The paradox of the Russian game development.
At the Moscow International Video Game Week, Dmitry Zhukov, a leading game designer at Game Art Pioneers studio, voiced one of the most pressing problems in the Russian game industry: the market is overflowing with creative specialists, but there is an acute shortage of those who can combine creativity and the technical side.
The cross-section shows: stylization, realism, illustration — there are enough specialists for every taste. But a glaring shortage begins where it is necessary to connect creativity and programming.
According to him, there is a particular shortage of technical game designers — specialists who can not only come up with mechanics, but also ensure seamless interaction with programmers.
The game designer writes, thinks, balances. Programmers implement ideas. But the small gap between them — interaction, language, mutual understanding — often falls out. And the mechanics stall
Zhukov paid special attention to narrative design — a profession that is only now being formed in the Russian industry and is causing controversy within teams. The expert emphasized that a narrative designer is not just a "scriptwriter in the game", but a specialist who understands how dramaturgy turns into an interactive experience and through which mechanics the player enters into a dialogue with the plot and characters.
