Assignment 3

Quantitative Research:

Quantitative research is about asking people their opinions so that you can produce hard facts and statistics. To make these results as reliable as possible, it is important to survey people in large numbers and make sure they are a part of your target market. Common sources of quantitative data are: surveys conducted to large amounts of people using the same questions on the same way and observations that involve counting how often something occurs and then turning that into numerical data. 

Qualitative Research:

Qualitative research is about finding out how and why people have certain opinions and why they think that way. Some sources of qualitative data are: interviews, whether structured, semi-structured or unstructured, groups of participants discussing various issues and precise, written questionnaires that ask specific questions and allow participants to write their own opinions and views.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt:

The Witcher 3 was released in 2015 and is a fantasy RPG.

The creators of The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red, used social media to project their game to a wide audience. This involved the use of Twitter, YouTube and possibly Instagram, to give their current and potential fans coverage about the game’s progress and developmental stages.

With regards to the reviews, on Steam the game has 89,088 positive reviews out of a total of 91,415, all of them recommending the game in one way or another. Many Steam curators also offer positive reviews and recommendations for it, with The Critiquing Doge giving the review "Many places to explore. Such story. Very pretty graphics. 10/10 paws. 🐾“. The aggregate website Metacritic gave it a whopping 93/100 score. Other review websites and magazines gave it similarly high-ranking scores on their own charts.

The ratings for The Witcher 3 are overwhelmingly high, with very few people, whether users or critics, giving it poor ratings.

CDPR claim that the game has won over 800 awards before and after its release, with 253 of them being Game of the Year awards, making The Witcher 3 one of the most decorated games ever.

The sales figures are also quite high, with over 1.5 million people pre-ordering the game. It debuted at No.1 in the UK and Japan, being the best-selling game of 2015 in the UK. Shortly after its release, 690,000 people activated the game via GOG Galaxy, 4 million copies were sold within 2 weeks of its release, and 6 million 6 weeks after its launch. In March 2016, CD Projekt Red announced it had shipped over 10 million copies of the game worldwide. Within the first half of 2015, the tremendous sales made the studio a profit of $62.5 million.

Crusader Kings II

Crusader Kings II was released in 2012 and is a grand strategy game.

The creators of Crusader Kings II, Paradox Interactive, use plenty of social media to up the popularity of their games. They primarily use twitter and YouTube as a medium for their updates and new titles.

Crusader Kings II has many positive reviews on Steam, some 18,813 out of 20,271, which shows how popular and good it is as a game. On Metacritic, it has a score of 82/100 which indicate generally favourable reviews. Many other websites and magazines have awarded it quite high scores, such as Destructiod with a 9/10. 

Crusader Kings II has been nominated for many awards, especially by Kotaku as their Game of the Year nominee. It also consistently ranks particularly high in reviews and ratings.

It is one of Paradox’s best selling games in their repertoire. By early 2015, the game had sold 1.1 million copies, expansion packs selling roughly 2.5 million copies and other dlc having sold 5.5 million copies. According to Paradox, the game was played by an average of 12,500 daily and 104,000 monthly, with an average playtime of roughly 99 hours.

Crusader Kings II does not really have any specific competitors, due to its unique genre and the fact that the other popular grand strategy games are all developed and published by Paradox as well. The Total War series by Creative Assembly and the Civilisation series by Firaxis could be considered as competitors, as they are also strategy games, however there are some significant differences in the play-style and their portrayal between the different series’.

The potential market for the game is quite large because of the popularity of strategy games, as well as the latest releases by Paradox and other developers adding to the genres popularity.

The game has an age rating of Teen due to its mild language, mild gore and some sexual themes. It is a game that will appeal to many strategy lovers, however, it would probably appeal more to male gamers in their mid-teens to their mid-forties. 

The base game of Crusader Kings II costs £30 to buy via most game retailers. It currently has 27 expansions packs up for sale, all apart from two costing money. Some of these bits of dlc are collection packs, containing multiple bits of cosmetic dlc in one package, others are fully fledged expansions that add new mechanics and experiences to the game. Combined all the dlc costs £196.25 via Steam.

The game engine used was the Clausewitz engine, designed by Paradox for the specific purpose of grand strategy video games.

It was released in most major theatres by Paradox Interactive exclusively to PC.

Unit 13: Understanding the games industry - Contractual Issues

Contracts:
A contract is a legally binding agreement between two or more parties. Contracts are largely written but there can be oral agreements as well. Contracts are usually to do with terms of employment, sale or lease and tenancy. Employment contracts are used to set the terms of your employment, i.e. what the company expects you to do and what the company has to do for you. Games industry contracts will include clauses about benefits, inventions, confidentiality and non-competing. Benefits include: health insurance, pension, holiday, bonuses and your wage. Sometimes stock options and royalties are covered, but this is rare unless you actually own the company. Confidentiality is about what is allowed to be said regarding company information outside of the company. The company does not want you leaking information to actual and potential competitors This will also mention what will happen to you if you do leak information. The Inventions clause talks about what happens if you come up with and divulge a game idea during your employment. The most common result is that the company is the automatic owner of the idea, regardless of whether or not they actually use it. The non-compete clause restricts higher-level employees from quitting and forming their own company after learning the companies secrets. It only restricts them for a certain amount of time.

Development Agreements:
A development agreement is a contract between a game developer and a publisher. It describes the terms of the deal between the two companies. There is always an introduction in which the names and industry of the companies are stated, to keep things clear as to what each company specialises in. The next part of the agreement is the terms. This describes in, extreme detail, how much the publisher pays the developer, the time-frame the developer has to create the game and if there are royalties, how much the royalty rate is. The obligations and what each party expects of each other are all described in detail. The ownership clause writes out in detail who owns the rights to the Intellectual Property i.e. who owns what with regards to the game idea. Sometimes neither party owns the rights, as the original owner may be someone else, like an author if its a game adaptation of a book. The warranty part describes and explains that the developer will not use any other licensed/copyright IP, so the publisher will not get sued for any developer discrepancies. The publisher also has to swear that it has to ask the developer to create a game, so the developer does not get sued for any of the publisher's discrepancies. There is also a part about what happens if there is a lawsuit. Termination is about what is needed for the deal to end, as well as what happens to the game if it is not fully completed and released. This would also link in with the legal details that are related to the contract, such as copyright issues, contracts and in what manner would the agreement end. At the very end of the agreement is the appendices, which just go over certain things like milestones and payment schedules, the game design document is attached, the royalties calculation, confidentiality agreements and ownership of the IP.

License Agreements
When a publisher wants to create a game adaptation of a film or book, they often need to obtain the license via a contract between publisher and the IP owner. The contract spells out what is being agreed to and what the publisher has the rights to. This could be characters, music, the story, the world or visuals. The publisher usually only gets the license to create a game on the Xbox or PlayStation consoles, if they want to develop an adaptation for the PC or Wii, the publisher will have to pay more for that right. The agreement will also specify which territory the game can be published in. All publishers want worldwide rights but this is very expensive and most publishers stick to their home region, whilst sub-licensing the game to other publishers in other regions. The length of time the contract is active is not that long, as publishers and people will often lose interest in an idea relatively quickly, so most agreements do not last for more than 5 years. The finances part of the agreement spell out how much money the publisher will pay the IP holder for the license. This is usually an up-front payment as well as royalties based on sales.

Non-Disclosure Agreements, Disclosure Agreements and Confidentiality Agreements:
When one company wishes to do business with another company, they have to first disclose certain secrets of their business, such as new technology or the idea for a particular game. The other company then has to swear that it will not divulge these secrets until the official announcement date, otherwise there would be some serious lawsuits involved, like the offending company paying for all the legal fees and damages done to the other company, resulting in some NDA's being trickier to sign than others.

Collaboration Agreements:
This type of agreement lays down in writing who owns what with regards to hobbyist and indie games, as the usual lack of any contracts with these often confuses the whole proceedings. The vast majority of indie games fail and one cause of this is often the internal disagreements between who owns what and who is supposed to be doing this, that and the other. A collaboration agreement sets explains in extreme detail how the game is managed, who owns the IP, the intended use of the game and how any income is parceled out between the developers.

Understanding the Games Industry - Industry and Marketing Trends.

This report will be about the various trends that take place throughout the gaming market and industry. Market trends are what the consumers want to buy, whilst industry trends are the popular hardware and software updates that developers are using.

Current Market Trends: 
In the UK, the portion of the gaming market with the most revenue is the digital distribution of games on consoles and PC. The revenue is roughly around £1.2 billion. This shows that gamer's are more inclined to want to buy games digitally and download them, rather than buy a physical copy of the game. On PC, this service has become increasingly popular over the years due to digital distribution platforms such as, Steam, Uplay and Battle.net becoming much more stable and widespread. With regards to consoles, most of the major console developers offer digital distribution, with Xbox Live and PlayStation Network being two of the more prominent ones. 
Currently, the most widespread gaming platform worldwide is the PC, with roughly 4 billion units having been sold since the 1970's. This is partly due to its extensive library of games, with Steam having over 13,000 games in its databases. Along with generally being more powerful and multi-purpose machines, compared to other gaming platforms, this makes PC's very popular amongst gamers, who can afford them.
However, consoles account for much more playing time, probably due to their ease of use when setting them up, as they are pre-built and designed to easily play video games. They are also usually cheaper than PC's on the whole, although the 8th generation consoles can be more costly than some of the lower-end PC's.
In the UK, roughly 33.5 million people, or 69% of the population, play some form of video game. It has also been discovered that slightly more than half of these people are in fact women.
According to some statistics, there are more people in the UK aged 45+ playing games than children and teenagers. This is mostly driven by women downloading and playing trivia/word/puzzle apps for smartphones. Because most people now own a smartphone and due to many apps being free, this allows older folk to play more games, even if it is only during a coffee break at work. 

Current Industry Trends:
VR (virtual reality), is an industry trend that has made a comeback in the past few years as increases in technology have allowed it to gain popularity, the most notable VR hardware being the Oculus Rift headset. This allows users to play the various games, as if they were actually in the simulated game-world itself, using handheld controllers to control their actions. Because of this new approach to gaming, many game companies are starting to develop VR related games, or making existing games compatible with VR headsets.
Augmented reality is another trend that has increased in popularity, most recently due to the release of Pokemon Go. This is where a live view of the real world is augmented by computer sensors such as graphics or GPS data.
Freemiums are popular industry strategies which provide games free of charge, but monetary premiums are often charged to gain extra features or virtual goods. This an often criticised strategy as it effectively gives paying players an unfair advantage over players who have used skill to get good.
Another incredibly popular trend is dlc (downloadable content). Most game developers offer dlc to some extent for their games, ranging for small, free cosmetic packs, to large,paid expansion packs that offer many more hours of gameplay. Recently, some developers have come under scrutiny for releasing dlc packs at relatively high prices, whilst not actually adding much to the game itself.

To conclude, I am personally surprised that more women play games than men, as gaming is still heavily centred around men, although if it was only about who played on consoles and PC, I am certain that the statistics would greatly swing the other way. Market trends are what the users themselves want from developers, whilst the industry trends are how developers can make more money in creative ways, whilst giving consumers more in general. If I were a game developer, I would personally avoid freemiums, as they only allow paying players to advance quickly without regard to skill or effort. I would, however, involve the use of dlc wherever possible, although I would make sure that it would be worth the price. I would also take advantage of the new VR trend and develop games with regards to that.

References:
http://www.statisticbrain.com/computer-sales-statistics/
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?category1=998
http://ukie.org.uk/research
http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/industries/games/games-facts-and-figures/market-strengths-and-trends#
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/comment/5512465/#Comment_5512465

Design Brief

Setting:
The game takes place in a fictional, low fantasy world reminiscent of medieval Europe. As such, it encompasses and takes influence from the cultures, technologies and peoples from the year 800 A.D to the year 1500 A.D. The principal setting would take place in the borderlands between a kingdom and an empire, both on land and at sea. There would be many cities to explore, each with different cultures, as well as large rural areas dotted with villages and farms.

Story Line:
The main story is based around the second son of a powerful duke within the kingdom. As the second son, he is not expected to inherit much of his fathers lands and titles. As such, he sets off with his own gang as a mercenary/privateer in the service of the king and many other nobles. The first act would be centered around the character starting a war with the empire under orders from the king. It would be based on the battlegrounds and be highly combat based. The second act would focus on the character inheriting some titles and staying largely away from fights, dealing with the characters personal life, as the war grinds down. The third and final act would contain plots and betrayals, as well as culminating in a large battle.
There will be many different characters, all with their own motives, some friends, some enemies, some posing as friends, some posing as enemies. Many just do not care about you with careful neutrality, others could end up making it their life's work to destroy you.
Some side quests would be available, although they would be more akin to tasks. Some may be necessary to advance the overall story, but others would just be there to add character and flavour to the questline.

Gameplay:
This game will chiefly be open-world and role-playing, with quite a lot of action put in there. Your character would be largely pre-designed, however there would be some elements that the player would be able to change.  The game follows the players character as they explore the world and follow the story line and the various quests/tasks that they can find out there. It will feature skill trees and the option to level up the character, which gives them better abilities to combat the various enemies. It would also feature an enemy scaling system, so you would be constantly fighting level 5 enemies at level 30. The game would be shot from a third-person perspective throughout, and would feature many cut-scenes to progress the story along. The combat system would try to be as realistic as possible, but may contain some patterns to make it more visually appealing. Having the AI be as smart as possible is a must for the game, as it greatly increases the combat difficulty and how the NPC's react to the players actions, which in turn, makes the game much more enjoyable to the user. Dialogue and choices would have a profound affect on peoples opinions of you, as well as the overall ending of the game.

Unit 13- Understanding the Games Industry-Financial Issues

In this report I will be writing about the financial issues that affect the games industry and why games can sell well or badly.

The costs involved in creating games:
There are several costs that go into creating video games. These include: staff wages, the development of hardware and software, rent and bills, marketing and advertising and finally legal issues such as copyright and PEGI ratings. Other costs could involve, creating peripheral equipment and supporting multiple languages, regions and platforms.
Examples of successful and unsuccessful games: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was an incredibly successful game, having sold around 10 million copies since its release. In the first six weeks of its release, the company make a profit of $62.5 million. It was successful due to its captivating story, incredibly well-detailed graphics, finely tuned(albeit somewhat clumsy) combat system and lovable characters. Another reason was that people felt they got their money's worth when purchasing the game and its subsequent expansions. It also helped that CDPR had a very good marketing strategy, as well as the game winning over 200 awards before its release. This in turn generated large amounts of hype, thus increasing overall sales.
Grim Fandango was a critical success when first released in 1998, receiving positive reviews and awards. It also initially sold well during late 1998. However, the release of other titles, chiefly Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, forced Grim Fandango out of the spotlight. It also did not help that the point-click adventure games were not popular at the time. It is believed that the game has sold between 100,00 and 500,000 copies, although it did eventually make a profit.

How a game can be funded:
There are a few different ways that a game can be funded, in the following ways.
The first is for a developer to fund the game entirely by his/herself. The advantages of self funding are: financial independence, which allows the developers to choose where their money is spent, and creative independence: which means that developers can choose the artistic direction in which they want their game to go, without interference from a publisher. The chief disadvantage is that the budget is usually quite small, resulting in the games sometimes being fairly limited when it comes to graphics, gameplay and level design. However, many independent developers pool together resources, which negate these effects somewhat. Another disadvantage is that it is quite easy for developers to go over-budget, due to unforeseen complications, such as licensing fees, marketing/publishing and the game being held back. This leads on to the second way of financing games; bank loans.
The second form of funding is by way of loans. The main advantage is that it can be a huge boost to a fledgling developers finances and allow them to complete the game properly, sometimes with increased game mechanics due to more money. However, the one really big disadvantage is that banks are hesitant to loan money to people who are financially unstable. Game developers have some incredibly inconsistent cash flows that often scare banks away, as they require money to be paid back when they want it, not in a couple of years when the game is released and the cash is (hopefully) rolling in.
The third way of funding is to get potential investors and publication companies involved in the process. The main advantage is, of course, the increased money flowing into the game. Also these people are usually more lenient when it comes to paying back the money. Independent investors and publishers often invest money in return for shares or a percentage of the overall profit. The disadvantages are that it can be hard for new developers to gain the confidence of investors and publishers and when they do, it is often the case that the developer does not actually see any profit being made until well after the release of the game. This is due to the fact that investors and publishers almost always end up paying for many of the developers costs and take their cut when the game is released, until they break even and start making a profit. Then the developers start seeing some hard cash. Also, publishers often have a say in how the game is made.
The fourth and final way is via crowdfunding. This is a relatively new way to fund games and involves people willingly donating any sum of money to the developers, whether these are completely new developers or existing and solid companies in need of some extra cash. The advantages are that huge amounts of money can be raised, sometimes exceeding the original amount asked for. In turn this allows developers to increase the overall content of the game, from gameplay and graphics to level design and better sound. However, the bad side is that a lot of games take years to create and failed projects can do irreparable damage to your reputation, a reputation that may have taken a long time to build up. It is also necessary to gain interest in your game, something that can take a lot of man-hours to do.

Issues facing small and indie studios:
The main problem for small studios is that it is incredibly difficult for unknown studios to gain the amount of funding necessary, and even more difficult to gain the attention of publishers willing to take the risk and publish potential failures. With regard to the banks, they look at your cash flows and see how much your overall property is worth if it becomes collateral. This can instantly ruin many developers chances of gaining a loan, due to the unstable financial side of fledgling developers. Also, the cash is going to becoming in fastest within the months after the games release, thus meaning that it could take years before any money is seen, which can put off many investors, publishers and banks.

Conclusion:
Overall, I have talked about the financial aspects and issues that all game developers (big or small) face at some point in their lives, from wages, bills, software and hardware development, to marketing, advertising, copyright and licensing costs.
To conclude, I have learnt that if you want to become a game developer, only do so if you have a stable cash flow coming into the studio, otherwise you may be out of the game.

References:
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/witcher-3-ships-almost-10-million-copies-report/1100-6435592/
http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/the-witcher-3-has-won-more-game-of-the-year-awards-than-any-other-game-36313
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_139/2994-Walk-Don-t-Run
https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/advantages-and-disadvantages-crowdfunding

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Gaming Platforms

Mobile Gaming:
Mobile gaming is where a person plays a video game on their mobile phone or tablet computer. It has many advantages, as well as a few disadvantages, as shown described below.

Advantages:

One advantage of mobile gaming is that the games can be taken anywhere. Once the game is downloaded on the phone, it can be played whenever, even without an Internet or phone signal.

Another advantage is cost, as many games on app stores are either free or very cheap. This allows gamer's to save money or try out many different games. Also, people will usually already have their phones before they buy the game, compared to computers or consoles, as users will have to spend a few hundred pounds buying the platform.

Creativity. Mobile games are very diverse and ,because they are cheaper and easier to produce, developers can take more of a risk when trying out new ideas and concepts. They don't stand to lose much, as most of the games are free anyway.

Disadvantages:

Constant use of thumbs, fingers, wrists and eyes can lead to RSI, eye strain and other physical problems.

They can take up a lot of time, thus potentially isolating users from friends and family, or stopping them from doing productive tasks or socialising.

Console Gaming:
Console gaming is where people play video games on a home console. There are some advantage sand disadvantages, as shown in the paragraphs below.

Advantages:

Consoles are usually quite cheap, compared to PC's, as they specifically built to be used for gaming, as well as easily accessible. This allows console makers to shed unnecessary costs. Games will also work for the console, on PC you may have to do some tweaking to get it to work.
Socially, consoles still offer great communities for gamer's to play with one another, although Steam and other PC communities are catching up. They are also very good for local multiplayer.
Portability is a very good advantage over PC's, as you can simply disconnect a console, pick it up and reconnect it in a different location.

Disadvantages:

Some game genres are completely absent from console games, as they work much better on PC. Console technology will also be a bit outdated a few years after you buy it, thus meaning you have to buy an entirely new console, as the hardware is locked in consoles.

Arcade Gaming:
Arcade gaming is the use of arcade machines to play simple video games. The disadvantages generally outweigh the advantages. Advantages:

Arcade machines have a wide range of controllers to use, such as guns, joysticks and foot pedals. They are not too costly to produce and make the money back that it cost to make them. 

Disadvantages:

Requires money to be able to play them, thus making them quite costly for players, especially if you play it a lot. They are not as popular as they used to be, which results in fewer people playing them. Also, they are large, taking up lots of space, as well being difficult to move.

PC Gaming:
PC gaming is the use of Home Computers to run video games. The advantages significantly outweigh the disadvantages. Advantages:
Customisation is a big benefit of PC's; the user can choose what type off hardware and software they want, they can surf the web whilst gaming, free online capabilities and online marketplaces such as Steam. They have backwards compatibility with games way back to the 1980's, although a lot of tweaking may be necessary. Hardware can be changed/replaced at will if something goes wrong, without having to buy a completely new PC. There are also many more PC exclusive game titles, compared to other gaming platforms.
Disadvantages:

Quite expensive, especially for higher-end ones, although hardware usually lasts a long time. It is also quite necessary for the user's to be somewhat tech-savvy, due to all the hardware and software, unless the user is happy to pay someone to do it for them, which can be somewhat costly.

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games.

P1 Understand theory for computer game graphics.

File Extensions:

BMP: BMP(bitmap) files are used to store raster images. It is most commonly used on Microsoft and OS products. The images are stored as pixels and assigned a colour without any compression. This method allows for higher quality images but increases the file size.

GIF: A GIF(Graphics Interchange Format) is a collection of moving bitmaps to create an image or animation, such as sprites. GIF's use lossless compression that does not degrade the quality of the image. However, they can only use indexed colours, meaning standard GIF's can only include 256 colours.

TIFF: A TIFF(Tagged Image File Format) is used to store raster graphic images all in one file and for exchanging raster images from one application to another, most commonly those used for scanning images.

JPEG: A JPEG(Joint Photographic Expertise Group, the company that created it) is the most commonly used method of lossy compression for images produced by digital photography. How compressed the image will be can be adjusted, allowing images to have different degrees of image quality and storage size.

PSD: A PSD(Photoshop Document) is the default format used to save Photoshop data. It allows users to work with the files' individual layers even after the file has been saved. When complete, the image can be flattened and converted into JPEG's or GIF's. However, one the image is converted, it cannot be reverted back to a PSD file, with the user no longer being able to work with the images' layers.

WMF: A WMF(Windows Metafile) is a type of file format designed for Microsoft. They are intended to be portable between Microsoft applications such as PowerPoint, Word and Publisher. It can contain both vector and raster images.

FLA: A FLA(Flash) file is the file used when using Adobe Flash. They store animations or images used with the program, which when saved is converted to an .swf file, these then can be used on the internet.

AI: An AI(Adobe Illustrator) is used in Adobe Illustrator to represent single page vector images in a PDF format.


Compression
Image compression is generally used to reduce the size of the image file and make it easier to store or transmit the data efficiently. There are two most commonly used types of image compression: lossy and lossless compression. Lossy compression is used to reduce data size for storage and transmitting data. The higher the compression, the lower the quality will be. Also, much more data can be reduced using lossy techniques than through lossless techniques. Lossless compression is were the original bits of data are completely restored after decompressing the file, with all the information being restored to its original quality.

Image Capture
Image capture is how an image is taken. This can be done in a number of ways, for example: taking a picture with a DSLR camera, using a camera-phone, or taking a screenshot on the computer.

Optimising
Optimising is were you create a program that works at its maximum efficiency and speed during its execution and storage. This is done to make each program as useful as possible for different platforms, for example, a program written for Windows would have to be optimised to work at its fullest potential on Mac-OS.