Devise at least 2 methods of collecting audience data in the next 7 days that will produce effective results.
- Questionnaire (survey monkey)
- Focus group
Tuesday, 9 September 2014
Lo4: Focus Group Feedback
Devise at least 2 methods of collecting audience data in the next 7 days that will produce effective results.
Friday, 5 September 2014
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Lo3: Game idea pre-research data
- Current sales revenue
- Markets entered
- Successful audience groups
- Developer & Publisher
Skyrim:
Since November 11, ZeniMax announced they had shipped 10 million units of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and have made $650 million in revenue across all three platforms.
Pokémon:
Over the las decade the franchise of Pokémon had generated $30 billion worldwide. Not just through the video games but the cartoons and trading cards. The role playing game was developed Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS. First released in Japan on September 18th, 2010 and was released in Europe on March 4th, 2011. Black and white sold five million copies as of January 2011, making it one of the best selling DS games to date. In March 2013, the combined sales of the game reached 15.42 million. The game has a massively varied audience and therefore is appropriate for people of all ages.Sims:
The Sims is a casual real life simulation series developed EA & Maxis, published by Electronic Arts. The original sims was first released February 4th 2000. As of March 22nd 2002; The Sims franchise had sold over 2 million copies and is the best selling PC franchise in history. The Sims was released for Microsoft Windows in February 2000. The game uses Isometric Projection and features open-ended simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual persons (sims).FarmVille:
In 2009 FarmVille was the most popular game on Facebook, since then the game has drastically fallen in popularity and is ranked forty-forth most popular game by Daily Active users. The game was developed by Zynga using the engine Flare 3D.
Lo3: Legal and Ethical issues in gaming
Ethical issues can form within games merely from fans and audience opinions. Though the issues would not have been intended by the developers, they have to tread carefully and find a way to resolve any major or minor issues brought to their attention.
Legal issues:
- Taking over people's land
- Using comercial music
- Using characters such as celebrities
- Murder
- War
Ethical issues:
- War
- Murder
- Theft
- Prostitution
- Abuse
- Drugs
To avoid these issues, games use their own brands in the games and music. These create a second source of income as you can purchase albums of music from games. An example of a company that uses similar names of brands but not identical is the Sensible Soccer. They used names which sounded like famous footballers, but not their actual names to avoid copy right or the need of permission from the footballer to agree to their character and their features on the game.
Ethical considerations:
Throughout my game you are able to fight other characters and kill them which will cause ethical issues as it classes as murder. However the graphics of the game will not be realistic as it is a fantasy, and the blood for example will not look legit as it does in games such as Grande Theft Auto or Call Of Duty.
As it is fantasy, if you are injured in battle you are able to grow plants which can be cooked into potions to make you well faster and heal injuries. This could be classed as an ethical issue as it is drug use in a sense but will represent and drugs that are legit and they will not be realistic.
No pornographic images will be in my game as it has a general under 18 year old target audience. Therefore will avoid contravening the obscene publications act of 1959.
The music in my game will cause issues in the creation of my game as we wont be able to create our own music. Also the names of the characters or objects will be similar to other peoples games therefore we have chosen to name them similarly as in Sensible Soccer but not identical to the original names. The name of the actual game will cause a Copyright issue as it is not or original name along with the typography, it has been taken off of Dafont.com therefore we would need to contact the typographer for permission to use including payment of their work. There should be no copyright issues with the characters because we have made all the characters from scratch along with the scenery. We are using a pre made engine as don't have the ability or time to create our own engine. However we are paying to use it and the tools so there should be no issue there. The colours used in the game are original, however iconic of a fantasy game in the fact that the colours are enigmatic similarly in other fantasy genre games such as Skyrim and Fable but this is not a copyright issue because we have created the theme and colours in a unique format that is not identical to any other mainstream game already published.
Liable & Slander Considerations:
This law relates to defamation of characters, when you use an organisation or person image in a way which could cause measurable damage to their reputation in the eyes of the common public. However no characters in my game are of celebrities or famous people therefore this issue doesn't effect my game because it will slander no one. Also the scenery is not of anywhere that already exists so again it will cause no offence to anyone. Finally; no companies or organisations will be used as no brands are needed within the game so this will avoid any liable case being brought against your game.
Copyright Considerations:
The music in my game will cause issues in the creation of my game as we wont be able to create our own music. Also the names of the characters or objects will be similar to other peoples games therefore we have chosen to name them similarly as in Sensible Soccer but not identical to the original names. The name of the actual game will cause a Copyright issue as it is not or original name along with the typography, it has been taken off of Dafont.com therefore we would need to contact the typographer for permission to use including payment of their work. There should be no copyright issues with the characters because we have made all the characters from scratch along with the scenery. We are using a pre made engine as don't have the ability or time to create our own engine. However we are paying to use it and the tools so there should be no issue there. The colours used in the game are original, however iconic of a fantasy game in the fact that the colours are enigmatic similarly in other fantasy genre games such as Skyrim and Fable but this is not a copyright issue because we have created the theme and colours in a unique format that is not identical to any other mainstream game already published.Liable & Slander Considerations:
This law relates to defamation of characters, when you use an organisation or person image in a way which could cause measurable damage to their reputation in the eyes of the common public. However no characters in my game are of celebrities or famous people therefore this issue doesn't effect my game because it will slander no one. Also the scenery is not of anywhere that already exists so again it will cause no offence to anyone. Finally; no companies or organisations will be used as no brands are needed within the game so this will avoid any liable case being brought against your game.
Monday, 17 February 2014
Lo3: Game Target Audience Definitions (character profile)
Ideal Target Audience Member profile:
Pete is 12 years old; he lives with his mummy and daddy in Sheffield along with his two older brothers. Pete spends his time playing on consoles and his favourite game genre is fantasy; such as Pokémon, Black and White and Sims. He spends his free time playing football for his school and has learnt to use the Xbox in the evening because of his older brothers who are also interested in fantasy games. Pete has just finished his final year at All Saints Primary School and plans to attend Mount Satin Mary’s Secondary School, as his family are catholic. Pete aspires to work in animation either in games or film once he has finished school.
Pete is 12 years old; he lives with his mummy and daddy in Sheffield along with his two older brothers. Pete spends his time playing on consoles and his favourite game genre is fantasy; such as Pokémon, Black and White and Sims. He spends his free time playing football for his school and has learnt to use the Xbox in the evening because of his older brothers who are also interested in fantasy games. Pete has just finished his final year at All Saints Primary School and plans to attend Mount Satin Mary’s Secondary School, as his family are catholic. Pete aspires to work in animation either in games or film once he has finished school.
Sunday, 16 February 2014
Friday, 14 February 2014
Lo2: Analysis of game reviews in different media
Walking Dead Season 2:
The review and the game belong to the same genre of 'Choice in life' therefore 'Point & Click'.
Target audience:
The audeince of the magazine article would be people aged from 10+ and would entertain people who are interested in this genre of game, or people who are into the Walking Dead TV series.
Narrative & Characters:
The narrative of the game is a middle aged man surving in America mid zombie apocalypse, while caring for his vulnerable young friend Clementine. Lee Everett will do whatever it takes to survive in the dead world.
Game play:
The Point & Click has been developed while the visuals are more crisp, while relating to the origional character designs.
Platform:
Available on PC,PS3,PS Vita and Xbox 360
Personal Recommendation:
The reviewer is impressed whith the ambitious nature of the developer and classes it as a huge improvement from previous games. The new game play lasting for several hours doesn't get boring. With the high amount of praise, reviewers think highly of the new game.
Wednesday, 12 February 2014
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Monday, 10 February 2014
Friday, 7 February 2014
Saturday, 25 January 2014
Lo1: Buisness Report Sumo Digital
Sumo Digital 22.01.2014
Darren Mills, one of the four original founders of the digital company Sumo located in Sheffield, England is now working along side 200+ employees making the joyful games we all know and love. The story began in 2003, Sumo digital started off as a tiny 4 members, all of which were programmers and artists working on minor jobs that were available as and when they came. And as the years have passed the company has thrived along side the gaming industry and expanded to having a base in India with 40 extra artists as well as the enormous team already located in Sheffield with members from all over the world. With the occasional large project the company do take on freelance employees for those extra pairs of hands when times get tough. However these employees are only temporary until the project is complete. The latest platforms in which Sumo have developed games for are the Xbox one, and PlayStation four. But they have a large portfolio when it comes to their variation of platforms as they have developed games for consoles such as Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation3, Xbox 360, and android apps. So far the company has an impressive list of 40+ games which they have proudly developed, and even taken IP's (international Properties) and expanded on them for instance, Sonic. The games they have developed have been successful in the sense that they have won awards for many of their games; Sonic All-Stars Racing won the best racing game of the year and Xbox Fitness for the Xbox One platform won the best fitness title, and many more.
Sumo is successful in the fact that as a company they have their own specific tools and software to develop their games in house where as smaller, not as successful businesses, would not. The software the company use to develop these games differ for the specific areas in the development for the games. The art teams use 3D studio Macs for modelling, MIA and Zed brush software, where as the programmers use C++ for the coding for the games.
Their first launch title for the PSP was the beginning for the company as from then on they have worked with Microsoft, Sony and triple A partners developing games. However the major breakthrough for the company was the opportunity to develop OutRun2 which was released onto the Xbox platform. As this occurred when the company was only small, a minor team of 20 worked along side Sega Japan to create and develop this game and used Sega's tools and code base and since the success of the game Sega has been working along side Sumo Digital now for the past 10 years.
However the most impressing products of the company, with the popular titles such as Little Big Planet for Sony on the PSP with psvita multiscreen gameplay, and the number 1 best selling game for Nintendo Ds; Moshi monsters which was released for the 3DS was finished after only 6 months with the small team of 25 people.
There are 3 main teams in the Sumo Digital company. The Artists, The designers and The Programmers. Each team has around 7 areas in which people specify in for example, in the artists team there are; Concept artists, Character Artists, Environment Artists, Animators, Graphic artists, Technical artists and the Lead artists. The categories differ for each individual team however the structure remains the same, there are managers of the teams who are responsible for everyone within it. All areas of the company are important and the games could not be developed without them and together the they make Sumo Digital.
Darren Mills, one of the four original founders of the digital company Sumo located in Sheffield, England is now working along side 200+ employees making the joyful games we all know and love. The story began in 2003, Sumo digital started off as a tiny 4 members, all of which were programmers and artists working on minor jobs that were available as and when they came. And as the years have passed the company has thrived along side the gaming industry and expanded to having a base in India with 40 extra artists as well as the enormous team already located in Sheffield with members from all over the world. With the occasional large project the company do take on freelance employees for those extra pairs of hands when times get tough. However these employees are only temporary until the project is complete. The latest platforms in which Sumo have developed games for are the Xbox one, and PlayStation four. But they have a large portfolio when it comes to their variation of platforms as they have developed games for consoles such as Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation3, Xbox 360, and android apps. So far the company has an impressive list of 40+ games which they have proudly developed, and even taken IP's (international Properties) and expanded on them for instance, Sonic. The games they have developed have been successful in the sense that they have won awards for many of their games; Sonic All-Stars Racing won the best racing game of the year and Xbox Fitness for the Xbox One platform won the best fitness title, and many more.
Sumo is successful in the fact that as a company they have their own specific tools and software to develop their games in house where as smaller, not as successful businesses, would not. The software the company use to develop these games differ for the specific areas in the development for the games. The art teams use 3D studio Macs for modelling, MIA and Zed brush software, where as the programmers use C++ for the coding for the games.
Their first launch title for the PSP was the beginning for the company as from then on they have worked with Microsoft, Sony and triple A partners developing games. However the major breakthrough for the company was the opportunity to develop OutRun2 which was released onto the Xbox platform. As this occurred when the company was only small, a minor team of 20 worked along side Sega Japan to create and develop this game and used Sega's tools and code base and since the success of the game Sega has been working along side Sumo Digital now for the past 10 years.
However the most impressing products of the company, with the popular titles such as Little Big Planet for Sony on the PSP with psvita multiscreen gameplay, and the number 1 best selling game for Nintendo Ds; Moshi monsters which was released for the 3DS was finished after only 6 months with the small team of 25 people.
There are 3 main teams in the Sumo Digital company. The Artists, The designers and The Programmers. Each team has around 7 areas in which people specify in for example, in the artists team there are; Concept artists, Character Artists, Environment Artists, Animators, Graphic artists, Technical artists and the Lead artists. The categories differ for each individual team however the structure remains the same, there are managers of the teams who are responsible for everyone within it. All areas of the company are important and the games could not be developed without them and together the they make Sumo Digital.
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