The British game industry has received a much awaited tax break after seven years of discussion. It will bring much awaited money into the UK games industry and see growth in the sector. During the debate on whether the UK could be granted a tax break halted by the government and the EU. Has seen the closure of once successful studios and has seen talent move abroad to country’s such has Canada which has granted tax breaks to the industry for many years. With the tax breaks in Canada it has seen large companies like Ubisoft and indie developers such Phil Fish flourish. Tax breaks in the UK films industry has boosted that sector by increasing the amount of movies and television shows made in Britain. Without the tax break it would see culturally British games decrease. This is also not the first time that the tax breaks have been attempted before. In 2010 the labour government approved the breaks but this was then overturned later in the year by the collation. The UK’s tax break will not be as generous as Canada but will look more like the tax break available in France. The tax breaks in France have allowed companies like Ubisoft to do well. It has also seen companies like Sony put money into studios like Quantic Dream. The new tax break will work on a point system to judge if a company can receive it. The companies will receive points for things like if the game is cultural relevant for example if the game promotes the UK. Points will also be earned by being based in the UK and hiring staff from the UK. Around 25% of games companies already qualify for the tax break. More companies are likely to change in order to fit into the bracket that will see them receive the tax breaks. Jason Kingsley the owner of UK developer Rebellion thinks that the tax break will add around one hundred and eighty million pounds into the UK games industry. With this money it is a hope that the UK can become one of the top three game making nations in the world. As a games design student I am hopeful that the tax cuts will help me get a job after I finish my course. It will allow studios to hire more staff thus creating more places for students to get places in the industry. It will also help students who want to set up companies after leaving university as they will have a bigger income due to paying less tax on the games they create. I think it may be a year or so until we start seeing the effects of this tax break but it can only have a positive impact on the UK’s games industry. We now have to aim to get in line with Canada before we can claim to be one of the best counties in the world to create video games.
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Irrational games was founded seventeen years ago by Jon Chey, Rob Fermier and Ken Levine with a mission to create visually unique worlds. With irrational having seemingly almost limitless cash flow duration the creation of the Bioshock franchise they have decided to wind down the studio. In a statement from Ken Levine he mentions that seventeen years is a long time in any job. Levine believes to achieve this he must refocus his energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure. He will be keeping only fifteen members which is a huge cut from a large studio. Levine hopes to create more narrative games with the new team that aimed at the core gamer and have replay ability. Levine did not like the way that Elizebeth performs the same way for everyone who plays the game. With the new studio the games will offer variation of narrative content. The games produced will now only be delivered digitally which hints that it may be aimed more at the mobile market. One other reason for this shut down could be the trouble that Bioshock infinite went through during development. This was no secret in the games industry with multiple delays and features that were later scrapped. During this development stage the studio had around two hundred people working on the game. Levine has said that the people affected by the layoff will not be forgotten and will offer support such as use of the studio during the transition period. Irrational have also set up a career day which around 50 publishers and 112 studios have signed up for. Levine was one of the Major forces in Irrational with him undoubtedly being one of the best writers in the games industry. Levine has success with game such as Thief and System shock, (the spiritual predecessor to Bioshock) all these game had a talking point. With Levine’s new adventure he is no longer stuck with the Bioshock universe and is free to explore new and creative ways to deliver games to the core gamer. There have been many successes with alumni from big studios going on to make successful indie games. One such story was Steve Gaynor a former irrational employee who went on to make the hit game Gone Home. There is also Lucas Pope who left Naught Dog to create papers please the surprise hit of 2013.
This does not mean that the Bioshock franchise is over as 2K Games still owns the right to the series. We could see in the future one of 2K many other studios take over a popular vote would be one of the Rockstar studios. With many studios shutting down and big games having astronomical budgets that could be difficult to make back is it worth focusing on small games with small teams. Over the next few years we could carry on seeing this shift from big AAA studios and see them focusing on cheaper more creative games. Recently Facebook bought the Kickstarter Oculus Rift for two billion dollars in cash and shares. The Reaction from the gaming community has not been positive with the belief that Facebook can only do harm rather than bring the device to the masses. Oculus Rift is a virtual reality head-mounted display being developed by Oculus VR. It was born from the mind of Palmer Lucky who developed an idea for an inexpensive and more effective display. John Carmack who earned fame as a video game programmer decided to work on Palmers developments and developed the software for the device. Oculus VR originally received 2.5 million dollars via a Kickstarter campaign this was ten times the amount originally asked for. Since this campaign the Oculus Rift has gone from strength to strength with various development units and huge interest from gamers. Now with the new Facebook buyout this can surely only push the device further than it could ever have done without them. Seemingly with an unlimited cash flow and some of the best minds in the development can only be improved and brought to us quicker. Is it gamers do not see the bigger picture or is it that they believe the evil corporation Facebook will only destroy it. One of the first major names to dismiss the buyout was Marcus Persson who originally was working with Oculus VR on bringing Minecraft to the device. He cancelled the deal soon after the announcement citing that Facebook “creeps him out”. This does nothing to help the PR of the Oculus Rift after the buyout due to Persson’s influence in the gaming community.
Another back lash was from the original Kickstarter donators who believe that they have been betrayed by the sale. The donators funded Oculus Rift to make it the headset it is today and feel that they are no longer getting what they originally supported. They also feel a sense of ownership and not getting information blindsided them when they leaned from news reports of the sale. What has been learned from this is that Kickstarter is a donation platforms and the money you put into an idea does not mean you have any part of it. Overall with some of the bad PR received after the purchase would have been expected from Facebook and unavoidable. A big question is what does Facebook want with Oculus Rift? In a statement from mark Zukerberg he says that the company will carry on working with developers and immersive gaming. They hope to develop more relationships to support more games in the future. After gaming Facebook plans to make Oculus Rift available for many other experiences. Some examples used were to imagine studying in a class room or having court side seats at a basketball game. Overall there has been some negative PR after the sale of Oculus to Facebook but this was always going to be unavoidable. Time will only tell what Facebook can bring to the company but with the recourse available it can only be positive for the Oculus Rift. This week we had a talk from Gareth Wilson who is design director for Sumo Digital. He mainly talked about the difference between working with a brand new IP and working on a licenced IP such as the Lego. He mentions the difficulties of both with a new IP being a risky investment were as a licenced IP can have difficulties working with the licensee or may not succeed were the original did. There are many advantages with working on video game sequels such as an existing fan base. There is also an existing structure meaning that developers can make sequels by just adding new features. This brings the cost of development down and takes a lot of the risks out of development. Bringing down the cost is a huge advantage and over the last few years as seen the rise of the annual video game such as Call Of Duty. The rise of the sequel peaked back in 2011 when a survey revealed that 90% of the most anticipated games were sequels. According to electronic arts “fans don’t actually complain about sequels – editors do” they believe that players enjoy sequels much like the movie industry does (snow 2011). One of the big problems for games is that there is no secondary market as there is with Movies. With a movie you will first get a release at the cinema creating vast revenue there will then be a DVD release where fans of the movie can buy it to watch in private. With video games they will get released at one price point usually around £40 and once the game is bought it will provide no other revenue (Unless DLC is created). This is a problem as well because of the huge pre-owned market which does not put a penny into the developer’s pocket. With these problems developers are less likely to take risks so making a sequel to successful games is a safe bet. What we are currently finding is that a lot of new IP’s are being created for the new generation of gaming consoles such as the PS4 and Xbox one. This is partially down to most games being release at the beginning of a console cycle will sell well which means it can acquire fans for sequels. As stated before the sequels will also cost much less as the base is already there (Wilson 2014).
Overall video games sequels are going to stay around as there are a much lower risks to the developers and publishers. What we are seeing is some of the big publishers now taking risks on newer consoles to cement a new franchise. As long as there is a pre-owned market developers will not be willing to take such big risks The next area that needed fixing was the camera shots as these often hanged in once place while the level changed around it. To improve this I focused on tighter shots that looked at really impressive areas such as the front sign on the Market Place building. I also added panning shots while the level changed. Another Idea I had was instead of having one change as the shots were tighter I could replay the change at different speeds in different areas to get the effect that this has happened over many years. The hand-in was not left till the last minute and was handed in early in the morning this was to ensure we did not risk missing the deadline as we nearly did on the last hand-in. The next step was to add particle effects on the collection gems. I wanted to add this effect to make the level look prettier as it was looking fairly dull. It was also to give feedback to the player so that they were aware that the gem was collected without having to pay too much attention.
The next area I looked at was sound and what sorts of sounds I needed in particular areas. One such area was the gem collection this took me a while to pick as I wanted just the right sound. In the end I settled for a crystal being hit sound as this match the visuals on the screen. After I picked all the sound I then had to pick background music for this I picked a free source classical track that I felt once again matches the visual and the theme of the game. This week was the second hand-in for the level design module which means that all hands where on deck to ensure we had a good project that we were happy with. This did mean that the Unity project was shelved for this week so no progress was made. As a team we were not particularly happy with the cinematic so I was in charge of getting this up to a good standard. While the rest of the team worked on the word document as this was worth more than the cinematic. The first area that needed fixing was the particle effects as they were either not working correctly or did not look attractive in the level. I first added smoke for the bomb entering the Market Place this was white smoke as there was no fire. It was also designed to look like dust as the bomb did not explode but cause a lot of damage. The other particle effect was on the shot of the earth. The effect on the earth at the beginning of the week looked like little fires and not explosions. After working on this for a while it finally looked like lots of explosions happening around the world. I got this effect by setting up 3 matinee tracks that could have lots of particle effects plugged in. These tracks were then turned on and off very quickly to get the explosion effect. The next area that needed fixing was the camera shots as these often hanged in once place while the level changed around it. To improve this I focused on tighter shots that looked at really impressive areas such as the front sign on the Market Place building. I also added panning shots while the level changed. Another Idea I had was instead of having one change as the shots were tighter I could replay the change at different speeds in different areas to get the effect that this has happened over many years.
The hand-in was not left till the last minute and was handed in early in the morning this was to ensure we did not risk missing the deadline as we nearly did on the last hand-in. This week I have been working on my personal project while other team members spend some time on the cinematic. The personal project needed time spent on it this week to improve a lot of features and implement obstacles and make the level playable. The first task for this week was implementing the obstacles which included fences, boulders and arrows. The fence was the easiest obstacle as it is just placed into the level with collision physics. This is make the jumps harder and get in players way. The next obstacle was the arrow script this took a while to ensure the arrow flew in the correct direction, with the correct rotation but once this was sorted the player triggers the arrow and then has jump over it. The hardest obstacle was the boulder this was easy to set up as it could just be made active as the play steps into the trigger. The problem with the boulder is that you don’t want it to be too fast so that the player cannot escape but you don’t want it to be too slow as the player will not be underneath as it falls. I spent quite a bit of time ensuring that the boulders and triggers where in the right place. A feature I realised that would help me with the creation of this level and other levels in the Unity game was the ability to create prefabs. Prefabs allow me to create a game object that consists of multiple components then saves that to reuse when needed. This worked particularly well with the obstacles and trigger as I could place a trigger into the scene and then place which ever obstacle I wanted to trigger into the scene. With the prefabs anyone who picks up the project has the ability to put a level together very quickly. At the end of the week I have achieved a lot in terms of making all the game objects into prefabs and making the level extremely easy to set up. I still need to adjust the level it give it the correct level of difficulty.
This week we had a talk from John Healey who has worked on games such as Juiced and Blur. During the talk John touches upon how a project that he had worked on as one of the main designers had been cancelled. He also mentions that this is partially due to the long the development times and rising cost of creating games. Video games have gone from taking around two years to make a few years ago to now taking 2-5 years to create. This means that video game studios now have to sell more games to cover the cost of development. As a new generation of video games is upon us the cost of video games is set to rise even further and put more strain on game studios. This is not all as bad as it seems because companies are coming up with new innovative ways to increase revenue and cover the cost of next generation games. One way a company could take the risk out of a venture is with the release of a pilot episode as suggested by the Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima. He believes that releasing a small portion of game before jumping completely into the project would allow the developers to test the waters (Lambie 2013). Hideo is currently using a similar technique with the new Metal Gear Solid Game with the release of a prequel to the main game which will be released later in the year. This prequel cost £20 around half of what a full game would cost but only has a main story of around two hours. The game has been given extras to increase the game play time but it is clearly not a full game. Another way developers can try to increase revenue is with DLC and more recently a season pass. The season pass business model was first introduced by Rockstar with LA Noir (GiantBomb N.D). This allowed the player to buy all the addition DLC before release at a discounted price. This significantly helps the developer because as time goes on and interest in the game dies off less people more likely to buy DLC for your game. A season pass however gives the player the opportunity to buy all the DLC why they are still heavily invested in the game. This business model is currently used on around thirty nine games and there are no signs of it going away.
In the future new business models will be tested by companies. Crytec recently announced that it will be no longer making packaged games but will be making console quality games for free. This means that they will still spend twenty to thirty million dollars creating a game but will offer in game purchases instead of making the gamer pay first. Over all with the rising cost of creating video games companies will have to come up with new and innovative ways to increase revenue. These include free-to-play and episodic content. We will also see new business models introduced into the industry in the coming years moving games to a more of a service model rather than a one of cost. Lambie, R (2013) “How will game studios beat the rising cost of development” [Onlone] Available at: http://www.denofgeek.com/games/24789/how-will-game-studios-beat-the-rising-cost-of-development [Accessed 29/04/14] Kelly N (2012) “Crytek: All our future games will be free-to-play” [Online] Available at: http://www.videogamer.com/pc/warface/news/crytek_all_our_future_games_will_be_free-to-play.html [Accessed 29/04/14] N.A. (N.D) “DLC Season Pass” [Online] available from: http://www.giantbomb.com/dlc-season-pass/3015-7186/ [Accessed 29/04/14] This week we enjoyed a talk by Carl Dalton who is the co-founder of Brain in a Jar. Brain in a Jar is a company that mainly deals with contracts and have recently been working on the cars for watchdogs. He spoke about how people see the games industry as a place with few roles e.g. designer, artist and programming where in fact there are plenty of different roles. These include production, operations, business and marketing this list could go on. These areas of the industry can then be broken down into smaller chunks like specialist designer roles or artist roles. With larger games a design role would have to be broken up into specialist roles. Games that are created on a large scale are very complex systems and require a combination of skills. This means that the process of creating a game need’s to be shared between different designers, sometimes this could mean a designer only works on one level of the game. These designers need to be able to communicate and collaborate for the game to come together, this is usually overseen by a lead designer. Game designer roles on a project like this may include; lead designer, games designer, script writer, level editor, object planner, GUI Designer, Storyboard Artist, Illustrator, graphic designer(Creative skillset. N.D.). Having a large multi-talented team enables studios to create highly polished games that appeal to a mass market. It can be an entirely different story for small independent studios that have a very limited budget. These studios need to have people that are themselves multi-talented. A studio that does show this very well is Hello Games with a staff count of four. This studio has proved that it is possible to create great games with a small team by the success of Joe Danger on various platforms from PlayStation to IPhone. They have now wowed the world’s stage with their new game No Mans Sky. All this from a team made up of four people who are all multi-talented. Mode7 is another studio with only four fulltime members of staff. In a blog on their website Paul Taylor writes about how to become an indie developer. He explains that it is his job to do the; business development, marketing, audio, music, writing, art direction, UI design, single player design and other things as well. He also writes that to make a game you will need the following aspects; game design, code, level design, art and animation, audio and music, writing, business management (Taylor, 2012). Mode7 is another example of a small studio that has sold close to half million games and can be successful with very few people.
What all these studios show is that to be successful you need to have a set of skills. At a large studio you need less skills but the skills that you have need to be the best to get the most out of a game that will cost millions of pounds to make. The smaller studios show what is possible to do with a small team. To be a member of these small teams you need to know everything you need to be able to pitch in with all areas of the game for it to be successful. . Taylor, P. (2012) “How to Be an Indie Game Developer” [Online] Available at: http://www.mode7games.com/blog/2012/06/12/how-to-be-an-indie-game-developer/ [Last accessed 20/02/14] Creative Skillset. (N.D.) “Job Roles in Computer Games” [ Online] Available at: http://www.skillset.org/games/careers/article_2768_1.asp [Accessed 20/02/14] This week we had a talk from Ben Ward who is the owner of Supergonk. Ben discussed a lot about his time in the games Industry, from working in a triple A studio to now working from his bedroom and making more money than he ever has. This move was forced on Ben when Activision shutdown Bizarre Creations, he decided after this to go indie with the designer of Geometry Wars which was a successful Xbox arcade game. This company sadly did not work out for Nigel but now his new company has four million players on just one of the games. Part of this shift that sees developers moving from triple A to indie is due to the range of platforms now available. These platforms include smartphones, tablets and digital distribution (Brightman, 2013). All these platforms help developers create games with very little overheads. There are also new funding options like crowd funding, which allows companies with a creative idea gain the capital to make the game. It sounds like the right move to make as you can start up a studio and be your own boss and make lots of money. That is defiantly not the case as Ben mentioned as his first company Hogrocket failed with a good game, meaning he did not get paid for nearly two years. This seems a familiar theme for developers going indie, in an interview Borut Pfeifer says he felt the stress of not knowing when his paycheck would come through. This meant that planning for the future is much harder as you will not know when or how much money you will receive (Brightman, 2013). Working in triple A obviously is much safer in knowing that you will be paid at the end of the month and can plan your money around that.
During the talk Ben also mentioned that you need confidence to have your own studio. With confidence also come contacts and people you can lean on for help. This view is also shared by Damian Isla who thinks self-promotion skills are a hurdle for independent companies. He also believes that the company needs to be able to go to conferences, talk to journalist and build relationships (Ligman, 2013). To do all that Damian listed that you need to have confidence and you need to be able to talk to people to get good coverage of your game. There are other shortcomings for indie games and one big one is that the market is being saturated. As said before anyone can make and release a game from their bedroom with little or no skill. At one point any game on Xbox live would sell at least 25000 units within a month, now only games with heavy promotion can get numbers like that. In conclusion going form AAA to indie can be very profitable for an individual. For this to happen you need to create a product that sells you need to be prepared for financial troubles and you also need to be prepared for your game to fail. Brightman. J, (2013), ‘Going indie: “I’m more scared of staying AAA right now”’, [Online] Available: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-10-28-going-indie-im-more-scared-of-staying-in-aaa-right-now [Accessed 8/2/14 Ligman. K (2013) ‘Four AAA share their transition to independence’, [Online] Available: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/204070/Four_AAA_veterans_share_their_transition_to_independence.php Sorens. N, (2013) “Indie Games are due for a downward correction” [Online] Available: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/NeilSorens/20121217/183709/Indie_games_are_due_for_a_downward_correction.php [Accessed 8/02/14] |
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