initial idea – pitch – prototype – bigger teams with funding – through development and testing – announce the game and marketing
finical implications
job roles
wider game industries
challenges faced by developers
Playing Hard Report
today we watched the documentary ‘Playing Hard’ that dived into the production and the making of the game ‘For Honor’ and its 4 and a half years of development journey. throughout the documentary i noticed a similarity between how we make games and how the industries make there games, only difference is that the industries are just a much more scaled up version of ours.
through out the documentary, it really opened my eyes to the whole work process of making that game and the struggles and implications they went through and how they resolved the problems they faced. i also learned there are a lot of other problems they faced they were out of there control such as health implications some of the staffing had like one of them has been dealing with sleep apnea, while some others where struggling with mental health problems due to high stress of working on the game, as shown in the documentary when one of the workers left for 3 week to take some therapy due to the stress of the game. another problem they faced through the games development was a staffing problem they had as some of them decided to quit, causing them a shortage of staff which led to them not being able to implement all of the features they wanted including cutting the split screen feature they really wanted to have in there game and many other features so they can get make all there other features at the best of there ability and so they can release the game out on time as well.
Job roles and hierarchies
17/09/2019
WII1 – Understand job roles, career structures and business models across the games, animation and VFX industries.
quality assurance :
this department makes sure that games are fine to play and dont suffer from any bugs glitches and spelling errors. there are also testers who play the games to spot any mistakes in the game as games need to be continually improved and upgrades so there are engineers who organise that process. they also report the bugs they find from testing then send the bugs to the game developers so they can fix the problems found. there main focus is making sure the build is playable for everyone and to spot any mistakes that in that build that would need solving. the build engineer is also responsible for making an up to date build of the game which can be created when needed as quick as possible.
producer:
producers are the eyes and ears and glue of development. they raise the money, get talented and skilled staff on board and make sure the best product is made, whatever challenges might be in the way. In games design, before production starts, producers work with the designer, lead artist and programmer to work out characters and scenarios in a game. they might test the ideas on players, define who its designed for and how it differs from competing products. Producers also find a publisher for the game, control the money and negotiate the contracts with people coming on board with the production of the game.
CEO:
CEO is the highest ranking executive in a company, whose primary responsibilities include making major corporate decisions, managing the overall operations and resources of a company while also acting as the communication between the board of directors. They also decide wither to not give a game the funding they need to produce the game.
junior senior manger and director differences
junior- have less than 2-3 years of experience in the filed, inexperienced in some cases with work, usually graduated from collage and are working full time in the filed of work.
mid-level – can operate on there own to solve target problems,
24/09/2019
we talked about the production pipeline and all the little jobs that would fall under the different stages of the production pipeline that help build the game up from scratch and how each one will benefit the other jobs.
01/10/2019 world building
ISIW 1 understand the concept of an imagined world in relation to the games, animation and VFX industries.
our world is mainly based on the Finnish folktale the aurora borealis. our world is mainly set in a cave system reflected on the aurora and the consolations.
the history of our game is important to our current stage of the game because it tells us why the world is in that state it is or like why there are certain objects in that world. in our specific game, we have took inspiration from real life events like in this case the aurora borealis, by basing our game on this we can get ideas like how the world is supposed to look or how the characters are supposed to look or act like depending on the environment or events that take place.
world building theory
setting: 4 dimensions – period, location , level of conflict, duration.
place that is designed for the story
free design: free design is designing what ever you want that can exist in the world of your game
fixed design: level of conflict and time to a place becomes fixed because its important place for the game because main event taking place. opens new questions to the place that is fixed
found design:
what has been developed from this topic in the games world:
place
history of the world
time period
Target audience and market research
WII 2. Know the regulatory, ethical and legal requirements applicable to the games, animation and VFX industries
WII3. Understand how products in the games, animation and VFX industries are taken to market
What a Target Audience is?:
the audience a product is targeted for like certain age groups or genders.
How you define a Target Audience?:
age group, gender, contents in game
what are PEGI?:
pan European game information (PEGI) is a European video game rating system to help European consumers make informed decisions when buying apps or games.
PEGI is important because it helps parents pick out games so they know what age rated game they should buy that is appropriate for there children.
what are ESRB?:
Entertainment software rating board (ESRB) is an american self regulator organisation that assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games
these ratings and target audience can impact the game by the contents in the game such as blood and gore or bad language.
market research:
market research is how you see what the trends are in the GAVFX industries at the time and where your game would best fit a product such as local party games would be best fit to the switch because its best fit to local play, where as online fps games would be best on steam as its accessible to to online players on steam.
- streaming games like you-tubers or twitch streamers could actual be bad for a game as players could be like yeah ive seen enough of the game
- try and understand what your players want in a game
- steam reviews tells you how well a game is doing
- michal trnenys master thesis research: used machine learning to predict market success from a games steam store page. the average saturation and number od distinct colours of a games screenshots were one of the top factors in predicting success
market research can impact on a products development by showing us what the audience would want more from the product so the developers know what direction they should go with there product to make better profit.
in GAVFX it is important to undergo market research at the beginning of the development by doing this it guides the developers on the right direction because it lets them know what the audience would want in the game.
15/10/2019 Production Management: Agile & Scrum
PM 2: Plan the provision of requirements for a specific production
PM 3: Be able to co-ordinate a production process
-agile- belief, a way of thinking in a group- 12 principles-
https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/
1 what is agile?
agile is the principles that are to be followed in order to make and respond to change, it is a way of dealing with and ultimately succeeding in an uncertain and turbulent environment
its really about thinking how you can understand whats going on in the environment around you in today’s time and identify what uncertainly your facing and figure out how you can adapt to that as you go along.
-away of production
-value whats right for your team
-being flexible with the team , time and management
-get stuff done instead of just planning small scale
-doing whats best for your team and product
2 how does agile help us develop products ?
agile allows your team to be more flexible with the work they are doing while also working in a way that will best fit your team and the product at hand increasing productivity throughout the team.
3 why does agile help us work as a highly productive team?
agile allows a team to work flexible and in a way that will best fit how the team together will work such as doing scrums while some other teams might prefer kanban instead, so its centennially finding a way the team will work better while also finding a way that will best fit the product as well.
1 what is scrum and sprint?
a scrum is a framework which people can discuss complex adaptive problems while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.
scrums are also lightweight and very simple to understand as they are very straight forwards and straight to the point. as it consist of little phases of work called a sprint which consist of a planning phase then a implementation phase followed by a review phase (or either going into a daily scrum) then ending in a reflection phase, resulting in completed features that were planned from the beginning
2 how does it help us develop products?
this process helps us develop a product faster as it works by tackling little parts of the products first instead of doing a really big planning phase then getting caught up in so much work to do as it just lets the team work on little tasks at a time.
3 what advantages does it have over the waterfall production management method?
this process is better than the waterfall one as it tackles mutilate small tasks among the team which allows there to be constant little reviews of the work done instaed of having one big review phase at the end of the work which could possible end up with a product that no one would wont to have.
it is important to regularly update and investigate your project management documents as it allows you to keep on top of your progress throughout the weeks and to see if there are any tasks that you may have forgotten about, while also letting you see how the team overall is doing on progress together. through the use of these project management documents you can also see how well you are coming along with your work as work as a group through the use of the burn down chart or the production schedule as the burn down chart will tell you how on track you are and the production schedule will tell you when certain assets or task are meant to be done by a certain amount of time, which will keep the team on track to meet the dead lines. however if the team is behind schedule they are going to have to priorities certain tasks over others to save time and get back on track in order to meet the deadline that is required to meet.
Case Study Exam Preparation Self Reflection
22/10/2019
In our lessons i do finish all of the work i am set to do, but i feel like i need to add more detail to some of my previous work such as my ‘job roles and hierarchies’ part because i feel like i didn’t add to much detail to that one and i feel like i could understand it more if i added more to it. To improve more on this case study i could start to do extra research on these topics outside of lessons to improve my understanding of the case study and it will help me prepare for the exam even more by giving me more information on the topics which will help me to retain this knowledge for when it comes to the exams.
Monetisation models and Financing
05/11/2019
PM 2 Plan the provision of requirements for a specific production
WII 1. Understand job roles, career structures and business models across the games, animation and VFX industries
WII3. Understand how products in the games, animation and VFX industries are taken to market
1 Monetisation models for GAVFX products/2 Advantages and disadvantages for each model
–Premium ( sales, cinema box office, digital/physical sales )
Advantages- customers get the full game in a one time purchase or view the film in full price for a one time buy.
Disadvantages- isn’t a long lasting way of making profit as its only a one time purchase
–DLC (season pass, story expansion )
Advantages- longer lasting way of earning profit as season passes are on every season of the game
Disadvantages- can end up focusing more on the dlcs which could end up with new players shying away from playing the game . example destiny
–Free to play
Advantages- lets players play the game for free to see if they will like the game without investing any money (war frame,
Disadvantages- if no other players are playing it, it loses more players and money. often needs microtransactions to survive, if done aggressively could turn the game into a play to win which will damage the player base
–Adverts ( mobile games, web games)
Advantages-
Disadvantages-
–Microtransations ( buying small parts of the game/ accessories, loot creates)-
Advantages- lets players customizes themselves to stand out
Disadvantages- if the game becomes play to win it could split the player base
–Games as a service ( subscriptions, WoW, battle pass)
Advantages-
Disadvantages-
–Merchandise (figures, lunch boxes, special editions )
Advantages-
Disadvantages-
1 What publishers are and how they help fund products
Publishers are companies that will market your product to earn a player base by getting peoples attention through advertisement. Publishers help fund a product by giving them financial support to give the developers a salary to keep them working on the product, they sometimes can do this by giving them there payments in milestones so this would work if the developers reach there deadline in time then they would be given there payment to continue onto the next deadline.
2 Other ways that products are funded/advantages and disadvantages of each
Other ways that products are funded are by Crowd Sourcing. This involves getting the public to fund your product, kick starter style by getting them to donate a certain amount of money, usually they will expect something in return for doing this like exclusive content. Advantages of this are they usually build up a player base very early on in development of the product. .Disadvantages of this is that sometimes the kick starter could not earn enough funding by the deadline which will cause the fundraising to be canceled. also due to so many kick starters being made you are really forced to come up with a unique idea to get the public really invested into your product.
Another way that products can be funded is by Grants/Funding support. this involves getting funding from charities for educational purposes or get funding from the government for equipment, tax relief ( UK games fund ). The Advantages of this is that it can provide you with free equipment or software to help produce your product. The Disadvantages of this is that the product your producing and the team must be fit to get funded and the product would probably have to be somewhat have educational purposes that will be beneficial to the user.
Another way that a product could be funded is by Self Funding. this involves; the developers using there personal funds to fund the game, sacrifice there own personal time to focus on development of the product, use funds from there previous projects. The Advantages of this is that
Employment and Company Types
19/11/2019
WII 1. Understand job roles, career structures and business models across the games, animation and VFX industries
Sole Trader
A Sole Trader is a self employed person who is the owner of their own business while running it as well, giving them absolute control over their business, its assets and profits after tax, this business model offers comparative simplicity and versatility. However they are personally liable for their business’s debts and their personal assets may be at risk if creditors cannot be paid.
In the GAVFX industries , a Sole Trader could essentially be someone who makes a whole game by them self’s taking 100% of the profits they take from the game, or another thing some Sole Traders can do is pay for other peoples work instead of working with them which will turn it into a company which will result in the profits being split 50 50 between them both. freelancers could also be considered a sole trader in some cases.
when your a sole trader you will need to file your own tax returns, where as in a normal company they will do this for you already. but since you are self employed you need to declare what you earned then the play the tax for it. where as in freelancing you will be paid by an hourly rate you d be payed for by who ever hired you. another way way they could earn money is by selling there products such as 3d models on websites like Sketchfab or even sell their art work.
Contracting is when your hired by a company for a certain amount of time, this could be a few weeks, months or even a year, for a certain job role such as a 3d artist, 2d artist, concept artist, coder and ect, filling in a job role in the company but your not working with the company, your still a separate person. however freelancing will let you work on multiple projects for different people, while being payed on a hourly rate for the work you do and how long it takes to get done, you could be hired to do certain small tasks or something big it all varies.
when your an employee of a company your hired by that company, you will be given a contract explaining what you will do for them or what job role you will have with them, what they will do for you, the pay you will receive from working with them, the times your expected to come into work. the contract is a legally binding contract between the two making sure everything is agreed upon, taxing would also worked differently here as it would be done through the company.
permanent contracts are when your hired by a company to fill a job role until you decide to quite, get fired or retire. However a Temporary contract is kinda the same as permanent contracts but you are given an exasperation date for how long you can work with them before you are done working with them.
resources need to start your won business:
- software- to makes the product, like 3d modeling, 2d artist , concept art, sculpting
- hardware- to store your digital files, and have something that will run the software to produce your assets, models, concept art.
- environment- to have a place to work in, depending on the environment you could have to play for, could also draw inspiration from the environment your in
- people- need help to make your product from other people depending on how big your product will be, also need to play them for their services in helping you produce your product.
Immersion
03/12/2019
GAVFX products immerse their audience through the use of senses. Game typically use a range of different techniques to immerse their audience through their senses, examples of this would be; Visual audio feedback, this sounds triggered from actions the player does so its kinda like a confirmation that the action has happened so when hitting an enemy the game will make a noise to confirm this, the noise could also be one that is non-realistic like a ping noise or a realistic one of metal hitting armor. The next sense it touch, touch is used in a way the player can feel how the game is and its environment and how smooth the game can run and how fast its reactions are to the players controls, or even the vibrations on controllers.
The most important thing a game should have to immerse its players is sound, sound can create the whole atmosphere for the players by the way its volume increases or decreases depending on the situation. its also used to make an environment more believable, for an example if its snowing and the player is walking over it, its going to make it more believable if there is crunching with each step the player takes. Other sound effects like gun shots can be created in many ways, one way in particular is Hyper realistic sounds , this is when you take the original sound like a gun shot and add layers of other sounds over the top such as the bullet loading into the chamber or even when the bullet hits the floor. By doing this the sound is organic and realistic but also improved for the player to experience making it more immersed.
world building reflection
7/1/2020
i improved my knowledge of world building by presenting my power point presentation with Aimy to other class mates while also looking at their presentations in return.
what i have learned from looking at others presentations is that there are more things to consider about world building, like how the environment came to be or like how the environment has effected its wildlife or plant life
what i have learned from working on my own presentation is that there are limitations to what mechanics can be implemented into
Production Pipe Revision
28/01/2020
WII 1. Understand job roles, career structures and business models across the games, animation and VFX industries
WII3. Understand how products in the games, animation and VFX industries are taken to market
PM 1 Understand pre and post production processes
PM 3 Be able to co-ordinate a production process
PM 5 Know how to organise and schedule post production activities
Inception phase is important as it is where the ideas for the game/product is created, without this we wouldn’t have an idea to start of with in the first place. it also allows for the idea to be determined if it is good enough to be continued to go onto the next production phase. this also lets you decide on staff allocations for each staff member.
pre production is important as it lets the game idea be developed on in a greater idea also lets there be documentation created on the idea stuff such as, SCRUMs work sheet, burn down sheet, production schedule and with this it all helps towards the productions planning. while this is going on budgeting will be taken into consideration.
Production phase is the most important part as it is were the actual production of the game actually takes place, once the production is nearly fished there will be testing and QA taken place to search for bugs that might be in the game, once this is fished marketing will take place to sell the game to the media while also organizing special events like E3 where there game will be hyped by the media.
Pressure Points, Cash Flow and Product Lifespan
2/03/2020
Pressure Points that can occur during development:
Staff:
Sickness/illness:
impact :
- less staff to produce the product
- slower production temporarily
How to plan for / prevent;
- Budget for this happening (allow some contingency time)
Leaving the Company:
impact:
- less staff
- slower production permanently
- need ti hire new staff to replace
How to plan for / prevent:
- budget for this
- staffing plan
- hiring new staff within notice period
Maternity/Paternity Leave (Pregnancy):
impact:
- less staff
- slower process
How to plan for / prevent
- budget for this
- hiring temporary staff
Events/Marketing Support:
Additional requirements on staff (Promo assets, Trailers, assets finished sooner than planned):
impact:
- additional pressure on staff
- slowing main production
How to plan for / prevent:
- Plan for time at events at the beginning of project
- Hire new staff to support with marketing, promotion to ease the pressure on developers
Staff time at events:
impact:
- slowing main production
How to plan / prevent:
- plan for time at events at the beginning of the project
- hire new staff to support with marketing and promotion to ease the pressure on developers.
Deadlines /Milestones:
Main milestones overview
- Game Design Document
- Technical Review
- Engine Proof
- Playable
- Interim Checkpoint
- Alpha
- Interim checkpoint
- Beta
- Golden Master
Pressure of hitting deadlines to ensure you meet the requirements of that milestone:
impact:
- If deadlines are not hit funding may not be released which would negatively impact on the financial health of the company
How to plan / prevent:
- Producers, Leads and directors should regularly plan and monitor production over time
- Highest priority tasks completed first
- Problems and challenges in the pipeline addressed swiftly
- New staff hired if requirements exceed current staff capacity
- Temporary crunch – reward / pay your staff
Crunch – Staff working additional hours to meet deadline:
Impact: Tired and demotivated workforce
Finance:
Running low on funds:
impact:
- unable to pay staff and business costs
- loss of development
- canned projects
- cut features
how to plan for / prevent:
- finance plans should be made at the start of the project to ensure that the project is financially viable
- finance should be carefully monitored throughout to ensure that the expected costs meet actual costs
- risks should be flagged and plans should be made to avoid severe impacts such as bankruptcy
Job Roles
10/3/2020
my job role: 2d artist
Freelance:
i would get this job by advertising my self and my work on a website i have created, so they are able to see the work i am capable of producing. or through an agency that finds work for me from producers who are looking for a certain thing i can provide them with.
in this job i would work on the stuff they ask me to do such as, art for the environment, 2d assets or character designs, its really whatever they ask me to work on.
i would work with the other job roles by communicating either ideas to them or asking them certain things they would need from me while working on the task at hand, like if i was working as a concept artist i would need to communicate with the 3d artist to discus the modeling process or any problems that might occur.
advantages:
flexible work hours, chose the work you want to do, work on multiple projects, not locked down to a single project
disadvantages:
have to be very motivated, not a reliable work style,
Full Time:
i would get this job by applying for it and having an interview with them to show of my portfolio to them
in this job i would be working in either concept art that is needed for the game or be working on 2d assets needed for the game.
as the 2d artist i would need to communicate with the 3d artist, programmers and the game designers. 3d artist to discuses the process to 3d, programmers to discuses the file sizes and resolution of the 2d assets and designers to discuses the design of the environment.
advantages:
stability, known income, relationship building with the team, familiarity, employee benefits, get to work on a full project from start to finish.
disadvantages:
work nights, long notices for leave or holidays, corporate environments, not much say in the work you are given, set jobs
Temporary Contract:
id be hired from an agency or respond to a temporary contract that is available.
i would work on my job role i have chosen however it would be a certain thing the company would need from me
i would communicate the same way as i said for a full times contract however i would not be there foe the end of the project.
advantages:
employee benifits with no full time commitment, freedom with more longtime known income, can work around freelancing for stability. can plan more in advance for job offers un like freelance
disadvantages:
contract ends looks for new job, unstable for the future, little familiarity, lots of change in environment and co workers.
J. Dougherty's Next Gen 