Video game development (sometimes shortened to gamedev) is the process of creating a video game. It is a multidisciplinary practice, involving programming, design, art, audio, user interface, and writing. Each of those may be made up of more specialized skills; art includes 3D modeling of objects, character modeling, animation, visual effects, and so on. Development is supported by project management, production, and quality assurance. Teams can be many hundreds of people, a small group, or even a single person.
Development of commercial video games is normally funded by a publisher and can take two to five years to reach completion. Game creation by small, self-funded teams is called independent development. The technology in a game may be written from scratch or use proprietary software specific to one company. As development has become more complex, it has become common for companies and independent developers alike to use off-the-shelf "engines" such as Unity, Unreal Engine or Godot.
