Unit 13 - Understanding The Game Industry: 2016

Monday 19 December 2016

Task 7 - Employment

Curriculum Vitae

A CV is a document that promotes your qualifications and past work experience to employers when applying for a job. A CV is the easiest way of showing off your interests as well as what you strive for when looking for a job and gives the employer and idea of why they should choose you for the job.

Below is my personal CV:

At the top of my CV I decided to add my personal statement to allow employers to see my motivations and what type of employee I am. Below this I have added my previous time in employment and the date I worked there. After that i added the key skills that i posses in the hope that an employer will see these as good attributes. In the Technical skills section I have added what I've learnt through my years in education such as passing Maths, English and French at a GCSE level. Then in the Personal skills I have put skills I believe I have through work or high school like being able to solve problems and having good team working skills, also if you show interest in computing and apply for computer programmer then you are more likely to be accepted for the job. I believe this is a very important aspect of a CV as it give the employer a quick way of seeing what type of person you are and how you are in the workplace, For example in the game industry you will have to be able to work as part of a large team and for the employer to see this they may want that in an employer. I was originally going to add contact details but since this is online I have decided to take them out, despite this the contact details are key in a CV as it gives a way for the employer to get in touch with you if they decide to give you an interview.

Next i have added the grades that I have achieved during my time at High school, these are my GCSE's and a BTEC qualification and once again this is very important to an employer when looking to be hired because it is the only way for an employer to see what you are actually capable of, for example if you achieve a C in English and Maths they will see this as a positive as you are somewhat intelligent and can do simple Maths and English, Furthermore, If you have a GCSE in French or another language they will see you are multicultural and some companies see this as positive. Lastly on the CV I have added my own personal interests in there and give the employer a brief insight into what you enjoy out of work hours. This section of the CV can't be too long as they employer might see you as someone who talks too much but if its not enough they may see you as boring therefore, two or three sentences explain what you enjoy doing should be suffice.

After a review i believe my CV is done well enough to be accepted for a part time job, mainly because of the lack of work experience i wont be good enough to apply for a full time job as of yet. The layout of my CV, I believe is very well set out as at the start shows past experience then leads into the skills and qualifications I have as an employee, then ends with my own interests which aren't the most relevant to an employer. If i was to go back and change somethings i would add more to my personal interests as at the minute it can be seen as not enough and I could extend on what I enjoy doing in my spare time.

Task 6 - Documents

Documents in the Industry

Recce Report

A Recce report is a type of risk assessment when filming is taking place. The document is there to try and prevent dangers and accidents during the recording.Safety.They look for features like:

Health and Safety matters.
Electrical equipment
Light sources
Permission to film on certain sites
amount of space where filming takes place
and where the area for filming takes place and any concerns

All film companies take these precautions before filming has started taking place as it ensures that nothing can go wrong. If there are measurements taken to prevent things going wrong then the likelihood of them happening are significantly lower. A recce report will also tell you if the cons outweigh the pros when choosing a location, for example if the area you're filming in is dangerous and the conditions aren't great then it may be best to choose another location. Recce reports like this can be used in the future if something goes wrong during the production of filming, if you are the person in charge of a production and a very expensive piece of equipment is damaged and/or broken and the people you are employing haven't completed a recce report then that could be the reason to it being broken.

Above is an example of a recce report that identifies the pros and cons behind different hazards, for example they have chosen 'Snow/Ice' as a hazard and then said that someone could slip and hurt themselves but then said they are making sure everyone knows what the surroundings are and for further actions they have said they will wear suitable footwear. This helps the environment be a little bit safer despite the harsh conditions. The good side to this recce report is it highlights a lot of the main hazards there are and gives ways for them to be avoided, there could also be a couple pictures added into it so that people can see where the dangers are and what they look like instead of just having an idea of what they look like.
pros/cons to this how to use in the future

Risk Assessment

A risk assessment is similar to a recce report only it outlines the risk and how severe that risk is as well as how to prevent these from happening for example, to prevent tripping over wires to could tape them down to the floor with masking tape. Risk assessments are a key part of a health and safety management plan because not only does it prevent risks but it highlights the many dangers there are.
The plan not only protects the people working but the project they work on. Below is a risk assessment form that I have created myself while creating my documentary. The good side to risk assessments are that it eliminates any dangers but the bad side is that it can take a while for something so simple like not blocking a fire exit. If in the future there is a fire in the office or somewhere, a risk assessment ensures there are functioning fire extinguishers and working fire alarms around the office, therefore lowering the chance of a massive fire causing the loss of a lot of work.

On my own risk assessment I have outlines the type of hazard, the control measures already in place and potential harm, this step assures that I know the dangers already and have a few ways to ensure these don't happen, I then put the severity, likelihood and over all risk rating out of 10, this lets me and others know how damaging this could be to the project if they were to happen. Lastly, I have put the control measures that are to be used for example in the 'Fires' hazard the adjustment made was fire extinguishers in every room. The good to this risk assessment is that it gives the danger, ways that this can be avoided and then the severity of the hazard. The bad side is that there are other dangers that can be added to it along with pictures to avoid it.

Game Design Document

A game design document, often referred to as a GDD, is created and edited by the development team for a game project. It is a living project that goes along side the creation of the game. The documentary can be made of either text, images, diagrams or concept art and is usually created prior to the pitch of the game.
A good example of a game design document is the 'Doom Bible'. It is a documentary for the game 'Doom'. It has 6 episodes, followed by a 'Stuff' and 'Commercial' sections. The document is mainly images that show how the game is progressing over the course of 5 years. The document also adds weapons and items that are implemented into the game, as well as how each gun handles, these are just notes fore example in the 'Stuff: Weapons, Items, Etc.' section they have a Spray rifle with the notes: Powerful as shotgun, but spread out more. Shotgun recoil.
The good side to this game design document is that you can clearly see the progress of the game going from concept art to the finished product and if it is published online then fans can help out and give ideas of what they'd like to see in the game. The company can then take this on board and tweak with the game. But the bad side is that it can take time out of the day and some of that time can be going towards the development of the game. After a couple of years of after the production of a GDD, the team can look back on the development of the game and remaster it using the same things they did last time.

Contract

During a contractual agreement, the contract usually has to iron out all the details of what happens to the designers or the creators of an idea if they decide to quit or move to another company. In the case of Martin O'Donnell who was a composer for Bungie who created the Halo's original sound track and essentially all the sound that was produced on the companies behalf. After being fired in April 2014 "without cause" he filed 2 lawsuits, one against CEO Harold Ryan over 'unpaid benefits' which earned O'Donnell just over $95,000 and another lawsuit against Bungie claiming a breach in his contract. He will be receiving 192,187.5 shares of vested Bungie common stock as well as payments form the profit share plan, this amounted to over $140,000.

If a publisher wants to create a game that is based on or from a movie, then the publisher and the IP owner for the movie file a contract discussing the terms, The contract defines that the publisher has the right to make a game that is linked to the film and that game works on a platform of their choosing. It also outlines where in the world the game will be released and that the publisher wants worldwide rights for the game but the licensors can charge more for that. And lastly it highlights how long the contract will be valid for.

Non-Disclosure agreements are confidential agreements between two parties which disclose that there is a new idea or invention then the other party cannot tell anyone else about it, without consequence. If the second party does break the agreement, then a lawsuit will probably be filed.

In a collaboration agreement which is usually between a group of people who own an indie company, it establishes who owns what if the game was to flop and the company was to dissolve, who owns the artwork or music from the game that was published. The agreement shows clearly how the project is managed, who is in control of the IP, how any income from the game is handled and how the termination of the project comes about.

The benefits of writing up contracts are that ensures no questions raised when actions are taken because there is a contract that clearly states what can and cant be done within the ground of the company. The bad side to some contracts is that after a company collapses some people can get out done by the contract and get stolen from for example if the company goes bust the artist may not be able to keep their own artwork whether the game was released or not.

Sources:

http://thejohnfisherschoola2mediastudies.weebly.com/recce-report.html

http://jamesknuckeyasmediacoursework.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/recce-report.html

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/risk_assessment.html

http://5years.doomworld.com/doombible/

https://www.docracy.com/0xdfdhbopea/work-for-hire-agreement-revised

Thursday 10 November 2016

Task 5 - Professional bodies and supporting the indutry

Task 5 - Professional bodies and supporting the industry

UKIE

The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment or more commonly known as UKIE is a trade group that represents the video game industry. They were previously known as ELSPA until march 2010 and some of the members include Microsoft, Google, and Virgin Media and the UKIE is a member of the UKCCIS who are for the safety of children

IGDA

The International Game Developers Association is a non-profit organisation with 10,000 video and computer game developers globally. Its misson is "to advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers. In recognition to the wide-ranging, multidisciplinary nature of interactive entertainment, there are no barriers to entry. Any person who considers him or herself to be a game developer may join."

Women in Games

There are more women in games now than there was fifteen years ago, more and more women are becoming more invovled in the game industry despite the target audience for games being primarily men.
Men are more prone to play video games on a regular basis and so to target a male audience is well justified. A survey was conducted to see how many women are in games showed that 48% of women in america have played a video game but only 6% of them consider themselves gamers, while 15% of men consider themselves gamers, this has risen though with women rising to 9% and men to 33%.

BAFTA

BAFTA is one of the best independent charities that support, develop and promote moving-image art forms in the UK: film, television, video games as well as interactive media. More recently in 2015, the best game design was voted as 'Bloodbourne'. The best sports game is 'Rocket league' and best debut game was voted as 'Her story' by Sam Barlow.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Academy_Games_Awards#2015

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Game_Developers_Association

http://ukie.org.uk/

Task 4 - Contracts, Legal, and Ethical Obligations

Legal

The legal side of the game industry is very big nowadays, companies making sure what their company produces stays as theirs. Copyrighting protects anyone else from using what is produced by the company such as artwork. It gives them the legal right to print, film or record the artistic or musical material that was produced for a certain number of years. Artwork and music that is created is the most popular thing that is copyrighted, for example, in a game like Mario you can use Princess as much as you can't use the Mario theme tune. Some artwork in games falls under the 'scenes a faire' doctrine which limits what can be copyrighted, things like the scoring system, lives, coins/money as well as sky and ground.

Similarly, trademarking is big in the industry. A trademark is a sign or symbol that is recognisable and identifies a product or type of service (although trademarks used for services are usually called service marks). The trademark usually identifies a business organisation or legal personality. The trademark of a company can usually be found on the company building as well as the products they sell. In the game industry, the trademark will be the company logo for example the symbol for Electronic Arts is EA inside of a circle.
A patent is a license giving someone the right to exclude everyone from making, using or selling their invention for a certain amount time. An example of this was recently when Nintendo took out a patent for the NX, they refused to release what they were working on until the patent was finalised, this stops anyone else from stealing the designs and the selling them of with their logo as their own.
Registering a design is like a trademark and Patent, it is a recognisable design or product that you register as your own meaning that nobody else can use it.

Contractual

Most of the time, game publishers will hire development teams to create the game. The development agreement outlines the details in the deal between the two companies. There are three main parts that need to be highlighted, the first is 'Terms' this simply says how much the development team will get paid, the deadline and if there will be any royalties. The next is 'Ownership', this one clarifies if the publisher of the developers own the IP. Lastly the 'Warranties' which means that the development company cannot use anybody else's source code and it swears that the publishing company has asked the developers to make this individual game. An example of this is when activision hire either Infinity Ward, Treyarch or Sledgehammer games to create cal of duty and they have been doing so since 2003 until present.
If a publisher wants to create a game that is based on or from a movie, then the publisher and the IP owner for the movie file a contract discussing the terms, The contract defines that the publisher has the right to make a game that is linked to the film and that game works on a platform of their choosing. It also outlines where in the world the game will be released and that the publisher wants worldwide rights for the game but the licensors can charge more for that. And lastly it highlights how long the contract will be valid for.
Non-Disclosure agreements are confidential agreements between two parties which disclose that there is a new idea or invention then the other party cannot tell anyone else about it, without consequence. If the second party does break the agreement, then a lawsuit will probably be filed.
In a collaboration agreement which is usually between a group of people who own an indie company, it establishes who owns what if the game was to flop and the company was to dissolve, who owns the artwork or music from the game that was published. The agreement shows clearly how the project is managed, who is in control of the IP, how any income from the game is handled and how the termination of the project comes about.

Ethical

Violence is becoming more popular in the game industry and not for any good reasons, as more games come out that promote violence like GTA V, Call of Duty, Titanfall as well as countless others has caused mass outrage among people throughout the world as they say that it causes people -who are vulnerable to games like this- to lash out. Video games have heavily been the centre of controversy within the last 10-20 years because of the amount of violence portrayed on screen. A test conducted in the US showed that as many as 97% of kids who ages ranged from 12-17 play video games which contributes to $21.53 billion in the video game industry. Over half of the top 50 selling videos contain violence and with that comes games like Diablo III, Overwatch, 'Call of Duty: Black Ops'. The violence in video games has been the blame for school shootings, an increase in bullying as well as violence towards women, the argument is that violent games desensitise exposed kids while they are playing games that require you to kill one another and then reward then for doing so.

Along with this age rating for games has been introduced to try and steer kids away from games like this, despite that games like 'Modern Warfare' and 'Mortal Kombat' are still being bought by children as young as 12. The Pan-European Game Information (PEGI) age rating system was introduced in 2003 used to tackle what games adults are buying for their children. Some people are worried that the age rating system doesn't stop underage gamers from playing violent games.

On the other hand there are many games that have been brought out to try and educate younger gamers. Educational games can be considered as a serious game as they take some of the entertainment out of the game and throw in the learning aspect. Games like Dr. Kawashima's Brain Trainer on the Nintendo DS have been introduced to keep people educated.

Stereotyping is another controversy within the games industry, the idea is that games focus on targeting men rather than both men and women. Men are more prone to play video games on a regular basis and so to target a male audience is well justified. A survey was conducted to see how many women are in games showed that 48% of women in america have played a video game but only 6% of them consider themselves gamers, while 15% of men consider themselves gamers, this has risen though with women rising to 9% and men to 33%.

By playing a certain game or type of game for such as long time can cause some players to become addicted to gaming, health issues can come with that like loneliness. It is become a major problem in recent times with more kids staying off school and more adults not leaving the house in order to play the newest game.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
https://spark.adobe.com/page/9fF5C/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/04/ex-bungie-composer-marty-odonnell-wins-epic-legal-fight-with-former-bosses/
https://gamerant.com/why-marty-odonnell-fired-bungie-248/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversies
https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-DS/Dr-Kawashima-s-Brain-Training-How-Old-is-Your-Brain--270627.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_European_Game_Information

Wednesday 9 November 2016

Task 3 - Financial, Industry, and Market trends

Financial issues and trends -

The Global Games Market Report in 2016 reports that gamers across the globe achieved a total of $99.6 billion in revenues, this was an improvement of 8.5% in comparison to 2015. It is the first time that mobile gaming such as IOS and android take a larger share than PC with $36.9 billion which is up 21.3% around the world. According to the results posted in April 2016, 58% of the growth of the market originates from the Asia-Pacific region, North America has second highest growth rate which generated $25.4 billion in 2016 alone. The pros to this is that if a company is looking to sell a game they may aim to sell their game in these regions. On the other hand, if the game is primarily sold to Asia then millions of people in the Europe area will miss out on a game that many of them want to play.

The game industry can go one of two ways depending on the decisions you make, it can go really well and you can make a lot of money or you can lose a very large amount of money and the company you've put all this effort into can go bankrupt.

The first problem you would come across if you decided to start developing your own game would be that you (as the developer) would get whatever money is left from the profit from the game. A high percentage of the money the you make will most likely be going to you employees, distributors and publishers plus what other costs it has taken to start the company such as the office space, computer software and hardware, contingency (in case something goes horribly wrong) as well as countless others.

Budget also has a big role in whether the company goes bust or not, if the company has a much bigger budget then they usually create a much better game. For example, a company like Infinity Ward who have created a very good franchise in Call of Duty, they had a budget between $40 million - $50 million for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and a total launch cost of about $200 million, this included global distribution and marketing. They are more likely to produce a much better game than a team like DrinkBox Studios, who developed Guacamelee with their 14-person team.

Many companies that don't have the funds to start creating their own game use crowdfunding to get money, websites like Kickstarter are a big way that the indie companies earn their money. A good example of a game that was funded by Kickstarter is 'Wasteland 2' by inXile entertainment which had an initial campaign target of $900,000 but ended up earning $2,933,252 by April 17 2012. This shows that many people are willing to put their own money into a game and hope that it does well, another example of a company putting their trust into fans on Kickstarter is 'We Happy Few' developed by Compulsion games who put up an initially wanted $250,000 but ended up earning $334,754 by July 4 2015, the trailer for the game has been released at E3 but the game hasn't yet got a release date.
The bad side to Kickstarter could be if thousands of people put their own money towards a game that has been promised to be great and whatever the fans want but it could turn out to be the total opposite and the developers have taken a lot of the money and threw a scrappy game together or they could just take the entire budget set for the game. I believe that crowdfunding will continue to grow because it allows indie teams to keep up with companies on a certain level.

Market Trends -

They way games games are distributed now is much different than it was 10 years ago, there much more ways that a game can be promoted and a lot more countries that are involved in gaming like Sweden who are more recently become more connected to the newest and best games, games like Just Cause 2 and Need for Speed Rivals were developed in Sweden.

Big publishing companies like Activision and Electronic Arts have a very good publishing teams to sell games like 'Call of Duty' and the Battlefield series, Adverts are a big way that these games are sold, adverts on YouTube, TV and billboards really help the game be sold to a large group of people, also targeting countries for the sales of the game is a big tactic for publishing companies.

Downloadable Content or more commonly known as DLC are in game transactions that are apparently there to make the game better when in reality it's just so the company gets more money. A big contributor to this was infinity ward's 'Call of Duty: Ghosts', if you wanted a space themed paint job on your gun or Snoop Dogg as your commentator then you would have to pay about £3 for something so little and irrelevant but if you have millions of people from the fan base buying a £3 camo then that adds up to millions being earned for the companies.
Pre-order bonuses are also a massive way that companies entice people into earning money at the promise of new and better items, an example of this is once again in the call of duty series, this time in Black Ops III, the Pre-order pack gets you personalisation packs which has custom weapon camo, multiple reticles as well as a calling card with and emblem item, furthermore they get advanced supply drops which have at least one weapon variant, one item of professional rarity or better and the chance to get exclusive gear. Pre-order bonuses are a good way for the company to earn money as well as a way as gamers to get new gear early. The bad side to this is that companies can lure people into buying something so easy, for things like camos that it takes the development team close to nothing to make and people are buying them for £3/£4.

A huge way that companies have their game promoted are streaming sites like YouTube and Twitch. This example is more common within the last 10 years as there hasn't been anything like this before and now it is bigger than ever, YouTubers like KSI who has a 14 million subscribers PewDiePie who has 49 million have a massive contribution as what games are considered good and what games a flops. also live streams on twitch have a big contribution to how games are reviewed by gamers. The up side to this is that YouTubers and streamers can make a living online and anyone can do that whereas the bad side is that gamers are now letting other people make the decisions without experiencing the game for themselves. The trend of streaming will probably continue to grow over the next few years as it is a great way for people to see how the new games are played without having to do it themselves.

Industry Trends -

The game industry is always changing depending on what's new and how the product is represented. For example, the Kinect which came out with the Xbox 360 was a way for people to enjoy a game and stay fit without having the worry of the controller running out of battery. The Kinect feature for the Xbox 360 was very popular when it came out in 2010, in the first 3 years in sold 24 million units and was then later adapted to feature in the Xbox one when the console was launched. The good side to Kinect for the Xbox is that it keeps the player fit, there is also a feature to talk to people through face cam which was a good part to the design of it, on the other hand the Kinect was quite hard to set up and sometimes the tracker could connect to the body causing an abundance of annoyed gamers. The Kinect and motion capture feature will soon probably die down and become less and less popular until it is discontinued.

More recently, companies have brought out remastered games for gamers to try out, classics like 'The Last of Us' from Ps3 to Ps4 and 'Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare' on all consoles, it is very popular at the minute because it an easy way for gamers to play their favourite games without having to re-buy old consoles, the graphics are better and its usually a better experience for gamers. in the case of 'The Last of Us' which was developed by Naughty Dog had 1.3 million units sold within the the first week of its release making it one of the biggest sales of a game in 2013. The when the remastered version came out it sold a reportedly 1.5 million units within 24 hours, it just shows how an amazing game can become a massive success despite already being sold on another platform. Remastered games remain a great way for gamers to enjoy games they previously played. On the contrary Remastered games can end up on the bad side because companies may be able to keep re-selling the same game over and over with the price of a new game which is ridiculous but in my opinion remastered games will continue to go on as it is an easy way for a company like Naughty Dog or Infinity Ward to become prosperous with the re-make of old games.

If a company's development team is behind the deadline, then they primarily use crunch time to get the game back on track. There are two main reasons that a company will have to use crunch time, the first is if the game is scheduled without enough flexibility then all it takes is one screw up to welcome an avalanche of mess with it brings 10-12 hour days. The other is deadlines, mainly for big companies if they set a deadline for a game, it is then set in stone, and if there a multiple mess ups during the development of the game it can set it back which costs money therefore crunch time fixes that and allows the game to be put out on time. The only good thing that comes from crunch time is that the game is released on time where as it causes stress to the employee who might not get home while 10/11 o'clock at night after starting at 9/10 in the morning meaning they are always tired and won't be able to be with their family much. It can also lead to mental health issues because of how much stress is being threw upon you. Crunch time, I hope will subside over the course of the next 10 years or less but for now I believe that crunch time will stay and there will be a lot of late nights for employees working in the game industry in the future.

Sources:

https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/global-games-market-reaches-99-6-billion-2016-mobile-generating-37/

http://www.gamepur.com/news/15762-last-us-remastered-sold-15m-units-day-one-ps4-sales-just-short-hitting-10m.html

http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect

https://www.youtube.com/user/KSIOlajidebt

https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/call-of-duty-black-ops-3/Pre-Order_Bonuses

Friday 30 September 2016

Task 2 - Job Roles

Creative Development

Game Designer

The Game Designer has a big say in how the game turns out, he helps come up with the characters, settings and game play, their duties are to create a game in a limitless environment where anything is possible. The avergae game designer in the UK (with some experience) can earn upto £19,000 with that rising to about £35,000.

Markus Persson is a game designer who is most recognizable as notch, created the company Mojang and helped develop Minecraft which was later sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion.

Level Editor

Also known as level designer, this person is responsible for the oversll architecture for the game, he creates the layout for the game, the atmosphere of the game is usually set out by the level editor who designs the game with help from the artists.

The level designer for 'Super Mario Galaxy' was a collection of 5 people: Futoshi Shirai, Daisuke tsujimura, Haruka kakinuma, Ryutaro kanno and Toshihiro Kawabata who helped to develop a very good game.

Lead Artist

Sometimes known as the Art Director, this role is responsible for the entire look of the game, without this person the game would have no visuals, while working with the producer, the artists create the environment of which the game is set, the characters, etc. He also has to ensure that the team is in control of the budget and is on time for the deadline.
The average salary for a lead artist for a game £35,000 with that rising to about £60,000 with experience.
The lead artist for 'The Last of Us' was Nate Wells who was incharge of developed a game with amazing visuals

Technical Artist

The technical artists job is to act as a link between the artist and the programmer, their main criteria is to ensure a game can be incorporated into a game, the role is relatively new to the games industry but is becoming very important as PC and console hardware becomes tougher.

The technical artist can earn up to the same amount as the lead artist.
The art technical director for 'Assassins creed 1' was Danny Oros who's job was to implement the art on the PC.

Artist

The artists work with the Lead Artist to create the visuals for the game from the scenery and objects to characters and clothing, they start by creating concept art for the game and sometimes implement this into a 3D model.
The main artists involved with The Last of Us were Erick Pangilinan and Nate Wells who created a game with amazing visuals, the concept art for 'The Last of Us' was astounding.

Animator

The animators main focus is to bring life to the characters and the portrayal of movement within the game. They work alongside the art team to provide a great experience for the players. Because it can be a complex combination of movements, the animators make extensive libraries so that they can reuse the animations for each character.
The leads in charge for 'Call of Duty - Modern Warfare' were Mark Grigsbury and Paul Messerly and they helped to developed a very good game.

Audio Engineer

The Audio Engineer is responsible for every sound in the game, they create the soundtrack, sound effects and the games action such as, a gun firing or an explosion going off, things like character voices, sounds of a crowd or a car driving past are all the responsibility of the sound engineers.

The Audio Engineer can earn around £30,000 - £50,000 depending on how much experience they had

(for a AAA game that is).
The 'Call of Duty - Black ops' senior audio engineer was Stephen McCaul and with his team they developed all the sound for a very good game.

Technical Development

Game Programmer

The Game Programmer is at the main of the game, he runs the code that runs the games dynamics. Once they tested the code they fix the bugs that it has, code is added on all platforms ( PC, Xbox, PlayStation, etc.). As the code gets more complex the size of the group of programmers increases, the sometimes may work on specific jobs like the physics of the game. Beginners can earn around £19,000 to £25,000.
The team of six programmers for 'Gears of War' were Laurent Delayen, Jeff Farris, Rob Mclaughlin, Amit Mahajan, Stephen Superville and Martin Sweitzer, who all conributed to coding the game and fixed all the bugs.

Lead Game Programmer

The lead Programmer is the head of the other Programmers, he makes sure that everything within the team is running smoothly, whilst also doing the duties to better the development of the game, if a member of the team doesn't spot a bug he can step in and point it out.
For being a team leader, this role can earn you up to £70,000 +.
The lead programmer for Gears of War was Ray Davis, who with his team made an outstanding game.

Project Implementation

Project Manager/Producer

The Project Manager is in charge of the well being and successful delivery of the game, they control how well the game comes out and whether it is on time and on budget. They function in between the team and act as a link between everyone. They have a basic understanding everyone's role. Before the production starts for the game, the project manager has to find the specifications and the targets that have to be met by a certain date.

This job has an average pay of £62,000 because they are responsible for the financial status of the game and how well it works i the end.

Assistant Producer

The Assistant/junior Producer works with the team to the delivery of the game is on time and that the game is at its highest quality possible. The Assistant producer will work between the marketing team and the production team and help them to the best of their abilities, the roles can vary in the particular product they're developing. Some of the main tasks include, task and milestone planning and tracking.

External Producer

The External Producer is responsible for the delivery of the game whilst working externally from the development team. He works close to the internal producer who is part of the development of the game. This role acts like a consultant who advises the game developer without having to deal with the day-to-day problems. He is the go between for the developers and the producers.

Creative Director

This role is key during the development process of the game, he oversees any high-level decisions that are being made about the game that could affect how the game looks or is played. Not all companies employ Creative directors and instead just stick to have lead programmers or lead artists.

The Creative Director can earn anywhere between £28,000 and £83,000.

Quality Assurance

QA Tester

Quality assurance testers play a vital role, they test, debug the product and suggest ways for the game to become better. Acting as the games first audience, they find all the bugs and little glithces in the game before it is then shipped out. The are responsible for assuring the quality of the game. They work in teams and usually play together. This is a tough task and often take up a lot of work hours.

The QA tester has an average pay of £35,500 a year but this can change depending on how often you test games.
The QA tester for 'Assassins Creed 1' was Adrian Simpetru who tested the game for bugs and explained how the game could be improved in the long run.

Business Development

Public Relations Manager

The Public Relation manager deals with helping clients and tries to persuade people to buy the product that is being sold. These people come up with the stratergies to sell and promote the upcoming game, they have different wayas of doing this, things like: showing off thier game at events like E3 and gamescon, also TV advertisiments if their budget will allow it. This is a tough task and often take up a lot of work hours.

Product Manager

The product manager is there to help create marketing campaigns to help push the amount of sales the game gets. They typical work for game publishers like Sony or independent marketing companies who then work for the publishers. The job has some key features to it like publicity, sales and outside contractors that are involved in making a complete campaign. This job can earn you about £56,200 a year depending of your experience.

Marketing Executive

Marketing Executives have a fast paced work environment, they have the strenuious task of adevertising, planning, ditribution of the product, etc. they often help plan events that promote the game. Marketing executives are found in both private and public sectors that help aq variety of things form finance to retail. The responsibilities of this job depend on how big the company is, the bigger the company tghen the bigger the task at hand. The salary for this job can vary from £17,000 - £19,000 for beginners, with that rising to an average pay of £45,000 a year.

Marketing Manager

A marketing manager, who like the marketing executive, helps out in the popularity of the product and how well the game is ditribnuted to retailer and players. Their main task is to make the game look as good as possible before it being shipped off, they do this in forms of posters, TV advertisments, etc.
They have a starting salary of about £25,000 with this elvating to about £50,000 with the needed experience in this field.

Sources:

http://study.com/articles/How_to_Become_a_Video_Game_Designer_Education_and_Career_Roadmap.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/334_level_editor
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/332_lead_artist_game
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/339_technical_artist_games
http://www.indeed.co.uk/Technical-Artist-jobs
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/330_games_artist
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/325_animator_games
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/327_audio_engineer
http://www.indeed.co.uk/Game-Audio-job
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/336_game_programmer
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/337_project_manager_producer_games
http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/salary-checker/average-project-manager-salary
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/329_external_producer
http://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Creative_Director/Salary
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/338_qa_tester
http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/335_product_manager
https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/marketing-executive
https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/Marketingmanager.aspx
http://www.totaljobs.com/careers-advice/job-profile/marketing-advertising-pr-jobs/pr-job-description

Thursday 29 September 2016

Task 1 - Structure - The Value Chain

Task 1 - structure - The Value Chain

Profile each of the main sectors within the industry:

Developers

A video game developer is a software developer who designs and creates games, The developers have the job of designing and story writing to coding and programming, other areas of work in this field include visual arts, design and audio.
There are many parts that go into developing a video game designers, graphic artists and producers all help in the final cut of a game:
- The games designer (also known as game developer) will be involved in the various aspects of creating a video game.
-The graphic artists will create how the game looks by either hand drawing of computer software, the are in charge of the overall layout and production of the game.
On the other hand programmers and software developers turn the ideas of the artists and other members of the team into code which in turn creates the games operating system. The majority of game developers have development studios such as Activision's Radical Entertainment which is based in Canada. There are also independent game developers known as 'indie' who rely on either crowd funding or any alternate form of funding for their game. An example of an indie game developer is Dark Water Studios who developed games such as Dogfighter. Who developed and published their game and had it distributed by steam.

Activision are one half of the Activision Blizzard, Inc who are one of the biggest games development/publisher companies in the world. Activison have published games such as 'Call of Duty Series', 'Destiny', and 'Skylanders' since 1979. They have a total of 38 studios and offices in a variety of locations worldwide with their headquarters in Santa Monica, California, United States. In 2014 their total assets equaled to $14.75 billion which was $0.738 billion more than their previous year. For example a game like 'Destiny' will have a much larger budget for market than an indie game, they could showcase their game with adverts on TV and posters etc.

A prime example of an indie game developer would be Psyonix. Founded in 2000 by Dave Hagewood and they still only have around 30 employees. Their first game was planned to be 'Vampire Hunter; The Dark Prophecy' but was cancelled, they then developed 'Monster Madness; Grave Danger' and 'Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars' in 2008 and released on PlayStation 3. Then in 2015 the developed a sequel to 'Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars' with 'Rocket League'. in contrast to a company like Activision, indie game developers will not have a big budget to promote their games so will rely on platforms like steam, Ps4 and YouTubers to promote the game. For example with Rocket league, Ps4 put it up for free for a while which was a major promotion for the game and gained the game a lot of publicity.

Publishers

A video game publisher is a company that has the job of putting a game on the market that either they them selves or another company have created. in the same way the publishers of books and films the publishers often have the task of manufacturing and marketing the product and all other aspects of advertising. The majority of the time the publishing company give the development team the funds for the game which is called 'external development'. Large publishing companies often market their own game where as smaller publishing companies hire distribution companies. A lot of factors have to be taken into account when publishing a game such as; where the game is based and if the country your aiming at has any restrictions, for example if you are looking to sell your history based game in Germany you would try to steer away for things like the Nazi's. Trends are also looked at when publishing a game because if a certain type of game sells a lot in a country then you would aim at selling at that country for example if the development tea have created an RPG game and it is a big seller in France then you would target that country.

A great example of a high end video game publisher would be 'Sony Interactive Entertainment' previously known as 'Sony Computer Entertainment' who have internal staff developing games. Sony was founded in Tokyo, Japan in 1993 and their headquarters is now based in San Mateo, California, USA. They have published some very good games developed by other companies such as Naughty Dog's 'The Last of Us' and FromSoftware's 'Bloodborne' which are both primarily PlayStation games and are not sold on other platforms. the PlayStation 1, released in 1994 was a a very popular console, selling about 102.49 million worldwide, its successor (the PlayStation 2) is the most sold games console to date with its sales reaching about 155 million as of march 2012.

Another good example of a games publisher is 'Telltale Games', founded in 2004 by Dan Connors, Kevin Bruner and Troy Molander they also develop video games as well as publish them. They are a mid-sized company based in San Rafael, California who serve worldwide and only have around about 240 employees. They have published games for other development teams such as 'Hector: Badge of Carnage' for Straandlooper for IOS that has three episodes as well as '7 Days to Die' by The Fun Pimps which is for Ps4 and Xbox One.

Console Manufacturers/First Party Publishers

A very popular example of a console manufacturers/first party publishers would be Microsoft, Microsoft who created the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox one, have stormed the console market in recent years by improving and adding to the console they added the Kinect to the Xbox 360 and the Xbox one which gave it some popularity. The Xbox 360 had around about 85.5 million to date, Microsoft, like other console manufacturers/ first party publishers, make some games exclusive to their console, Microsoft made halo sole to the Xbox which added to popularity of their console because of the acclaim of the Xbox. Halo 3 in 2007 is one of the most popular halo game and had 12.14 million sales, Halo 3 is one of the fastest selling games in recent years, reaching $170 million in sales within the first 24 hours, the game had over 1.7 million sales in preorder sales alone and in the U.S 3.3 million within the first 12 days

Another example of a Console Manufacturers/ First party publisher would be Nintendo who have been a very influential part of the game industry, they began this in 1985 by releasing the Nintendo entertainment system which was very popular at the time selling nearly 62 million worldwide.
More commonly they released the Nintendo Wii which was released in 2006 and main feature was the wireless controllers, As of December 31st the Wii has sold close to 101 million units across the world. They even published games for the Super Mario Bros. for multiple of their consoles such as the DS, the Wii and the Wii u, plus others.

Distribution and Retail

Distributors are any games company that sells their game, they sell it to the retailers, who are shops like CEX or Grainger games who distribute the game to players.

The distributor would be the publishers of the game who want to market the game and popularize it, an example would be Electronic Arts, who have developed and published games such as: Fight Night series, Battlefield series and Star wars series. Once they have these games ready to ship they will market them to companies like 'GAME', 'GameStop' and 'CEX', who will then sell on the game.

In recent times game retailers are becoming less popular because of the amount of games that are being bought online, so they also move their company online and add deals to get people to buy, places like the PlayStation store and Xbox store are part of the reason this is happening because it makes it a lot easier for the player to buy the game whilst sitting at home, I myself buy most of my games from the PlayStation store, as do a lot of the people I know. They also add deals and free games which make it harder for the shops to compete with.

Press and Media

Press and Media have increased their role in what constitutes a safe game, they are always petitioning that a game is unsafe or unfit to play because it promotes violence across a wide variety of people.

Experiments have been taken place to detect whether a game can make a person violent, In 2015 the American Psychological Association said that there is a clear link between how violent a game is and how violent the person is

On the other hand the press and media also promote games as much as they deter them, a lot of blogs depict how good a game is through the eyes of a player and not only this, YouTubers and streamers are becoming very popular among every players and most gamer's get advise on whether to buy a game from these sort of people. YouTube is seen by million everyday and if theyre saying a violent game the 'Call of Duty series' is fun then people are going to buy it.

A YouTuber like Angry Joe who has 2.6 million subscribers will have a big say in which games are good and which games are bad for instance he said 'Batman: Arkham City' is a very good game and this has 4.6 million sales worldwide, some of that can be contributed to him and others lioke him.

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_publisher