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Game Development vs Web Development – Which Career?

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People who know how to code have many career options, and two of these options are web development and game development. If you are confused between these two choices, here are the key differences between them that will help you make a better decision.

Game Development

Game development is all about designing and coding a game. There are several components of developing a game, and you could be asked to work on only one component or the entire game. These components include designing and coding game characters, environment, multiplayer networking, and they are assigned to network programmers, engine programmers, based on their expertise.

A programmer uses a code framework to create an entire game. Depending on the complexity of the game, one or several developers are assigned to work together on a game. It can take them months, or even years to develop a game.

Earning Potential

How much you make as a game developer depends on several factors, including your experience, position/role and company. As a beginner, you may have to work at rates as low as $12 per hour to gain experience. As a senior game developer, you could make up to $150k plus a year.

Qualifications

You do not need to have a degree or certificate in game development to get into this industry. Knowing different computer languages and having a passion for gaming can help you make your name in the gaming world. Determine what you want to do (sound engineering, designing, etc.), then learn related skills to start off on the right foot.

Web Development

A web developer has to develop, maintain, and fix a website based on the client’s requirements. They know different computer languages such as Python, HTML, PHP, and CSS, that they use to bring a web design to reality.

A front-end developer knows CSS and HTML, and he uses these languages to give a website a particular look. A back-end developer gets information from databases to write core logic. He mainly utilizes Node.js, Python, and PHP languages.

Earning Potential

Compared to game development, web development is a “low stress” job. It does not require as much work as game development requires, yet it pays really well, according to digitalbarketing.co.uk. Its demand is also increasing with each passing year. As a web developer, you can earn an average of $80k per year.

Qualifications

As a web developer, having a bachelor’s degree in computer science can be advantageous for you. People who have no computer science degree, but have experience and skills can also succeed in this field. If you are planning to choose this career, you can learn the required skills through platforms like Coursera, and Amazon Web Services.

Career Opportunities in Both Industries

Lensa is one of the top job boards to find game development jobs. The US job board uses AI and machine learning to instantly match game developers, whether freelancers or in-house professionals, with the best opportunities. Moreover, thanks to Lensa’s smarter job search and career advocacy, job seekers can make better decisions and find fulfilling career paths in game development. 

Both game development and web development are promising fields offering several career opportunities to interested candidates. However, web development requires less experience and stress, yet it pays really well. What would you choose?

Last Updated: September 19, 2023

One Comment

  1. nortee

    September 21, 2021 at 11:33

    html is not defined as a coding language and nor is css… It may seem like it is but it is not…. I think you are talking about jquery or angular or react (as examples)…. Please get your facts straight… html/css is used by the browser to render the noted element (the ‘decorator’ pattern in terms of the browser itself and not what is being sent back from the web server)…

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