This is an extremely important and busy class session that paves the way for the rest of the quarter. During this session, the formation of your startup company takes place; class commences by filling out a job application, choosing teams, and later conducting your first company meeting to establish your corporate identity. Surrounding all that is the lecture material about the past and present situation in the game industry, how the different aspects of game development merge with marketing to combine the hit-driven and marketing-driven nature of the industry, its risk aversion, and the importance of planning.
| Task | Who? | 1 C | 1 H | 2 C | |
| Get a Job (including job description) | Every | a | |||
| Form a Team | Team | a | |||
| Switch Job and / or Team (if desired) | Individual | a |
The link below is the homework assignment due at the beginning of the next class session.
Homework: Week 1
These links feature the supplemental material that you are responsible for knowing before the first exam (that takes place at the end of Week 3). Be sure to click on every link in this section!
Article: 2007 Game Developer's Salary Survey by Jill Duffy
Want to know approximately what the job you're seeking pays? This little reality check might help you decide if you're looking into the right career.
Marketing Information: ESA Fast Facts by the Entertainment Software Association
You better know what publishers know about gamers and games that sell. This is 'must read' material!
Industry Information: ESA State of the Industry Address by Douglas Lowenstein, President, Entertainment Software Association
These remarks should guide you. Particularly the following:
"Finally, one of the pitfalls we need to avoid is the Mature-rated game trap. The message of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2 is not that the sole pathway to blockbuster nirvana is making M rated games. True, great M games can be chart-toppers. And M rated games have and will continue to produce some of the finest and most advanced interactive entertainment experiences. We have no reason to shy away from this segment of the market. But we misread the market if we think only M games have that potential. If we want to broaden the market, it’s critical that industry continue making a full spectrum of content. Just because the market is aging does not mean older players won't play compelling Teen and Everyone-rated games. In fact, of games released in 2004, the average E title sold 534,300 units, the average Teen title sold 265,800 units, and the average M title, not including San Andreas and Halo 2, sold 150,200 units. Draw your own conclusions."
Article: Women over 40 biggest online gamers by Ben Berkowitz
Producers take note! Perhaps this is a game market you should be exploiting?
"There is another major and well-known gap in market penetration for the video game industry: women. It’s true that ESA data shows that women make up a third of the console gaming community and 40% of the PC community but we also know that many of these women are casual gamers who might invest more time and dollars into this form of entertainment if we produced content they could more easily embrace." - Douglas Lowenstein, President, Entertainment Software Association 2005.
Article: The Right Decision at the Right Time: Selecting the Right Features for a New Game Project by Pascal Luban
This is another article that you'll need to digest before class next week. It will help focus your decision about what features should and shouldn't be in your original game proposal.
Article: Manager in a Strange Land: Old Fashioned Communication by Jamie Fristrom
Before Wiki, ICQ, and even email, there were team meetings. And meetings need to continue, because often they're the fastest way to impart information to your team, not the slowest.
Avoiding mistakes at this early juncture will save you a lot of grief down the road. Read the above articles!
These supplemental links are worth pursuing only if you are seriously interested in working in the game business and want to know about it in the broadest possible sense. This material will not be directly included in the exams, but if you're serious about delving deeply into the subject of game production, here's some more lessons from others who have also "been there."
Article: So, You Want to be a Producer by Marc Mencher
Being a game producer is not for the faint of heart. The job takes dedication, persistence, the organization skills of a military leader, and even a little psychology. Marc Mencher guides your through the basics.
Article (History): Litigations that Changed the Game Industry by S. Gregory Boyd, M.D.
What does litigation mean in the games industry? How far back does it go? And is it necessary? Dr. S. Gregory Boyd returns to Gamasutra with a detailed feature on the history of litigation, as it pertains to games, with examples ranging from Pong to Duke Nukem 3D.
Article: Interview: 'The Father of Home Video Games:' Ralph Baer by Matthew Hawkins
Ralph Baer, creator of the Magnavox Odyssey and the game concept later known as Pong, made a special appearance at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York as the star of the Video Games 1.0 exhibition.
Article: Designer Suits: Incorporating Marketing into Game Development by Andy Schatz and James C. Smith
As a game designer or artist, you are in the best position to architect your game's marketing effort. If "marketing" refers to the entire process of creating a product with respect to the eventual consumer, game design is the seed of that process.
Article: An Introduction to Casual Games by Eric-Jon Waugh
This features an over-arcing "übertheme" of a comparison of casual games now to where the industry was three years ago revealing how much casual games have grown since.
Article: Lost Along the Way: Design Pitfalls on the Road from Concept to Completion by Rob Irving
Making games is a job, and a very serious one. The games that you and I are building today aren't merely games any more: they're products. The distinction between the two words is more than mere semantics: it's a matter of responsibility.
Article: My "Next" Games: Families, Psychology, and Murder by Ernest Adams
If you need some ideas for pitching the 'next' thing in games, here's some thoughts from industry design luminary Ernest Adams on the kinds of games he wishes he could make.
Article: Why You Shouldn't Make Your Own MMORPG by Jan Komppa
Just to remind you why you're making a small, low-budget game instead of your dream game...
Article: Guidelines for Developing Successful Games by Bruce Shelly
Yeah, you read this article in Survey of the Game Industry, but Bruce's advice is sage wisdom and well worth your reviewing. Believe me, you'll want to look this incisive material over again before coming to class next week to finish your brainstorming.
Video: The Secrets to Constantly Delivering Hit Titles by Louis Castle
Westwood Studios co-founder Louis Castle draws upon personal experiences as examples of successful and not so successful approaches to product development and retaining key people in a very competitive market. This keynote address from the 2000 Game Developers Conference touches on many aspects of production including art direction, technical direction and, heaven forbid, marketing. All are equally important elements to consistently developing hit products. Or at least minimizing the misses.
Bibliography: Week 1
These supplemental links are worth pursuing if you have a special curiosity.
Article: Play the First Video Game: Spacewar! by Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen.
Dating back to the early 1960s, Spacewar! is now in the public domain. This is the original version written as a Java applet and is extremely faithful to the original. There are only two changes: 1) the spaceships have been made bigger, and 2) the overall timing has been "special cased" to deal with varying machine speeds.
The "a", "s", "d", "f" keys control one of the spaceships. The "k", "l", ";", "'" keys control the other. The controls are spin one way, spin the other, thrust, and fire.
