If you could make a living in any of these game-related occupations, which would it be and why?

Design...I have alot of game ideas that pop into my head but I don't have the pateince for the nitty gritty

I also have many ideas I think are good.
But it would also be fun to be a critic.

Review them. I always put up a detailed review on play.com of any game I buy to help other people make their decision. Would be awesome to do this and get paid for the satisfaction of helping others!

Design. I would design. But id probely only be good at the story bored/character development. I wouldnt trust my self with the other part, we mayeb anaimation btu i coudlnt do the other stuff.

I'm good at making raw ideas, and am okay at developing them. Anything else, I'm not too sure about (except for reviewing, which I think anyone with a valid opinion could do.)

Design. In fact, I'm designing one at the moment =]

Id review games. Tear up the bad ones and praise the ones that effort went into.

Play them. The others are all work.

man webcomic all the way. only more like CAD when its doing games, none of that 3 pannel penny arcade crap

I've been drawing all my life, and I always wanted to do concept art. I was going to go for it but the graphic design courses I was gonna take at the Art Institute were, well, a bit out of my price range.

$80,000 is about $79,000 out of my reach.

So its off to community college for me. *sigh*

Designing definitely. Although I could be too fussy and annoy the hell out of the dev. team.

Although it would be quite fun to review as well, I'd say I'm a fairly good critic. Would also be fun to rip into truely awful games :D

I've always written columns. I find it far more interesting to be paid to play a variety of games, then beneficially add to the larger scheme of things by creating a useful (yet still entertaining) article about mechanics, rather than any one game. In a way, I like to think I'm still helping shape development.

If I got paid for doing WoE that'd be great.

And that would be designing games.

Pah! i can do all of those because i'm awesome! But seriously, the job that let's me animate the characters and objects i believe that's Programing the games i guess. Plus I'd go to a company that lets everyone have their say in ideas (Insomniac I've heard) and pitch in my idea for games.

I'm not so much into the creating them myself (for fear of what will come out) as nitpicking someone else's creation.

Play them. If I had to work on them I wouldnt enjoy myself when playing them.

Defiantly design. Especially character design and development.

It'd be cool to work with motion capture too, but that's just me.

Design. I just like the idea of a work environment where you do what you love. What also appeals to me is that you could make choices in order to make the end result as enjoyable as possible.

Webcomic, baby. I like to think I'm a pretty good artist, and I actually have some ideas kicking around already. I'm just... terribly lazy (and I don't have a scanner or wacom tablet or anything).

I'm going to be honest...

I would LOVE to design, but I don't think I could. Many of my ideas are interesting I'm sure, but I am SOOOOO lazy, the best I could realistically do would be a Gaming Related News Column with occasional reviews.

I would rather just play games. Sometimes I think that I have good ideas, but more often I am blown away by some of the stuff that others come up with.

If we all enjoy videogame jobs, why dont we just start a company? It suddenly came to my mind after reading all the posts.

Design, to be more specific Concept art/ Art Direction. I have a few good ideas myself.

Soycopter:
If we all enjoy videogame jobs, why dont we just start a company? It suddenly came to my mind after reading all the posts.

Because the work needed is much, much bigger than you think at first. And because organisation over internet is really hard, because we can't agree on anything, much less all the things involved in making a game. Sure, it's a great idea in theory, and if it works I'll help out with all I can, but the closer you get to actually working the more you'll see how hard it really is, and how much work everyone needs to put into it.

Never go into designing games - I'd just end up making a game that I want, not a game the consumer wants. Given how I dislike quite a lot of games that do well, I'd be a dismal failure at game-designing.

I'd review games - it's fun to do, and you can be as subjective as hell and get away with it. It's basically your opinion. I don't really think it's an easy job (the sheer amount of games you'd be forced to play would be a chore, and I don't think it pays very well), but it doesn't require that much thought. Just play through it enough, write down some points along the way, expand upon them in the report, and viola, you're done. As long as you are prepared to play through a lot of games on a schedule, and as long as you're at least a functional writer, you can probably review games.

Creating a webcomic - I couldn't stand doing that. To get anywhere, you have to update somewhat regularly. You'd have to wade through email after email from fans. You'd have to maintain a regular blog. I couldn't handle that much. It requires to much "interaction" with the fan base.

Program Games? Hell no. Far, far, far too much work. To design a reasonably good game, you have to really know your stuff, work for hours upon hours, be incredibly dedicated, fiddle around with mathematics, attend meetings, and if you work for a company like EA, get paid next to nothing to boot. Designing a game might be hard, but programming one is a really, really bad job. A designer gets paid reasonably well. A programmer gets treated poorly and paid poorly, because he's replaceable.

im already writeing out a game disign(just for fun) i dout it will ever get used cause its so rediculasy revoulutionary it wuil have to apear on the PS10 xbox590 or some PC from the fuiture i also bout i cuild find a preducar or publisher sense im just a 12 year old phsycopath that loves disturbed GTA ninja gaiden GOW and POP

designing a game would be fun.. but i have no desire to work in any type of corporate environment. i guess if i had the right resources and the right people, i might try to get something off the ground.

that wuild be interesting we cuild see i we cuild get funding from escapist and maybe start out with XBOX live arcade games i wuildent hope to much tho

I'd love to work in design, but I'd also be cool with writing a weekly column related to gaming.

Blathering on about game design is one of my favourite irritating things to do to people. Why wouldn't I want to get paid to do that?

If "design" includes coming up with and refining the core structure that really defines the game (which it most definitely should, otherwise you're really just "the manager"), then totally that one.

-- Alex

Design, hands down.

TheKnifeJuggler:
Defiantly design. Especially character design and development.

Personally I can't get in the groove of organic design, nevermind character basics. Mechanics of game design are easy shmeazy for me, at least for technical aspects and modelling that is very blocky. My cousin works for EA and all he ever does is model faces, which I imagine would be cool but not for me.
Person=difficult
Biped Rigging=Cake Walk