus.

Types of Video Game Design and Development Degrees

When video games first hit the mar­ket near­ly 40 years ago, a video game design degree would have been unthink­able. The indus­try was in its infan­cy — the fick­le mar­ket­place had yet to decide if the video game rev­o­lu­tion was here to stay — and pro­gram­mers were garage tin­ker­ers and hard-core nerds. How­ev­er, mar­ket research today reveals that video games are no longer con­sid­ered child’s play. Seniors and edu­ca­tors take advan­tage of the men­tal agili­ty (and fun) offered by dig­i­tal game­play. Video games are quite effec­tive in train­ing groups and individuals.

Game Design degree pro­grams now offer game art degree majors an oppor­tu­ni­ty to apply for game design­er jobs — cre­at­ing video games with enter­tain­ment, edu­tain­ment or a train­ing objective.

Game design schools and game design col­leges offer­ing game design degree pro­grams are now more wide­ly avail­able. Many game design bachelor’s degree pro­grams are offered on cam­pus, while some bach­e­lor of arts in game design pro­grams are deliv­ered online or in a hybrid for­mat — a com­bi­na­tion of video game online cours­es and tra­di­tion­al classroom/lab coursework.

Top game design col­leges that offer video game design­er train­ing are eas­i­ly iden­ti­fied by a quick Inter­net search using phras­es like Video Game Design Schools Near Me and Gam­ing Schools Near Me. For those stu­dents only inter­est­ed in game design schools online, search for the right game design schools online using phras­es like Game Design Degree Online, Game Design Schools Online, or Online from the best game design colleges.

Game devel­op­ment col­leges and game devel­op­ment schools offer a game devel­op­ment degree Online in three gen­er­al categories:

• Com­put­er Programming
• Game Design
• Game Devel­op­ment

Video Game Design Degree Specializations

Game design col­leges and game devel­op­ment schools now offer spe­cial­ty degree in game design and devel­op­ment pro­grams. The video game design­er degree require­ments for these spe­cial­ties incor­po­rate the video design basics of art, ani­ma­tion, art his­to­ry, design analy­sis, and game strat­e­gy. Game design schools offer pro­grams to pre­pare stu­dents for careers as

• Art Direc­tor
• Cre­ative Director
• Lev­el Designer
• Storyboard/concept Direc­tor
• Three-Dimen­sion­al or Tex­tur­al Artist
• Visu­al Effects Director

A degree in video game devel­op­ment from top game design col­leges can now open the door to many career oppor­tu­ni­ties in the game­play industry.

Bachelor’s in Game Design

A game design bachelor’s degree pro­gram typ­i­cal­ly meets the video game design­er degree require­ments for most entry-lev­el video design posi­tions. A Bachelor’s in Game Design degree offered by some of the best game design col­leges is a pru­dent edu­ca­tion path to a suc­cess­ful game­play design career.

An under­grad­u­ate game art degree often includes the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of a practicum or intern­ship to grad­u­ate. A bachelor’s game devel­op­ment degree grad­u­ate (with hands-on pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence) is well-posi­tioned as a com­pet­i­tive job can­di­date when enter­ing the game design field.

The Take-Away

Stu­dents are advised to research game design online cours­es com­plete­ly before decid­ing which of the names on the nar­rowed list of game devel­op­ment col­leges is the right fit. Would a game devel­op­ment degree online be best? Or would it be best, to begin with, video game design­er training?

So, if you search for:

• Game Design Online Courses?
• A Game Design Degree Online?
• Video Game Design Schools Near Me? or,
• An Online Game Devel­op­ment degree from Gam­ing Schools Near Me?

You will soon learn that there are many top game design col­leges avail­able to meet your needs, and the right online game devel­op­ment degree is wait­ing for you.

Certifications and Licenses in Game Design and Development

Cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and licens­es, in gen­er­al, act as writ­ten evi­dence that a neu­tral 3rd par­ty has eval­u­at­ed an individual’s knowl­edge and skill lev­el. This writ­ten assur­ance of an individual’s qual­i­fi­ca­tions is gen­er­al­ly grant­ed by:

• Gov­ern­men­tal and gov­ern­ing agen­cies issue pro­fes­sion­al licenses
• Uni­ver­si­ties, schools, and pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions issue certifications

Most cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and licens­es are issued with an expi­ra­tion date, while oth­ers remain in effect if the license/certificate hold­er meets the issuer’s year­ly require­ments in the form of year­ly dues/fees and con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion. In gen­er­al, a license or cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is in place to pro­tect the public.

The Game Design Industry & Game Designer Qualifications

The video game indus­try has grown into a seri­ous­ly large and prof­itable seg­ment of the gam­ing indus­try. Typ­i­cal­ly, game design­er qual­i­fi­ca­tions, at a bare min­i­mum, require the indi­vid­ual to pos­sess the fol­low­ing game design skills:

• Adept Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Skills
• Artis­tic flair, or a com­pre­hen­sive arts edu­ca­tion, or both
• Atten­tion to detail, project man­age­ment, and bud­getary skills
• Exten­sive tech­ni­cal knowl­edge in the realm of com­put­ers and graphics
• Game Lev­el Expertise
• User-Inter­face Concepts
• Video Tech­nol­o­gy

These game design skills are gen­er­al­ly gained through a bachelor’s degree pro­gram that is com­plet­ed over four to five years. How­ev­er, it is pos­si­ble to earn a game design cer­tifi­cate at a near­by col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty, or one can earn a game design online cer­tifi­cate from the many out­stand­ing pro­grams offered through dis­tance learn­ing options.

These online video game design cer­tifi­cate pro­grams and game design and devel­op­ment cours­es offer con­ve­nience and the flex­i­bil­i­ty to study when a stu­dent has the time, any time — day or night. A game design cer­tifi­cate online pro­gram is often the best way to gain knowl­edge and skill while work­ing full time.

There are game design online free pro­grams by many pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ties avail­able through the grow­ing use of MOOCs — Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es. Stu­dents enrolled in the game design online free pro­grams often have the option of pay­ing a nom­i­nal fee for a writ­ten cer­tifi­cate denot­ing the student’s suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of coursework.

A Word about On the Job Training (OJT), or How to Become a Game Designer without a Degree

Typ­i­cal­ly, video game devel­op­ers and design­ers enter the game­play work­force with a bachelor’s degree in a game design-relat­ed field. How­ev­er, some indi­vid­u­als can obtain the required game design qual­i­fi­ca­tions through employ­ers who have a ded­i­cat­ed on-the-job train­ing pro­gram. Still, oth­ers begin their video design­er careers as interns, learn­ing from the ground up, as they go.

In some ways, this sort of train­ing could be viewed as a ‘paid men­tor­ship.’ New­bies to the com­pa­ny sit along­side mem­bers of the game design devel­op­ment team and train for each role in the game design. Dur­ing this time, the employ­er, and the employ­ee can decide if the job, the com­pa­ny, and the indi­vid­ual are the right fit.

Often, OJT employ­ees sup­ple­ment the train­ing with short course­work online or by attend­ing a ‘brick and mor­tar’ classroom.

Addi­tion­al­ly, it is not­ed that the game design indus­try, due to its high­ly tech­ni­cal under­pin­nings, is in a con­stant state of change and devel­op­ment. It is crit­i­cal for all video game pro­fes­sion­als to remain cur­rent with mar­ket con­di­tions and the skills need­ed to remain in demand.

Careers in Video Game Design and Development

A video game design­er is a crit­i­cal part of the game devel­op­ment process of design, coor­di­na­tion, and imple­men­ta­tion of a new gam­ing expe­ri­ence. Game devel­op­ment jobs include:

• Animation/Art Design/Graphics
• Char­ac­ter Design
• Code Writ­ing — Vary­ing Languages
• Game­play rules
• Lev­el Rela­tion­ship Design, Pat­tern, and Alignment
• Music, Sound Effects, Music Mix­ing, Orig­i­nal Scores
• Over­all Project Man­age­ment, man­u­al creation
• Pro­to­typ­ing and test­ing meth­ods to reveal errors and offer sug­ges­tions for
• improve­ment
• Puz­zle Configuration
• Scor­ing Methodologies
• Sto­ry­line Devel­op­ment and Writing

In addi­tion, a game design­er job requires a ver­sa­tile team play­er. In the ear­ly days, a com­mer­cial game could be pro­grammed by one per­son, but today, devel­op­ment on a seri­ous video game can take years or work by many spe­cial­ized teams, all of whom con­tribute some­thing to the process. The era of the lone pio­neer­ing genius are behind us — the field is just too com­plex for any sin­gle person.

Video Game Designer Education Requirements

The major­i­ty of game devel­op­ment jobs require job appli­cants to pos­sess a bac­calau­re­ate degree (or high­er) in a game­play relat­ed field. As such, except in unique cir­cum­stances, video game design­er edu­ca­tion require­ments include a bachelor’s lev­el degree is a rel­e­vant topic/subject.

The tal­ents required to fill the vari­ety of video game design jobs nec­es­sary to cre­ate an excep­tion­al video game come from the fields of art, com­put­ers, soft­ware spe­cial­ists, graph­ic design, fine art, scriptwrit­ing, musi­cal com­po­si­tion, and busi­ness. Togeth­er, each video design­er job con­tributes to the ulti­mate cre­ation of inter­ac­tive game­play expe­ri­ence for enter­tain­ment, train­ing or education.

Video Game Design Jobs

Entry-lev­el game devel­op­ment jobs as a char­ac­ter, or sto­ry­board artist, or as a com­put­er pro­gram­mer. With expe­ri­ence, video game design jobs grow to include that of a lev­el devel­op­er, a tex­tur­al design­er, or ani­ma­tor. Through addi­tion­al expe­ri­ence and certifications/additional edu­ca­tion, game devel­op­ment jobs may include a mix and match of:

• Ani­ma­tor
• Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence Programmer
• Cre­ative Director
• Game Bal­ancer — Fun, Dif­fi­cul­ty-lev­el, Opti­miza­tion integrator
• Game Design­er, a game visionary
• Game Engi­neer
• Gam­ing Programmer
• Lead Artist
• Lead Sto­ry­teller
• Mod­el­er
• Music Engi­neer
• Project Man­ag­er
• Puz­zle Designer
• Scor­ing Wizard
• Sim­u­la­tions Programmer
• Soft­ware Appli­ca­tions Developer
• Tools Pro­gram­mer
• Video-Game Devel­op­er

The Video Game Designer Job Outlook

The video game indus­try rivals in size to that of the film indus­try and is antic­i­pat­ed to con­tin­ue with strong growth in the near future. With tech­nol­o­gy explod­ing in every imag­in­able direc­tion, the video game design­er job out­look looks quite positive.

The fed­er­al government’s Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics (BLS) reveals that the video game indus­try — the indus­try, in which a video game design­er spe­cial­izes, is antic­i­pat­ed to grow at an eight per­cent rate between the years of 2016 and 2026. It is not­ed that the video game industry’s antic­i­pat­ed growth exceeds the aver­age growth of all indus­tries com­bined through the year 2026.

Salary Expectations for Video Game Design

Giv­en the fact that the com­put­er gam­ing indus­try is val­ued in the tens of bil­lions of dol­lars, it would be no sur­prise to learn that the medi­an video game design­er salary exceeds $72,000 (or $34.87/hour) per year. Of course, $72,000 is only an aver­age video game design salary, so it is not­ed that game design­ers’ salaries vary from region to region across the country.

The Unit­ed States government’s Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics (BLS) reveals that the video game indus­try is antic­i­pat­ed to grow at an 8% rate through the year 2026 — faster than the aver­age of all indus­tries combined.

The video game industry’s strong pro­ject­ed growth will cre­ate robust demand for video game design tal­ent. Ulti­mate­ly, the economies of sup­ply and demand will dri­ve up video game design­er salary and game devel­op­ment salary. On the oth­er hand, video game design salary depends on expe­ri­ence; an indi­vid­ual who stays in the field will see game design and devel­op­ment salary go up with time.

The game devel­op­ment salary most in demand, at least for today’s cur­rent mar­ket­place, is for those game design pro­fes­sion­als with exten­sive train­ing in game­play indus­try spe­cial­ties; such as a 3D artist, an Unre­al Game Devel­op­er, and an Expert Mobile Game Devel­op­er, to name just a few.

Salary Expectations for Game Designers and Developers

Like most pro­fes­sions and careers, a video game design­er salary varies based upon the professional’s length, depth, and breadth of video game design indus­try expe­ri­ence. Through expe­ri­ence, pro­fes­sion­als devel­op skill sets and unique abil­i­ties. These often-intan­gi­ble skill fac­tors (built through per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence) dri­ve a video game design salary in the upward direc­tion. A decade ago, graph­ics pro­gram­mers received pre­mi­um salaries for their work. More recent­ly, serv­er pro­gram­mers were receiv­ing a salary premium.

As one fine-tunes their career path, it is impor­tant to stay cur­rent with salary trends in the game design indus­try and take advan­tage of indus­try spe­cial­ty demand shifts as they occur.

Game Design Employment Benefits

Many game design pro­fes­sion­als receive addi­tion­al com­pen­sa­tion in the form of finan­cial ben­e­fits and bonus­es. Addi­tion­al ben­e­fits include

• Med­ical Insurance
• Den­tal Insurance
• Employ­er-Spon­sored Retire­ment Pro­grams — often with employ­er contributions

Professional Organizations in the Video Game Industry

A pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion can be found in every field and indus­try. Pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions are cre­at­ed for a vari­ety of pur­pos­es, such as offer­ing an update regard­ing indus­try news & trends. How­ev­er, most video game orga­ni­za­tions under­take the role of the industry’s voice, advo­cat­ing for the indus­try and its mem­bers with the gov­ern­ment and the public.

Pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions for video game design­ers are no dif­fer­ent. Stu­dent (and new video game pro­fes­sion­als) mem­ber­ship costs are typ­i­cal­ly reduced for these video game asso­ci­a­tions; mak­ing the pro­fes­sion­al mem­ber­ship quite afford­able, and thus valuable.

A mem­ber­ship to one of the avail­able video game orga­ni­za­tions gen­er­al­ly includes:

Men­tor­ship: Like many indus­tries, video game pro­fes­sion­als fol­low the belief that men­tor­ship is often a crit­i­cal com­po­nent for young video game pro­fes­sion­als’ suc­cess. The pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion, through a selec­tion process, match up game design sea­soned pro­fes­sion­als with those new to the pro­fes­sion. Men­tor­ships are invalu­able learn­ing tools.

Job Boards: Each pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion decides on just how com­plex its job list­ing ser­vices will be. Check out each poten­tial pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion to learn more.

Pro­fes­sion­al Development/Continuing Edu­ca­tion: Many video game orga­ni­za­tions oper­ate with an edu­ca­tion divi­sion that coor­di­nates work­shops, con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion class­es, video game design­er pub­li­ca­tions, and a mem­bers-only website.

Net­work­ing: Pri­or to the intro­duc­tion of the super infor­ma­tion high­way last cen­tu­ry, pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions were often the best way to net­work among spe­cif­ic industry’s pro­fes­sion­als gath­ered in a social set­ting, like a con­fer­ence or a job fair.

Schol­ar­ships: Many pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions offer schol­ar­ships for a video game design edu­ca­tion. The types of schol­ar­ship and the amounts reward­ed vary from one pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion to another.

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA)

The Inter­na­tion­al Game Devel­op­ers Asso­ci­a­tion holds the dis­tinc­tion of being the largest non­prof­it pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion sup­port­ing the many and var­ied pro­fes­sion­als that con­tribute to the cre­ation of games. The Inter­na­tion­al Game Devel­op­ers Asso­ci­a­tion cat­e­go­rizes video game pro­fes­sion­als into four basic groups — Lead Design­ers, Game Design­ers, Writ­ers, and Lev­el Designers.

The IGDA uses its glob­al pres­ence to orga­nize the world’s video game professionals:

• Artists
• Com­put­er Programmers
• Design­ers
• Game Devel­op­ment Busi­ness Professionals
• Pro­duc­ers
• Writ­ers

IGDA wel­comes video game pro­fes­sion­als who work on a PC, mobile, table­top, VR/AR or a con­sole device.

The Video Game Bar Association (VGBA)

The Video Game Bar Asso­ci­a­tion is a pro­fes­sion­al organization/entity that sup­ports video game pro­fes­sion­als as they reach for the professional’s high­est lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and exper­tise. The care­ful man­age­ment of many legal and gov­ern­men­tal pro­ce­dures required to oper­ate on a nation­wide and glob­al scale accom­plish­es this. VGBA serves its mem­bers by seek­ing to improve the video game pro­fes­sion — by advanc­ing the rule of law.

The David S. Rosenbaum Scholarship

This schol­ar­ship is award­ed in hon­or of one of the Video Game Bar Association’s co-founders; David S. Rosen­baum. This hon­or is award­ed a $2,500 schol­ar­ship and an invi­ta­tion to the VGBA Annu­al Conference.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS)

The Acad­e­my of Inter­ac­tive Arts & Sci­ences, found­ed in the mid-1990s, is a pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion that seeks to rec­og­nize and advance the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty of inter­ac­tive enter­tain­ment pro­fes­sion­als. The AIAS is 30,000 mem­bers strong; with mem­bers rep­re­sent­ing inter­ac­tive game design­ers, game devel­op­ers, and pub­lish­ing lead­er­ship mem­bers from across the globe. AIAS leads the Design, Inno­vate, Com­mu­ni­cate, and Enter­tain Annu­al Apex con­fer­ence; a year­ly dia­logue regard­ing the state of the video game design industry.