Game Project Management

Graded Course Project Information

About the Client

Everyone has dreams, especially gamers.

At a recent gathering of gamers, your Business Development guy ('Biz Dev') bumped into someone who has put together a small start-up game publishing company. This is a new company with a vision that is also mission statement and the company’s name: Next Thing Games.

Your Biz Dev explained to you that what brought those people from Next Thing Games together was their belief that the big hits in the game industry where not usually sequels, knock-offs, and "me, too" products, but well executed, innovative concepts that opened new markets or re-awakened old ones that conventional wisdom held to be dormant. Citing games like SimCity, Castle Wolfenstien 3D, Civilization, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Fallout as the kind of genre-creating / re-awakening games that have each triumphed when taking their respective turn as "the next thing in games," Next Thing Games is dedicated to taking risks on games that are not 'sure money' in today’s market but have serious potential to be "the next thing."

The Next Thing Games plan is to avoid the over-crowded marketplace of what is currently popular on the game shelves and to find a niche that they believe...

1.       could be hot with the right game, and

2.       that Next Thing Games will be the recognized leader of that niche for at least a year or two while the other (big) game companies play catch up.

Supporting their belief in this vision, Next Thing Games has raised sufficient capital to finance a few modest game projects and is currently looking for game developers who can deliver games that fulfill their vision of publishing innovative, well-crafted, modest budget titles for today’s new or reemerging game markets. Fortunately for you, most established game developers cannot support themselves on these types of low-budget, high-risk game projects — but you can.

Your mission is to brainstorm ideas that will meet your client's needs, do enough research to validate your opinions, and then fly those ideas by your Biz Dev to make sure you'll be pitching your best stuff to the client. Here are some specifics that your Biz Dev has told you:

• Anything that smacks of MOTS ('More of the Same') they're not interested in; they want titles that are either an innovation, a stunning new presentation / twist on a solid, successful game design, or a true renaissance in gaming
• They're not looking for purely abstract games; they want games that are about something and feature at least a modicum of character, story, and plot (to provide a marketing hook and ensure the viability of additional [non-gameplay] entertainment value)
• They're not interested in any platform-based games (they're too expensive to create and promote)
• They're looking for Nintendo GBA, DS, cell phone, PC and/or web-based titles (something that can be produced cheaply and quickly but still offer depth of gameplay with some added entertainment value) for their game delivery media
• They're interested in games on all matter of subject, genre, epic, scale, scope, and perspective (as long as you can convince them that it might be The Next Thing in gaming)
• They're planning promotions based upon the effective use of guerilla marketing (so don't even talk about expensive media ad campaigns such as television or print periodicals in your marketing section)