In the video games industry there are four core disciplines and all work together to make a successful game. These roles are Games Designer, Games Programmer, Artist & Animator and QA Software Tester. Games can be produced on a wide variety of platforms such as PCs, as well as third party game consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo DS or newer devices such as the Apple iPhone. Regardless of the platform, the industry requires bright and talented people to bring games from initial idea to completion. Below is some information about each of the roles, which together form part of the games development environment and can be used to understand what you might do on a day-to-day basis once you have successfully completed the course.

Games Designer: This is one of the most important roles within the video games industry. The Games Designer will design the game play, consisting of the game's narrative, commentary, journals, dialogue, video game packaging content, cut-scene narrative, hint system, and much more. The Games Designer is the visionary of the game whose ideas will lead all other areas of the game's development.

Games Programmer: Games Programmers create the code that forms the core of all games. A Games Programmer develops the backbone of the game with a team of lead programmers who implement the game's starting codebase. Programmers can be involved with several different areas of game development such as producing the game engine, implementation of the game's rules and features known as game play, creating the AI such as planning, scripting and rule-based decisions. Other areas include sound integration, networking components for multiplayer games, user interface production such as game options, and input processing for external hardware such as keyboards and joysticks.

Artist & Animator: The Games Artist and Animator will create the video game art and is essentially the visual artist for the game's development. The artist 's job will be to produce animations, cinematics, the 3D environment as well as textures, meshes, sprites, background images and terrains, and concept art, using industry standard software such as Photoshop, Mudbox, 3D Studio Max and Maya.

QA Software Tester: A QA Software Tester will ensure that a game runs from start to finish in the way that is meant to, this means there are no unexpected errors and the game player can enjoy the game as it is supposed to be played. The QA Tester will be involved in analyzing issues in games and then deconstructing these issues with recommendations of how they can be fixed and even how the gameplay can be improved further.

A course advisor can help explain each area in more detail and also help you make a decision on what is best for you after hearing about your personal goals and natural abilities.