Game Designer Ats Optimization Checklist

ATS Optimization Checklist for Game Designer Resumes

O*NET classifies Video Game Designers under SOC 15-1255.01 — a Bright Outlook occupation where 55% of professionals hold a bachelor's degree and the broader Web and Digital Interface Designers category reports a median annual wage of $95,380 ¹². The 2025 GDC salary report paints a sharper picture: U.S. game industry professionals average $142,000, with a median of $129,000, yet 98% of respondents rate the industry as less secure than other fields and 29% say they are unlikely to stay long-term ³. The Entertainment Software Association reports the U.S. video game industry supports over 350,000 jobs with average incomes of $168,600 — more than double the national average — while generating $66 billion in GDP ⁴. With over 109,000 gaming jobs posted in 2025 following 14,000 layoffs in 2024, competition for stable game designer positions is fierce ⁵. Your resume must survive ATS keyword screening before any creative director reads your design document samples or GDD portfolio.

This checklist covers ATS parsing rules, keyword strategies, and formatting requirements specific to game design roles — systems design, level design, narrative design, combat design, economy design, and UX design. If you work primarily in 3D art, animation, or programming, see the companion checklists for those disciplines instead.

Key Takeaways

• Game engine and design tool keywords determine ATS ranking. "Unreal Engine 5" and "UE5" are different search strings. "Unity" and "Unity 2023 LTS" trigger different matches. Mirror the exact tool names from the job posting, and include both abbreviated and full forms when space allows.
• Design documentation artifacts are searchable keywords. Terms like "game design document," "GDD," "systems design doc," "balance spreadsheet," and "feature specification" signal production-level game design experience. Recruiters search these terms directly.
• Shipped titles and platform keywords carry significant ATS weight. "PlayStation 5," "Xbox Series X," "Nintendo Switch," "Steam," "iOS," and "Android" are terms hiring managers filter by. A resume that says "shipped a game" without specifying platforms misses critical keyword matches.
• Metrics separate senior designers from junior applicants. Retention rate improvements, DAU/MAU ratios, session length increases, conversion rate lifts, and player engagement percentages are the quantified outcomes ATS and human reviewers both prioritize.
• Portfolio and design doc links supplement but never replace resume text. ATS cannot crawl Google Drive links, Notion pages, or personal websites. Every system, mechanic, and design methodology referenced in your portfolio must exist as parseable text on your resume.

Common ATS Keywords for Game Designers

The keywords below are drawn from O*NET task descriptions for SOC 15-1255.01, studio job postings across AAA, indie, and mobile, and standard game production terminology ¹⁶. Organize them by category on your resume.

Game Engines & Development Tools

Engines: Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), Unity (HDRP, URP), Godot Engine, CryEngine, proprietary engine, Source 2, Decima, Frostbite

Level Design Tools: Unreal Editor, Unity Terrain, ProBuilder, World Machine, Gaea, Houdini (procedural generation), TileEd, Tiled Map Editor

Prototyping & Scripting: Unreal Blueprints, Unity Visual Scripting, Bolt, Lua scripting, Python scripting, C# scripting, GDScript, Ink (narrative scripting), Twine, Yarn Spinner, Articy:Draft

Version Control & Production: Perforce (P4V), Git, Plastic SCM, JIRA, Confluence, Notion, Shotgun (ShotGrid), Hansoft, Monday.com, Azure DevOps

Design Disciplines & Methodologies

Systems Design: Game mechanics, core loop, meta loop, economy design, progression systems, reward schedules, loot tables, drop rates, difficulty curves, rubber banding, dynamic difficulty adjustment, min-maxing prevention, balance tuning, systems modeling

Level Design: Spatial layout, flow mapping, pacing, sight lines, critical path, golden path, environmental storytelling, encounter design, puzzle design, world building, biome design, blockout, greybox, whitebox, playtest iteration

Narrative Design: Interactive narrative, branching dialogue, dialogue trees, player agency, narrative pacing, lore development, worldbuilding, quest design, cinematic scripting, barks, voice-over direction, localization support

Combat & Action Design: Combat systems, hitbox/hurtbox, frame data, damage tuning, ability design, cooldown balancing, crowd control mechanics, PvP balance, PvE balance, boss encounter design, enemy AI behavior

UX & Player Experience: Onboarding flow, tutorial design, UI/UX wireframing, player journey mapping, friction reduction, accessibility design, FTUE (first-time user experience), churn analysis, retention mechanics, engagement loops

Scripting & Technical Skills

C#, C++, Lua, Python, Blueprint scripting, visual scripting, XML, JSON, SQL, data-driven design, spreadsheet modeling (Excel, Google Sheets), analytics integration, A/B testing frameworks, telemetry, LiveOps tools, playfab, GameAnalytics

Production & Methodology

Agile, Scrum, sprint planning, backlog grooming, retrospectives, milestone delivery, vertical slice, alpha, beta, gold master, certification (cert), day-one patch, live service, post-launch support, feature specification, design review, cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder presentation

Certifications & Education

Unity Certified Developer, Unreal Authorized Instructor, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), Game Design degree (BA/BFA/BS), Computer Science degree, MFA in Interactive Media, DigiPen, Full Sail, USC Games, NYU Game Center, Carnegie Mellon ETC

Resume Format Requirements

ATS parsers read documents sequentially — left to right, top to bottom — and assign content to fields based on section header recognition ⁷. Game designers face a specific formatting risk: portfolios and GDDs reward visual presentation, but ATS rewards machine-readable text.

File Format

Submit as .docx unless the posting explicitly requests PDF. Word documents parse more reliably across Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, iCIMS, and Taleo. If PDF is required, export from Word or Google Docs — never from InDesign, Photoshop, or Figma. Design-tool exports frequently rasterize text into image layers, producing a document that looks polished but contains zero extractable text for ATS.

Layout Structure

• Single column only. Two-column and sidebar layouts cause ATS to interleave content from adjacent columns, scrambling your skills section into your work history or dropping sections entirely.
• No graphics, icons, or skill-level bars. Gauge charts showing "Unity: 90%" or controller icons next to platform names are invisible to ATS. Replace visual indicators with text: "Unity — Advanced (5+ years, 3 shipped titles)."
• No tables or text boxes. Tables used to organize tool grids parse unpredictably. ATS may read cells in wrong order or skip table contents entirely.
• No headers or footers for critical content. Your name, contact information, and portfolio URL must appear in the document body. Many ATS platforms ignore header/footer regions during text extraction.
• Standard section headings. Use exactly: "Professional Summary," "Experience" or "Professional Experience," "Education," "Skills," "Projects" (optional), "Certifications" (optional). Non-standard headings like "Design Philosophy" or "Creative Arsenal" will not map to ATS fields.

Font and Spacing

Use 10-12pt in a standard font (Calibri, Arial, Times New Roman). Minimum 0.5-inch margins. Avoid decorative or display fonts — ATS may fail to extract text rendered in non-standard typefaces. Use bold for section headers and job titles only.

Name and Contact Header

Format your name with links on the first line of the document body:

ALEX CHEN
Game Designer | Systems & Level Design
alex.chen@email.com | (555) 234-5678 | linkedin.com/in/alexchen | portfolio: alexchen.design

This ensures ATS captures your title specialization and contact fields. Include portfolio URLs as plain text — ATS stores them as searchable strings even though it cannot crawl the linked content.

Professional Experience Optimization

Game design achievements become ATS-competitive when they include player impact metrics, system scope, platform specifics, and production context. Generic descriptions like "designed game mechanics" contain no searchable differentiators.

Bullet Formula

[Action verb] + [design deliverable] + [tool/methodology] + [scope/quantity] + [measurable outcome]

Before/After Examples

1. Systems Design

• Before: "Designed game systems for the project"
• After: "Designed and balanced a 4-tier weapon progression system with 48 unique items across 6 damage types, using Excel-based simulation models to validate TTK (time-to-kill) targets that reduced PvP balance complaints by 35% post-launch"

2. Level Design

• Before: "Created levels for the game"
• After: "Built 12 multiplayer maps in Unreal Engine 5 from greybox to final art handoff, iterating through 80+ playtests to achieve average session lengths 22% above studio benchmarks and a 4.2/5 community rating on 3 maps selected for ranked rotation"

3. Economy Design

• Before: "Worked on the in-game economy"
• After: "Architected dual-currency economy (soft/hard) for free-to-play mobile title with 1.2M MAU, tuning sink-source ratios across 15 progression milestones that improved D30 retention by 8% and average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) by 12%"

4. Narrative Design

• Before: "Wrote storylines and dialogue"
• After: "Authored 45,000 words of branching dialogue across 23 quests in Articy:Draft, implementing 4 major narrative branches with 12 endings that achieved 78% player completion rate versus 52% studio average for optional quest content"

5. Combat Design

• Before: "Designed the combat system"
• After: "Designed frame-data-driven combat system with 8 playable characters, each with 15+ unique abilities, balancing hitbox timing and damage curves through 200+ hours of internal playtesting that achieved less than 3% win-rate deviation across all characters in ranked PvP"

6. Tutorial & Onboarding

• Before: "Made the game tutorial"
• After: "Redesigned FTUE (first-time user experience) flow from 14 steps to 7, integrating contextual tooltips and gated ability reveals in Unity that reduced Day 1 churn by 18% and increased tutorial completion rate from 61% to 89% across 50,000 new installs"

7. Live Service Design

• Before: "Worked on live updates"
• After: "Designed 6 seasonal content updates for live-service shooter, each including 2 new maps, 1 game mode, and 15+ cosmetic items, coordinating with 4 cross-functional teams to ship on 3-month cadence with zero missed deadlines over 18-month post-launch window"

8. Mobile Game Design

• Before: "Designed mobile game features"
• After: "Designed core loop and meta progression for match-3 mobile game on iOS and Android, implementing energy systems, daily challenge rotations, and guild mechanics in Unity that drove 42% increase in D7 retention and $320K monthly revenue within 6 months of soft launch"

9. UX & Player Research

• Before: "Did playtesting and made changes"
• After: "Planned and facilitated 35 moderated playtests with 150+ participants using mixed-methods research (surveys, heatmaps, behavioral telemetry in GameAnalytics), synthesizing findings into 60+ actionable design recommendations that directly informed 3 major feature pivots pre-alpha"

10. Boss & Encounter Design

• Before: "Designed boss fights"
• After: "Designed 8 multi-phase boss encounters in Unreal Engine 5 with scripted AI behavior trees, dynamic difficulty scaling based on player death count, and mechanic-teaching phases that reduced first-attempt wipe rates by 25% while maintaining average completion time within 8-12 minute target window"

11. Procedural Content Design

• Before: "Worked on procedural generation"
• After: "Co-developed procedural dungeon generation system using Houdini and custom Python tooling, defining 200+ room templates and 35 encounter rule sets that produced 10,000+ unique dungeon configurations while maintaining designer-curated pacing across 4 biome types"

12. Competitive & Esports Design

• Before: "Balanced the competitive mode"
• After: "Owned competitive ranked mode design for 5v5 tactical shooter with 800K monthly ranked players, implementing Elo-based matchmaking tuning, seasonal rank resets, and anti-smurf detection rules that improved match quality score by 15% and reduced queue abandonment by 22%"

13. Prototyping

• Before: "Built game prototypes"
• After: "Rapid-prototyped 14 game concepts in Unity over 6-week greenlight period, producing playable builds with core loop validation for each concept, culminating in 3 pitches greenlit by studio leadership — 1 of which entered full production as the studio's flagship 2025 title"

14. Cross-Platform Design

• Before: "Made the game work on multiple platforms"
• After: "Adapted control schemes, UI layouts, and input bindings for simultaneous launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam), designing platform-specific accessibility options including gyro aiming, adaptive trigger profiles, and remappable controls compliant with Xbox Accessibility Guidelines (XAG)"

Skills Section Strategy

The skills section serves a dual purpose: keyword density for ATS matching and quick-scan reference for human reviewers. Structure it for both audiences.

Recommended Format

Group skills under 3-4 sub-headers. This improves both ATS parsing (clear categorization) and readability.

Game Design: Systems design, level design, economy design, combat design, narrative design, UX design, progression systems, balance tuning, core loop design, meta game design, quest design, encounter design

Tools & Engines: Unreal Engine 5, Unity, Unreal Blueprints, Articy:Draft, Miro, Figma, Excel (simulation modeling), Google Sheets, GameAnalytics, Amplitude, Mixpanel

Technical: C# scripting, Lua, Python, Blueprint visual scripting, JSON/XML data structures, A/B testing, telemetry analysis, SQL queries, data-driven design

Production: Agile/Scrum, JIRA, Confluence, Perforce, Git, milestone planning, feature specification writing, cross-functional leadership, playtesting methodology

Mirror the Job Posting

Read the specific job posting before submitting. If the posting says "Unreal Engine," do not write "UE5" alone — the recruiter's ATS query will search the exact string from the posting. If the posting says "systems design," match that phrase rather than writing "game mechanics design." ATS performs string matching, not conceptual matching. Include both forms when space allows: "Unreal Engine 5 (UE5)."

Certifications and Training

Game design has fewer formal certifications than engineering or finance, but relevant credentials function as ATS keywords:

• Unity Certified Developer
• Unreal Authorized Instructor
• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
• Professional Scrum Master (PSM I, PSM II)
• Google UX Design Certificate
• Relevant degree: BA/BS in Game Design, Computer Science, Interactive Media, or related field
• Notable programs: DigiPen Institute of Technology, Full Sail University, USC Games, NYU Game Center, Carnegie Mellon Entertainment Technology Center

List certifications with both abbreviation and full name to maximize keyword matching.

Common ATS Mistakes Game Designers Make

1. Submitting a Designed Resume as an Image-Based PDF

Game designers often create visually polished resumes in Figma, Photoshop, or Canva and export as PDF. If the export rasterizes text into image layers, ATS extracts nothing. Your application arrives functionally blank. Always submit a plain-text Word document for ATS applications. Save the designed version for portfolio websites and direct emails to hiring managers.

2. Listing Only Engine Names Without Design Context

Writing "Unity, Unreal Engine 5" tells ATS you know the engines but provides no searchable design terms. Recruiters also search for "level design," "systems design," "economy balance," "core loop," "GDD," and "feature specification." Engine names without design methodology vocabulary cut your keyword match rate.

3. Using Vague Descriptions Without Player Impact Metrics

"Designed engaging gameplay mechanics" contains no differentiating keywords. What was the retention impact? How many players engaged with the system? What metrics improved? ATS ranks resumes partly by keyword density and specificity. A bullet with "D30 retention improved 8%, 1.2M MAU, dual-currency economy" contains six additional searchable terms compared to the vague version.

4. Omitting Platform and Genre Keywords

A game designer who lists "designed game features" without specifying platforms (PC, PlayStation 5, mobile) or genre context (roguelike, MOBA, open-world RPG, match-3) misses critical keyword matches. Studios search for platform-specific and genre-specific experience because design constraints vary dramatically between a mobile free-to-play title and a AAA console release.

5. Conflating Game Design with Game Development or Game Art

A resume listing "Game Designer, Programmer, 3D Artist, Sound Designer" dilutes ATS keyword density for the design role. Each unrelated discipline introduces keywords that compete with your core design terms. If you have cross-discipline experience, emphasize only design contributions for design applications and save technical or art skills for supporting context, not primary positioning.

6. Relying on Portfolio Links to Convey Design Thinking

ATS cannot crawl Google Drive GDDs, Notion design docs, or personal website portfolios. A resume that says "See my design portfolio at alexchen.design" with minimal text content will rank at the bottom of ATS results. Every system, mechanic, and design methodology demonstrated in your portfolio must also appear as parseable text on your resume.

7. Using Non-Standard Section Headers

Headers like "My Design Philosophy," "Ludography," or "Games I Have Shaped" will not map to ATS fields. ATS platforms look for standard labels — "Experience," "Skills," "Education," "Projects." Non-standard headers cause the parser to dump content into a miscellaneous bucket or skip it entirely, removing your carefully written bullet points from keyword matching.

ATS-Friendly Professional Summary Examples

Your professional summary should contain 3-5 sentences with your highest-value keywords, specialization area, years of experience, and production context. ATS weights content appearing earlier in the document more heavily on some platforms ⁷.

Example 1: Entry-Level Game Designer (0-2 Years)

Game Designer with 2 years of experience in systems design and level design, specializing in action-RPG and roguelike mechanics. Proficient in Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints and Unity C# scripting, with hands-on experience building greybox level layouts, prototyping core loops, and authoring game design documents. Completed 3 shipped indie titles during academic and jam projects, including a Steam-published roguelike with 5,000+ wishlists pre-launch. BS in Game Design from DigiPen Institute of Technology. Portfolio: alexchen.design.

Example 2: Mid-Level Game Designer (3-6 Years)

Game Designer with 5 years of professional experience across AAA and mobile studios, specializing in systems design, economy balancing, and live-service content strategy. Designed and shipped progression systems, seasonal content, and competitive ranked modes for titles with 500K+ MAU on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC. Expert in Unreal Engine 5, JIRA-driven Agile workflows, and data-informed iteration using GameAnalytics and Amplitude telemetry. Proven track record of measurable impact: D30 retention improvements of 8-12%, session length increases of 15-22%, and balance complaint reductions of 30%+.

Example 3: Senior / Lead Game Designer (7+ Years)

Senior Game Designer with 9 years of experience leading design teams of up to 8 designers across 4 shipped AAA titles and 2 live-service games with combined 3M+ monthly active users. Managed full design lifecycle from concept pitch through vertical slice, alpha, beta, certification, and post-launch LiveOps across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC (Steam). Expert in systems design, combat design, and economy architecture, with deep proficiency in Unreal Engine 5, Unity, data-driven balancing via SQL and Python analytics pipelines, and cross-functional leadership with engineering, art, audio, and QA teams of 80+ people. Built studio-wide design documentation standards in Confluence that reduced feature ambiguity tickets by 40% and cut average design review cycle from 5 days to 2 days. The 2025 GDC salary report places average U.S. game industry professional compensation at $142,000 with a median of $129,000 ³.

Action Verbs for Game Designer Resumes

Organize action verbs by the type of contribution to signal role depth to both ATS and human readers.

Design & Creation

Designed, architected, prototyped, conceptualized, authored, crafted, devised, developed, formulated, invented, envisioned, defined

Analysis & Optimization

Balanced, tuned, analyzed, optimized, iterated, evaluated, benchmarked, validated, calibrated, modeled, simulated

Leadership & Collaboration

Led, directed, mentored, coordinated, facilitated, presented, championed, aligned, partnered, supervised

Production & Delivery

Shipped, delivered, launched, implemented, deployed, published, released, executed, completed, certified

Research & Testing

Playtested, researched, surveyed, investigated, assessed, measured, tracked, instrumented, discovered

ATS Score Checklist

Use this checklist before every submission to verify your resume is ATS-optimized for game design roles.

Formatting & Parseability

• [ ] File saved as .docx (or clean PDF exported from Word/Google Docs)
• [ ] Single-column layout with no tables, text boxes, or graphics
• [ ] Standard fonts (Calibri, Arial, Times New Roman) at 10-12pt
• [ ] Name and contact info in document body, not in header/footer region
• [ ] Portfolio URL included as plain text in contact section
• [ ] Standard section headings: Professional Summary, Experience, Skills, Education

Keyword Optimization

• [ ] Job title from posting appears in Professional Summary and at least one Experience entry
• [ ] Primary game engine(s) mentioned by name (Unreal Engine 5, Unity) matching posting language
• [ ] Design discipline keywords included (systems design, level design, economy design, etc.)
• [ ] Platform keywords specified (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PC, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch)
• [ ] Genre context provided (RPG, FPS, MOBA, match-3, open-world, roguelike)
• [ ] Production methodology terms included (Agile, Scrum, sprint, milestone, vertical slice)
• [ ] Design documentation terms present (GDD, feature specification, design review, balance doc)

Experience Quality

• [ ] Every bullet follows the formula: Action verb + deliverable + tool + scope + measurable outcome
• [ ] At least 3 bullets include player impact metrics (retention, engagement, revenue, satisfaction)
• [ ] Shipped titles listed with platform and year
• [ ] Team size and cross-functional collaboration mentioned
• [ ] No vague bullets ("designed game features," "worked on gameplay," "helped the team")

Skills & Credentials

• [ ] Skills grouped by category (Design, Tools, Technical, Production)
• [ ] Both abbreviated and full tool names included where applicable
• [ ] Certifications listed with issuing organization
• [ ] Education includes degree field and institution name

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I include my game design document (GDD) portfolio link on an ATS resume?

Include it as a plain-text URL in your contact header (e.g., "Portfolio: alexchen.design"), but do not rely on it to communicate your design thinking. ATS stores the URL as a text field but cannot crawl Google Drive, Notion, or personal website content. Every system you designed, every tool you used, and every metric you achieved must appear as searchable text in your experience and skills sections. The portfolio link matters for human review after you pass ATS screening — it has zero impact on automated keyword ranking ⁷.

How do I list game jam projects on my resume?

List significant jam projects under a "Projects" section with the same specificity as professional work. Include the jam name, your role, team size, engine used, and any measurable outcomes: "Global Game Jam 2025 — Lead Designer, 4-person team, built puzzle-platformer prototype in Unity over 48 hours, selected as Top 10 from 120 regional submissions." ATS parses project sections identically to experience sections for keyword matching. Prioritize jams where your project shipped, won awards, or received measurable player engagement.

Does ATS penalize resumes that list both Unreal Engine and Unity?

ATS does not penalize multi-engine experience — it rewards keyword matches. Listing both "Unreal Engine 5" and "Unity" increases your match rate for postings that mention either engine. However, human reviewers may question depth if you claim expert-level proficiency in both without supporting evidence. Qualify your proficiency: "Unreal Engine 5 — Primary (4 shipped titles)" and "Unity — Secondary (2 mobile prototypes, 1 shipped title)." This satisfies ATS keyword matching while giving human reviewers clear context ⁶.

What is the ideal resume length for a game designer?

One page for candidates with fewer than 4 years of experience. Two pages for senior designers with 5+ years, multiple shipped titles, and lead or director responsibilities. ATS does not penalize page length, but human reviewers spend an average of 6-7 seconds on initial scan. A two-page resume for a junior designer with one internship signals poor editing, while a one-page resume for a lead designer with 8 years and 4 shipped AAA titles suggests missing project depth. Prioritize your most impactful, metric-rich contributions over comprehensive listing of every project.

How should I handle NDA-restricted projects on my resume?

Write NDA-compliant descriptions that provide genre, scope, platform, and team size without naming the title or publisher: "Unannounced AAA Open-World RPG (Major Publisher) — Designed 15 side quest chains with branching outcomes for open-world RPG targeting PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC, collaborating with 12-person narrative team." ATS can still match keywords like "open-world RPG," "PlayStation 5," "quest design," and "narrative team." Recruiters at major studios expect NDA-compliant language and will not penalize you for withholding title names — they will penalize you for violating NDAs ⁷.

Citations:

{
  "opening_hook": "O*NET classifies Video Game Designers under SOC 15-1255.01 — a Bright Outlook occupation where 55% of professionals hold a bachelor's degree and the broader Web and Digital Interface Designers category reports a median annual wage of $95,380. The 2025 GDC salary report paints a sharper picture: U.S. game industry professionals average $142,000, with a median of $129,000, yet 98% rate the industry as less secure than other fields. With over 109,000 gaming jobs posted in 2025 following 14,000 layoffs in 2024, competition for stable game designer positions is fierce.",
  "key_takeaways": [
    "Game engine and design tool keywords determine ATS ranking — 'Unreal Engine 5' and 'UE5' are different search strings, so mirror exact tool names from the job posting",
    "Design documentation artifacts like GDD, feature specification, and balance spreadsheet are searchable keywords recruiters filter by",
    "Shipped titles with platform keywords (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Steam, iOS) carry significant ATS weight",
    "Player impact metrics (retention rates, DAU/MAU, session length, revenue) separate senior designers from junior applicants in ATS ranking",
    "Portfolio and design doc links supplement but never replace resume text — ATS cannot crawl Google Drive, Notion, or personal websites"
  ],
  "citations": [
    {
      "number": 1,
      "title": "15-1255.01 — Video Game Designers",
      "url": "https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1255.01",
      "publisher": "O*NET OnLine"
    },
    {
      "number": 2,
      "title": "Web Developers and Digital Designers — Occupational Outlook Handbook",
      "url": "https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/web-developers.htm",
      "publisher": "Bureau of Labor Statistics"
    },
    {
      "number": 3,
      "title": "2025 Game Industry Salary Report",
      "url": "https://gdconf.com/article/tktkt-gdc-salary-report/",
      "publisher": "GDC"
    },
    {
      "number": 4,
      "title": "2024 Economic Impact Report",
      "url": "https://www.theesa.com/resources/2024-economic-impact-report/",
      "publisher": "Entertainment Software Association"
    },
    {
      "number": 5,
      "title": "Labor Market Trends 2025: Gaming Industry",
      "url": "https://www.jobspikr.com/blog/gaming-industry-labor-market-report-2025/",
      "publisher": "JobsPikr"
    },
    {
      "number": 6,
      "title": "Video Game Designers — Technology Skills",
      "url": "https://www.onetonline.org/link/tt/15-1255.01/43232102",
      "publisher": "O*NET OnLine"
    },
    {
      "number": 7,
      "title": "ATS Resume Guide",
      "url": "https://www.jobscan.co/blog/ats-resume/",
      "publisher": "Jobscan"
    },
    {
      "number": 8,
      "title": "Video Game Designer Salary + 2026 Career Guide",
      "url": "https://www.coursera.org/articles/video-game-designer-salary",
      "publisher": "Coursera"
    }
  ],
  "word_count": 3850,
  "meta_description": "ATS optimization checklist for game designer resumes. Covers Unreal Engine, Unity keywords, systems design and level design terms, player impact metrics, GDD documentation vocabulary, and format rules to pass automated screening for AAA, indie, and mobile game design roles.",
  "prompt_version": "v2.0-cli"
}