Unit 1: Pre-production techniques for the creative media industries

BTEC Extended Diploma in Computer Games Design

Unit 1: Pre-production techniques for the creative media industries

 

 

Type of production

 

Finance

 

Hardware (Computers, Peripherals, Dev. kits)

 

Peripherals are mainly defined as to being an auxiliary device (a piece of equipment that connects to a computer) such as a mouse for a computer. Examples of peripherals for gaming devices are: controllers, memory cards, audio/visual cables, cases and software accessories. Development kits are mainly defined as kit that allows the creation of applications for certain software packaging, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar development platform. I will be using my memory card to hold my game on it, Shape Man.

 

Software (UDK, Unity, Game Maker, Maya)

 

Gaming software is used in computers to use things that run certain game engines that often times have monthly subscription fee so that people have to pay them or using it. Examples of gaming software are Unreal Development Kit, Game Maker and Maya. UDK (Unreal Development Kit) 25% royalty cost over $50,000 from all UDK based games. The minimum required to run UDK is a Windows XP SP3 (32-bit only), a Windows Vista, or a Windows 7 2.0+ GHz processor, 2 GB system RAM, a SM3-compatible video card and 3 GB free hard drive space which all together costs . Unity costs £1,500 to buy and a monthly subscription fee of £75 and all of the equipment costs $230,000. Game Maker costs $149.99 for the Professional level and $799.99 for the Master Collection. Master collection gives you: HTML5 Module + Export, Android Module + YoYo Compiler + Export – x86, ARM, MIPS, IOS Module + YoYo Compiler + Export, Windows Phone 8 Module + YoYo Compiler + Export, Tizen Module + Export, Xbox® One Module + YoYo Compiler + Export, PlayStation® 4 Module + YoYo Compiler + Export, PlayStation® Vita Module + YoYo Compiler + Export and PlayStation® 3 Module + YoYo Compiler + Export. Maya costs £145 per month, £365 every 4 months and £1,160 per year. I will be using Maya for my game, Shape Man.
 

Publishing (Steam Greenlight, ID@Xbox, PSN, IOS, Android)

 

Publishing a game cost more money the more copies that have to be distributed. 25% of games are published around Christmas because it is the time of the year where games are mainly bought for Christmas to make a profit from the distributing costs. Buying Steam Greenlight cost $70. ID@Xbox costs $72 for the hardware, $19 for maintaining the Sixty Second Shooter ,$63 for sending the second development kit, $181 for the video capture device (for making trailer), $729 for localization (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese), $2037 for errors & Omissions Insurance and $2042 for foreign ratings boards (PEGI, USK). PSN IOS can cost from $500 to $10,000. Android cost $25 to setup and $99 per year. I will not be publishing my game.

 

Self financing

 

Self financing is when the a person is making money to finance themselves instead of having someone else fund your game. The reason people would do this is if people have enough money to fund their game and don not require additional funds from another company and do not want to pay another company to fund their game and be forced to share their profits. I will be using the schools resources so I will not need funding.
 

Indie funding (Indie fund, Gameslab development fund)

Indie funding in where an indie company will pay money to help fund your game (if they are interested in your game) and they will receive a share of the profits made by the game's sales. Some examples of websites that use Indie funding are: Indie fund and Gameslab development fund. I will be using the schools resources so I will not need funding.

 

Crowd funding (Kickstarter, IndieGoGo etc.)

Crowd funding is when a company (often indie) ask people to donate money to them so they can make the game. An incentive to donate money is that you can get given rewards if you donate enough money, when investors donate money they actually get some interest (money) back from the profits of the game. Some examples of Crowd funding websites are: Kickstarter and IndieGoGo. I will be using the schools resources so I will not need funding.

 

Grants (Unreal Dev. Grants)

Gaming Grants are programmers and services award to eligible organizations by the Government gaming grants. Unreal Development Grants are development funds for developers who use the Unreal Engine 4, the amount of the money that can be received from $5,000 to $50,000.

 

Publisher (Activision, EA, Bethesda etc.)

 

Video game publishers are companies that distribute games that either they have produced or was developed by another company. Similar to publishing books and DVDs game publishers jobs are to make games look as good as possible so that it sells well. Bigger video game publishers publish games that they themselves have made but smaller publisher are often times hired to publish games that other companies have made for money. Here is a list of video game publishers.
 

Time constraints

 

Time constraints in game design are made to motivate the development team in to getting the game out before a certain time. Games are often times have deadlines set before Christmas so that people the will by these games for people as Christmas present. Deadlines can be a bad thing since they encourage game developers to rush games out for Christmas so they can make money before people realize that the game is bad. With my game, Shape Man, I have been given until the 14th of December.

Personnel

 

Size of team

 

The size of the team can affect the price that you have to pay, the more people that you have working you the more people that you have to pay for, so that they would continue to work for you. The minimum amount of people that would have to work for you are: Animators (Making movements in the game look as smooth as possible within the consoles limitations), Assistant producer (Working with the production staff so that they can make the best game that they possible can in the shortest amount of time), Audio engineer(Creates the sound track, character voices for games), Creative director (Designs the overall look and feel of the game), External producer (Ensures the delivery of the game), Game designer (Decides what's in a game and how it plays), Game programmer (Designs and writes the computers code), Game artist (Creates the visuals for the game, e.g. characters, scenery and objects), Lead artist (Leads the artists), Lead programmer (Leads the programmer), Level editor (Makes), Marketing executive (They promote their employer's products or services or peoples awareness), Marketing manager (They promote products and services for customer awareness), Product manager (Help create and implement marketing tactics), Product manager/producer (Ensures successful delivery), Public relations officer (Look after the companies reputation), QA tester (Tests game for bugs and glitches) and  Technical artist (Helps the Artists and programmers work together). All of these jobs will be done by me when I make my game, Shape Man.

 

Facilities

Facilities are used in games companies to help them develop games, these are sometimes a requirement to have game developers complete a game, of course these come at a price but these are often eclipsed by the fact the gaming companies have a lot money to spend on these facilities. I will be using the schools computers so that I can make my game, Shape Man.
 

Materials

Materials that are required for pre production in a game are: Concept art (Concept art is an original design for a game, films, comics and TV shows, they may be changed later

and the original design will be called the beta design. They are often left in black and white because they are the first designs so little details like colour would not be added until later.), Storyboard/animatic (Storyboard/animatic are the very basics of a TV show or cut scenes in a video game), internet (using the internet to research what is popular with their consumers), assets (visual features in the game that will need to be made multiple times), audio (examples being music, sound effects and voice acting), script (the story of the game that has to be written in advance incase of changes that need to be made later) and graphics (how to game looks).

 

Contributors

Contributors are people who either help voice act in the game or help do the research for the game (e.g. what type of tactics and weapons were used in military warfare or what certain areas of the world look like). I will not be using voice actors or researchers for my game, Shape Man.

Codes of practice

The Codes of practice in the gaming industry are used to enforce age ratings and rules for suppliers of games. I will make my game completely on my own, so someone would have to ask for my permission if they want to use my game, Shape Man.