The first lesson will discuss just how many different forces work together to drive the development of a new game. This lesson will explore the differences between a developer and a publisher, and you'll learn about developer-publisher hybrids. In order to understand where one is going, it helps to know about where he/or she have been, so this lesson will also review the recent history of game development, keeping an eye on just how much the practice of building games has changed in recent years.

Every game begins as an idea, an expansion, or an elaboration. These approaches carry certain risks—especially if you're trying to do something that's never been done before! In this lesson, you'll learn a lot more about how to evaluate and prepare for the technical risks involved in building your game. This lesson will explore different types of game engines, licensing a game engine, and the very important role that development tools play in the game creation process. Commercial games are always created on a specific schedule, so it will be important for you to understand how a team-based learning curve can and will influence your development schedule.

It will take astute planning to take your game all the way from an idea to a completed game title. To plan for a successful outcome, you'll need to understand how to task and track a game project. A publisher will be working closely to ensure that a planned title is on track for a timely delivery, so this lesson will take some time to discuss the publisher review process and how to maintain an efficient design production pipeline.

In today's game market, a single game title may be under construction for a wide array of very different platforms with specific art, code, and audio requirements. So it's important that you consider how multi-cycle or multi-loop development impacts a widely ported title. In this lesson students will begin to analyze the many different game genres and identify potential risk areas. The game industry is dynamic, and rules are written and broken quickly, so you'll also spend some time considering some industry thought patterns on the more established and popular gaming devices available.

After going through a long development cycle and overcoming many milestones, game developers prepare for taking a game "gold" or ready for release to the player market. Yet the work doesn't even stop here. A new work cycle begins to let players know about the game your team has just completed. Publishing and development efforts must now work in tandem to ensure a successful result. What are the basic methods that publishers use to promote their games? This lesson will consider several options.

The personal computer will always offer gaming content—after all, people will always want to take a break from work to play. And that's good news for developers! Yet the way people receive games and what they can do with them is changing significantly and rapidly. There are many new and emerging platforms and gaming devices fighting for attention and for new gaming content. Knowing all of this to be true, what will be the modern game designer's role? How must one evolve to meet the next age of game building? This lesson will look in detail at some specific game design tools and how to use them to ones advantage.

As players crave deeper, more richly detailed gaming experiences, the role and presence of writing increases. Some gaming genres benefit greatly from well-crafted written materials helping to take the gamer along on a great adventure. With a wide range of players at many skill levels from absolute beginner to seasoned veteran, how will you balance the difficulty level of your game? How will you build the right experience for your player? This is often called the "tuning" process, and this lesson will explore it in detail. This lesson will look at how important game play iteration is in producing a well-balanced game that challenges but doesn't overwhelm. Game Audio and Scripting are just two of the many elements that will be considered that build the shape of the players' experience.

Every game that crosses the finish line is the result of a collision of many powerful forces. How do developers handle this collision of time, budget, and functionality? Trade-offs and compromise are at the core of development. You simply can't have everything all at once and meet your goals. Let's not forget the kids! How is content building for kids different than building for a more mature audience? This lesson will look at the major differences and consider some special game examples.

Nobody really has a better view of big picture development than a game's producer. The producer is often the only true development generalist, picking up all of the abandoned details left by the content teams in programming, art, design, and audio. Production resources become the working interface between marketing and public relations. How do each of these teams find ways to work together? This lesson will stop to focus some more on technical support and customer service support needs for game titles, and consider the strong trend toward outsourcing game development entirely. Finally, this lesson will look into the forces that simple ethics exert on content direction decisions.

You've covered plenty of ground! It's time to take a moment and reflect with a complete review of the game design process. Now that you know about industry dynamics, how can you best pursue the industry? This lesson will start to answer that question specifically, and discuss many forms of preparation for the wide variety of career tracks possible in the modern games industry.