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
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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] This week’s lecture was by Nigel Kershaw. Nigel is a game designer who is currently working on Broken Sword series for mobile platforms. He has great experience in an industry he has worked in for 25 years, working on numerous games. The main subject of this week’s talk was about what a game designer does. A job that is often misunderstood by people from outside of the games industry. Nigel went on to explain that a designers job is to create something that has interactive unlike movies which are a passive experience. Nigel believes that games hold more in common with activities such as football and card games due to their interactivity. A problem with this is that most things can be described as interactive so a game must have different traits; Participation, Structure, emotional involvement, engagement and flow. Most importantly a game designer must create something that is “FUN”. An article on brianwill.net entitled what is fun describes how “the definition of fun gets hung up on the distinction between fun and entertainment”. Brian believes that fun can be generated by different emotions and that plenty of passive experiences have been described as fun. Brian also believes that games push a multitude of different emotions which is what makes them more engaging than a passive experience. This directly contradicts what Nigel believes in that fun can be sourced from both passive and interactive mediums (Will 2012). Raph Koster has a similar theory of what fun is, in his book entitled ‘Theory of Fun’. He believes that fun is source of enjoyment. The source of enjoyment can range from physical stimuli, aesthetic appreciation or direct chemical manipulation. Raph Koster hits on a different point and digs deeper into the point of what is fun and why games are fun and how they become boring. He believes that fun arises from mastery and comprehension of games and the act of solving the game. What Raph is saying is that learning is what makes games fun. An example of this is noughts and crosses as a new player to the game it provides a challenge but an adult will pick up the pattern very quickly. Once the pattern is mastered the game will become boring and trivial as you are no longer learning and the brain is no longer being stimulated. (Raph, 2012) An article on Nils Blog takes a more direct approach and a clear guide on what games have to consist of to be called a game. The article also gives a list of traits a game must have to be fun. The author believes that for games to be called fun it must have goals that are worth the journey, the journey must not be frustrating; the journey needs to keep the players mind busy. It is touch on upon in the article that if a game is frustrating the player is not going to think that the journey is worth making (Nils Blog 2011).
In conclusion to this week’s talk is that there are many theory’s on what a game is and what a games has to do to be fun. A common theme is that most of these people believe that there are differences between other forms of media and games. They believe that a game has more depth than other mediums. ms of media and games. They believe that a game has more depth than other mediums. Will, B. (2012). “What is Fun” [online] Available at: http://brianwill.net/blog/2012/02/ [Accessed 02/02/14] Nils Blog. (2012). “What Games Are” [Online] Available at: http://nilsmmoblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/what-games-are.html [Accessed 02/02/14] Raph, K. (2012) “Theory of Fun”. Scottsdale: Paraglyth Press Inc. P40. Will, B. (2012). “What is Fun” [online] Available at: http://brianwill.net/blog/2012/02/ [Accessed 02/02/14] This week Marc Littlemore spoke about jobs in the games industry and how to break through into games. One piece of advice he gave to designers was to develop and publish games while at university. The software he believes is becoming a major part of the games industry and is helping small developers is Unity 3D. Unity 3D is a development programme that allows users to easily develop and publish games to their chosen store like IOS. Currently Unity Technologies claims that they have two million registered developers and four hundred thousand active developers. It has been used to make games from start-ups to big companies, games such as last year’s big hit The Full Bright Company’s “Gone Home” and big mobile titles such as N-Fusion and Eidos Montreal’s Deus Ex: The Fall. This tool is used throughout the Bolton Games Design course and is currently allowing students to create 2D and 3D games for their Portfolio project. A way in which Unity has supported small developers and students is providing them with free tools to publish to IOS and Android. Previously a developer would have to pay around $800 for the mobile development tools which can be out of reach for some small developers and students (Brodkin, 2013). This has now made Marc Littlemore’s advice about publishing games during the time at university a possibility.
Unity Technologies is currently working with Sony to support the PS4 for release in 2014 (Chapple. 2013). With Sony’s move to support indie development it will only be a short time until any designer can have an idea and publish to a home console with minimum fuss. Another topic Marc Littlemore spoke about was job stability. He showed us how many of the studios he had worked for that no longer exist. This was about 80% of the studios he had worked at which demonstrated how volatile the games industry can be. The CEO of Tantalus, Crago in an interview with Gamasutra explains how situations can change and how a profitable company can run into financial trouble (Gaft, 2013). He tells of how the studio ran into difficulty during a project porting Mass effect to the Wii U and over this time he had to lay off staff to keep the company running, he also blames the fact the industry is transitioning at the moment and he failed to read the change. This is a sad example of a studio that has supported itself for many years and a bad project can have a huge effect on people. In this case the studio managed to survive but cuts had to be made and in an industry with few positions it can be very hard for these people to get back in. Tantalus is a fairly large company with many employees but this problem can effect start up in a similar way. A recent closure of Rivit Studios in Manchester at the end of 2013 had an adverse effect on recent graduates who had never worked at a games studio before. Rivit had been running for a few years and was a team of mainly graduates who put everything they had to release games that they could put their names to. As failed projects piled up and confidence in the studio was lost and the studio had to close its door a week before Christmas. This left many of the staff in a difficult position and left them questioning if a job in the games industry was for them. These two examples of studios struggling are prevalent in the games industry and is something that happens with all business. If the company is using all the available money on the current project and it flops it could spell the end of that business. This means having a permanent position in the games industry is rare. Brodkin. J, (2013), “How Unity3D Became A Game-Development Beast” [Online] Available at: http://slashdot.org/topic/cloud/how-unity3d-become-a-game-development-beast/ [Accessed 25/01/14] Chapple. C, (2013), “Unity Come to PS4 in New Partnership” [Online] Avaialble at: https://www.develop-online.net/news/unity-comes-to-ps4-in-new-sony-partnership/0114328 [Aceessed 25/01/14] Gaft. K, (2012), “Mass Effect 3 Wii U developer faced a tough reality” [Online] Available at: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/179589/Hardwon_lessons_for_one_Wii_U_developer#.UIUYJeDzXLY [Accessed 26/01/14] Unity3D, (2013) “Games Made With Unity” [Online] Available at: http://unity3d.com/gallery/made-with-unity/game-list [Accessed 25/01/14] Unity3D, (2013) “Unity-Fast Facts” [Online] Available at: https://unity3d.com/company/public-relations [Accessed 25/01/14] |
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