Games Industry AG1060A: Game Professional Awareness AG1063A: Games Industry Awareness AG1160A: The...

Games Industry

AG1060A: Game Professional Awareness

AG1063A: Games Industry Awareness

AG1160A: The Games Marketplace

Dr Iain Donald

i.donald@abertay.ac.uk

Today

• Current State of the Games Industry

– Innovation in Computer Games– Game Development Process Trends– Current Industry Trends/Concerns– Industry Maturity?

Next Week

• No Lectures

• No Tutorials

• Tutorials will start again a week on Monday

• Week Beginning 17th October

Exams

• Provisional timetable is being worked out.

• All exams will have 5 mins reading time.

• All exams will have 2 hours writing time

• Open Note

Exercise

• What is the most innovative video game you have played this year..?

• Why..?

Top News This Week

Study: UK games industry struggling to find staff http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-10-05-study-uk-games-industry-struggling-to-find-staff

Richest fifth 'take 97% of all iOS game revenue' http://www.develop-online.net/news/38761/Richest-fifth-take-97-of-all-mobile-game-revenue

FIFA 12 enjoys record-smashing global launch http://www.next-gen.biz/news/fifa-12-enjoys-record-smashing-global-launch

Rage Reviews

• Critical Reception: id Software's Rage http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/37689/Critical_Reception_id_Softwares_Rage.php

• id Software's post-apocalyptic shooter Rage, which reviewers describe as "a nice change of pace in a market filled with 'follow me' and pop-and-fire shooters.“

• On Metacritic 83

What is Innovation?

• According to the Oxford English Dictionary, innovation is:Pronunciation:/ɪnəˈveɪʃ(ə)n/

noun

– [mass noun] the action or process of innovating

– [count noun] a new method, idea, product, etc.:technological innovations designed to save energy

EA 2007

• Talk of an EA takeover of Ubisoft “[EA has] a culture which is risk-averse, and which completely fails to nurture new, innovative ideas.”

“EA's vast success in the last ten years has been built on yearly updated franchises in which innovation crawls along at a snail's pace, drip-fed into the product from year to year.”http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/french-connection-not-ok-b

EA 2007

“Our mission is to consistently make EA SPORTS games not only the most authentic, but also the most innovative games on the market. “It’s in the game” is not just a tagline; it’s the North Star we follow when we create our games.”

Peter Moore - December 2007

FIFA 2011

“CONVINCE your friends that you are playing FIFA 11 by playing FIFA 10”

Viz Top Tips

FIFA09

“For FIFA 09 we have listened carefully to gamers feedback, as we always try to do, and included this gameplay feedback into FIFA 09. As mentioned prior, authenticity is key but for us it is also extremely important to be very innovative and creative.”

John Dongelman, EA Sports Senior Marketing Manager

http://www.vg247.com/2008/10/03/interview-ea-sports-marketing-boss-talks-fifa-09/

FIFA10

“There’s no denying FIFA 10 is the best football game ever and the innovations we have brought to the genre over the years have helped get us to where we are now”

Trevor Uzice, EA Sports Marketing Manager http://www.mcvuk.com/news/37354/FIFA-10-passes-2m-mark-in-the-UK

FIFA11

“...critics are praising FIFA 11 as being one of the most authentic and innovative titles ever, and fans are connecting and competing with other gamers around the world and have logged a record number of online connected game sessions.”

Peter Moore, EA Sports, President

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101004007382/en/EA-SPORTS-FIFA-11-Shatters-Records-Landmark

FIFA12

“Revolutionary gameplay innovations make FIFA 12 deeper and more engaging. All-new Precision Dribbling creates a higher fidelity of touch on the ball…”http://easf.www.easports.com/uk/football/news/fifa12-pc-02

FIFA 2012

EA SPORTS make FIFA 12 ultra realistic by getting Andy Gray to tell my wife to 'get the tea on' if she tries to play the game…. TwopTwips

Innovation?

• Or incremental improvements?

• Is innovation curtailed by the yearly release schedule?

• Does an innovative feature require more development time than the 12 month release window allows?

• And how long would it take to develop?

FIFA - Metacritic

• Scores on the doors...Xbox 360 only

• FIFA 07 - 73

• FIFA 08 - 82

• FIFA 09 - 87

• FIFA 10 - 90

• FIFA 11 - 88

• FIFA 12 - 90

Mirror’s Edge

Reviews

• Mirror’s Edge divided opinion –– See Keith Stuart from the Guardian

“Do game reviewers really understand innovation? Or are we undervaluing it entirely?”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2008/nov/14/gameculture-playstation1

• and reaction to that article...

Reaction

• I don’t think Mirror’s Edge is as stunningly innovative as claimed... First person perspective, running away from enemies, avoiding direct combat, quick time events, the colour blue: all of these things have been done before.”

John Kershaw

http://nukezilla.com/2008/11/15/guardian-mirrors-edge-is-just-too-innovative-for-reviewers/

Dead Space

Reviews

• Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation review

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/333-Dead-Space

• “Dead Space seems to be hypercompetent and slick. But what it doesn’t seem to be is innovative.”

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/11/07/dead-space-dead-in-the-water/

Metacritic & Sales

• Mirrors Edge – Xbox 360 - 79

• Dead Space – Xbox 360 – 89

“While we saw significant improvement in the overall quality of our key products this year, we are disappointed that our holiday slate is not meeting our sales expectations”

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/12/10/ea-is-disappointed-with-2008-sales/1

Reaction

• February 2009 - EA boss John Riccitiello– recession may not be a totally bad thing and

may actually have several benefits for gamers and the market at large

– there'll be less rubbish on shelves for gamers

“A lot of the riff-raff is going to go bankrupt”

• So is EA now pushing innovation? Or not?

Why is it important?

• Sales?

• Perceptions– Publisher – Developer– Public/Consumer– Government

Is Innovation Dead?

• Some critics proclaim it so:– David Wong, Senior Editor, Cracked.com

• “[E3 2010] will more likely be remembered as the precise moment video gaming as we know it died a tragic and embarrassing death.”

http://www.cracked.com/article_18608_the-day-gaming-industry-died-impressions-from-e3-2010.html

Is it true?

• Yes…publishers are risk adverse– sequels and derivative titles dominate the charts– increasing costs will mean this trend continues

• No…you only have to look at new platforms– the rise of indie games– the way we want our entertainment is changing– the way we pay for our entertainment is changing – on demand + anywhere = convergence

What is Innovative?

• Games– Minecraft?– Cloud/fl0w/Flower/Journey?– Medal of Honor ?– Six Days in Fallujah?– Warco?

• Can it be something really simple just done very well?– Facebook– Twitter

Minecraft

ThatGameCompany

• http://thatgamecompany.com/

• Student Game:

Cloud (PC)

• Commercial Games:

fl0w (PS3/PC)

Flower (PS3)

The Journey (PS3)

Cloud

Six Days in Fallujah

• Developer: Atomic Games,

…a third-person tactical shooter

• Criticism

“considering the enormous loss of life in the Iraq War, glorifying it in a video game demonstrates very poor judgement and bad taste...”

Six Days in Fallujah

“The words I would use to describe the game—first of all, it's compelling. And another word I use—insight. There are things that you can do in video games that you cannot do in other forms of media. And a lot of that has to do with presenting players with the dilemmas that the Marines saw in Fallujah and then giving them the choice of how to handle that dilemma.”

Peter Tamte, Atomic Games President

Warco

Journalist Aims to Create War Reporting Simulator

http://www.innovationnewsdaily.com/warco-video-game-war-journalism-2288/

What is Innovative?

• Genres– Interactive Documentary– Serious Games– Others…maybe you have one in your head…– …maybe you’ll work on a genre-defining title?

…the illegitimate child of • Rhythm + Action-Adventure +Platform + MMO +

Angry Birds?

– …and using a freemium model

Interactive Documentary

JFK Reloaded

Serious Games

What? SG involve the use of games technologies and methodologies for:

e-Learning, Simulation, Team building, Collaboration, Social Networking, Opinion shaping

for defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, religion, and politics.

Accepted that…

A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment.

Innovation Growth Areas

• Technology – 3DS, Kinect, 3DTV

• Business Models – cover in next lecture

• Business Processes – a little later today

• What else?

Star Wars Kinect

E3 2010 Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwl6yVfvmP8

E3 2011 Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIiN0Tdzgsc

Current Industry Trends

• Industry is in a state of flux…

• New Growing Platforms e.g. Mobile, Social Media & the “Online” space (Digital Distribution)

• New Publishing Platforms e.g. App Store/Android/XBLA (Self-Publishing)

• New Development Opportunities…

• New Markets – Korea/India/China

More Trends

• Games as a Service– No more fire and forget

• Work-for-Hire & Fixed Price Contracts are increasingly common

• Indie Development– reaction to lack of innovation?– burn out or young guns– easy to use tools

• Film Industry Model or “Hiring & Firing”

Concerns

• Lack of Innovation

• Super Developers

• Pre-Owned

• Piracy

• Recession

• Tax Breaks

• UK-Specific (Canada)

Industry Maturity

• We are approx. 40 years old– Magnavox Odyssey 1972

• Still a moving target – a lot of New– technologies, platforms markets, etc.

• We are maturing– Education courses– Increasing number of developers– Increasing number of gamers

• Government Support (ish)

Quality of Life

• Public Naming & Shaming– EA Spouse– Rockstar Spouse– EA Louse– Ex-RTW– The Bondi 11

• IGDA – Made little or no progress in getting companies to take QoL seriously

• No Unions• “Fire and Forget”

Yet…

• Games are frequently delayed late

• Games companies struggle to break out of work for hire

• The Business Processes are possibly flawed

• Publisher Model now seems unsustainable

• In other industries models evolve to drive efficiency

Development Process

A changing world...

• Online & DLC add new development processes– A core support group may be required– A full production team may be employed continuously,

to provide DLC/New Content.

• Similarly, the internet has opened up vast new markets for skill sales – and the potential for a salary war – if you are good!

• Conversely the alleged simplicity of Mobile is skewed by the SKU requirements– 1 game 5 languages 300 handsets = 1500 SKUs

Fluidity of Employment

• It is commonplace for projects to rely heavily on outsource and middleware solutions.

• Developers must be free to travel, or market themselves internationally…

• Job security and stability has it’s pros and cons

• Need for better processes

Waterfall

Waterfall

• Monolithic, early-delivery design document is an artefact of Waterfall model

• Waterfall/V-model/Prince2

• Favoured by Publishers

• Provides Measurable Milestones

• Tracks Progress– Provides opportunities to get out...

Iterative

Agile

• Iteration = Scientific Method

• XP/Scrum/FDD/Kanban etc etc

• Favoured by developers

• More difficult to measure but can see clear progress

• Difficult to track big picture– that scares publishers

Need to consider…

• Team Politics

• Simple reality is that financial reward is the main goal

• If product is delayed the result may be catastrophic

• You have to be thick skinned, learn to handle criticism

• With responsibility, comes accountability

Top Tips…

• Be aware that practically every company operates differently.

• A flexible employment model for a developer or studio offers the chance to avoid overall project management issues.

• The games marketplace is evolving in every possible respect, it is probably only reasonable to expect new development models will evolve too…stay flexible!

Tutorial Preparation

•Topics for Next Week’s Tutorial– Innovation & Risk in Video Games– Current Trends aka Boom & Bust

Innovation

• http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-most-ominous-trends-in-video-games/

• http://nukezilla.com/2009/04/12/things-we-hate-about-gaming-innovation-and-change/

• http://www.next-gen.biz/features/misfits• http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/

gamesblog/2008/nov/14/gameculture-playstation1

Current Trends

• http://www.develop-online.net/news/38792/Games-tax-break-fears-lower-than-expected-in-UK

• http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-10-05-study-uk-games-industry-struggling-to-find-staff

• http://www.develop-online.net/news/38761/Richest-fifth-take-97-of-all-mobile-game-revenue

Next Lecture

• Next lecture: Censorship, Ethics and Intellectual Property

• Censorship in Society & in Computer Games• Moral and Ethical • Intellectual Property