I personally prefer game programmer. Its right to the point. Think about it, game programmers are like wizards. Who can make their own scripting language, AI, renderer? That is truly legendary. I think a game developer is way too broad, it can be anything (artist, programmer, writer, designer).

What do you guys prefer? And why so?

There are two even broader terms for both of them: Game Maker, and Game Creator

The terms you were referring (artists, programmer, writer, designer, etc.), when unified as one term, it is called a Game Developer. This term is broadly used for those whose job is to improve/develop/emulate/evolve the game designs, such as story plots, characters, the interactions between this and that, level designs, etc. They develop what the game should be when you play the game. Game Developers may be split into finer terms, and how these terms are defined is up to the studio/team/company.

For the term, Game Producer, this term is used when a person also does the business side of the game.

The term, Game Programmer, is strictly used for those whose job is to program codes. I lightly disliked having that term used for meaning other things other than programming codes.

Example:

An indie game creator/maker would call themselves (gender-neutrally used singular pronoun in a plural form) a game developer, because that person (just one) creates all the assets of the game. If that person were to start marketing their game, then that person can also be called a game producer. If that person stops/halts/suspends their current game and moved on to the next game, that person's title may be changed. If that person starts to code, that person is called a game programmer. If that person wants to create graphics, that person is then called a game artist, but still retains the title, game programmer. And so on.

A person can retain as many titles as one can possibly can, only limited by their abilities. If a person were to master all levels of each role in a team, that person may be entited to the term, lead development team, lead team executive, or a hacker.

Again, all terms are highly disputable and may not reflect upon most companies/studios/teams out there.

This is my self-taught notes that were jotted down when I start my CS major as a freshman. Especially when I started playing Game Dev Story, by KairoSoft.

Agreed with tom_mai above.

Everyone involved in the process is a game developer. The concept artists, modelers, animators, programmers, designers, producers, and other assorted disciplines are all game developers.

Only a subset of those are game programmers. Another subset are game animators. Another subset are game designers. Etc.

I am personally fine with being called a game developer or a game programmer. As long as it says "I make games", I'm fine with that.

I would be grateful just to be called just a plain ol' programmer...

Seriously, though, I suppose I would have to fall under "game developer" because I can also do a bit of 3D modelling and animation too. I haven't gone pro yet, mind you, but hell...I still go ahead and do it anyway!

As mentioned, they refer to different jobs with a small overlap in which one encompasses the other, but if we assume the commonly understood meaning behind “game developer” is the same as “game programmer”, I, like any programmer, would prefer “game programmer”.

It implies a level above and beyond that of mere mortals. The words themselves often awe people as an aura of blinding light surrounds my body, letting them know that like Daniel Jackson I have ascended. People turn their heads as I walk the streets, my ears catching glimpses of people whispering, “Are you sure? Not just a developer but a programmer?”

And I snap my head towards them and I tower above them and in the deepest voice of the Gods I say, “Correction: I’m an R&D game programmer.” And the windows of every building within a 3-mile (4.82803-kilometer) radius smash into pieces and the tides rise, and on the 7th day I said, “Let there be-”

<C:\>_

What the-?
I committed a bug. FUUUUUCCKK!!


L. Spiro

Neither, really. I place more value in who I am as a person, rather than something that is (nowadays) a small part of what I do. You could take that what-I-do away from me and I'd still be much the same person.

Hi,

Game developer is the person or company which is ultimately responsible for the creation of a video game, regardless of capabilities or results.

The game development industry need for standard terms is constantly struggling with individuality. Formal education and industry leaders try to clear the confusion with standardization of terms, but there has yet to be complete agreement among even them.

In the industry, 'what to call what' and 'what to call who' has some flexibility. I personally have talked with game developers, game designers, and lead programmers who each have a little bit of a unique jargon that is found in the particular company culture in which they work.

I know a game developer who knows almost nothing about actual coding of applications because he depends on a lead programmer and an assistant programmer. Another case, I know a game developer/ expert programmer who knows relatively little about game design and fine art asset creation, but knows enough to make a game. We need to be careful because of the reality of "form follows function" or "function follows form" as well as personal abilities.

Three Categories of Game Developer:

1) Indy - Programming heavy, meaning that coding is dominant in the organization, though not all Indy game devs are coding heavy and not always a single person.

2) Corporate - Concept and Design heavy, shows that a game engine and much of the game source code is in place (reused libraries), so they depend on concept and design with mostly pre-made art assets which they acquired and adapted to their game. (Note: There are plenty of exceptions to this mainstream corporate trend.)

3) WYSIWYG - Artist and art heavy game development is a growing area where the developers know little or nothing about coding but depend on a very artist friendly game engine which provides What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG - pronounced Wiz-A-Wig) programming using only the user interface for content and functionality programming. The software interprets the actions of the WYSIWYG user and makes code for the game developer.

Most beginning and intermediate game developers must fill several roles such as programmer, designer, artist, publisher, and lawyer ( ).

Game developer is standard and a 100% acceptable label for the person or company responsible for the development of a game.

I realized a while ago that titles are kind of meaningless / pointless. Call yourself whatever you want, or don't call yourself anything. At the end of the day, how you identify yourself doesn't have any bearing on what you actually do/produce. I almost think that spending too much time figuring out what to call yourself is a distraction and waste of time. (Note: This is all in the case that you're choosing your own title. If you're in an organization which assigns titles, then trying to figure this out is equally pointless since its not your decision to make.) The thing is, a title of any scope, rarely describes what anyone truly does. If today I figure out the requirements for this software, am I a "Requirements Analyst"? Or, today I spend time figuring out how I want to architect so aspect of my end product. Does that make me a designer or architect? Or maybe I spend a week writing a few thousand lines of code. Now I'm a programmer. Or I spend time doing testing. Am I a QA guy now? Or maybe I spend some effort managing the project, its scope, features, budget, etc. Project manager! Or I work on devising and executing a marketing plan. Marketing and sales guy?! The problem I have with titles is that it becomes too easy to mentally pigeon hole ourselves and start saying "...that's not my job or concern." when really, it is. You own everything, from start to finish.

That's all fine and dandy, but as a person in the industry advances hisorher career then the industry will increasingly demand more accurate label upon such a person.

I'd reject both labels (and any other as matter of course), I don't want to be called either.

Picking a label both limits what you will approach yourself and what other people think you're capable of, it leads to "that's not my job" ism, when everyone should try to at least have an understanding over other disciplines even if they aren't skilled in them.

Leave titles to companies that insist upon it and if you want a title for yourself go with "Awesomenaut" (or similar). Unfortunately my most accurate label would appear to be "code mercenary".

(Edit: I appear to have echoed slayemin, in response to 3Ddreamer, let the industry and community decide what they want to call such a person, they still don't need to label themselves).