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 

Image result for ukie

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." 

Image result for IGDA

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.

BAFTA Games Awards Logo.jpg

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

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.
Image result for eaSimilarly, 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

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. 
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

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: