Unit 3: Introduction to professional practice in creative media production

Understanding creative media companies

In today's lesson we looked at the different sections and types of companies within the games industry and production. In the lesson we were tasked to understand the differences between each of these companies.

GROUPING

The companies within the industry is separated into 3 groups-

Publisher

The publisher is the group which funds the game's production and the one that releases it to the public under their title.

Developer

The developer is the company group that actually produces every aspect of the game from: the design, the art, the coding, the level design, the assets, the lore, etc. This group is the most crucial as they are the ones that actually handle everything. The developers are paid by the publisher, to do the task that the publisher requests.

Distributor

As indicated by the name this group within the industry supplies the distribution of the games, the shelving and the delivery. This group, is in charge of stocking the game to be purchased by the public as the developer and publisher, does not have the supplies to do so themselves (unless it is a company that is big enough to do so e.g. epic games, blizzard games).

In game design the most expensive part into the game's release isn't the production, rather the most expensive part was found to be advertisement as seen in 2009, when Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came out, the advertisement budget was 200 million whereas the game production was 50 million, this means they paid 4 times as much money for advertisement rather than the actual production and release of the game.

Alongside everything previously learnt there is also two other terms learnt, vertical and horizontal integration, these terms talk about companies and their tethers.

Vertical integration is when a company has smaller companies within the same field, for example, Sony interactive entertainment (developer) owns the PlayStation store (distributor). What this allows for is to cut down on pricing spent on licensing and publishing fees and also helps cut corners and get straight into getting the game thrown out.

Horizontal integration is when a company owns different companies in different industries. An example of horizontal integration is nestle (food company) has ownership of L'OREAL (hygiene care company). The two mentioned companies are not in the same field but is owned by the other regardless, this branches revenue into multiple industries.

DDS 7/11/23

Understanding critical perspectives

Playtesting work  experience with inhalation 9/11/23

Today we worked with a game development company, Inhalation to playtest one of their very early ideas for a game they are working on.

In the work experience the main goal of my participation was to give the company a good handful of feedback based on the small fragment of their game that I tested, this allows us to find out more about the practice done in the games industry to allow games to be tuned to 'perfection' (in the sense that it meets their criteria and objective for the game).

In the session I've learnt the nature of playtesting and how it works, I've learnt the processes you need to complete and the improvements you give. One part that was unique to me was that in a playtest you can play in ANY point of development, in the game we tested it was early on and was hard to understand, once learning the purpose of the game I was surprised to learn that it was the true purpose because I personally would've never thought of it like that that personally, to get into the game multiple times and searching for any errors, any intricate details that can help improve the game rather than just playing through the main story one time and calling it a day.

I had to apply the general skills I've learnt through teachings of playtesting in terms of I have to really explore and see what I can find around and about my environments. I understood as I would get 0 aid or context in what I am doing I had to do quite a bit of trial and error to find out what I can and cant do.

It wasn't hard to communicate my honest feedback as it was crucial to this whole experience, I knew that if I wasn't honest my participation would be a complete waste of time so I knew I had to be honest as they also wanted honesty from me.

In honesty I expected the developers to present themselves with less enthusiasm and energy considering the fact that from what I've learnt and heard, the games industry specifically for developers chews you up and spits you out in work however, once the developers introduced themselves I realised that they have a positive outlook and emotion towards their work which is respectable to me personally as after hearing all of those words they still stick through it and find enjoyment in their work.

Through what I've done with inhalation I feel that I would do game testing as a professional standpoint for experience in the industry and both to learn the production of games further.

PLAYTESTING WITH INHALATION

 Understanding the critical perspective - game reviews 6/11/23

Today I learnt about game reviews and what makes them well informed. Anyone can write a game review but not everyone can write a great and informative review. Over this lesson I am going over the things that make a game review 'good'.

Generally game reviews follow a structure that breaks the information down into different parts. 

STRUCTURE

The different structures are:

Overall impression- establishing your overall review of the game to the public, make it known how you feel about the game.

Narrative summary- Talk and show understanding of the theme and scenario of the game you are put in.

Gameplay- Describe the feel of the game from the get go and overall gameplay mechanics met with.

Presentation- Talking about the visuals and theme of the game, focusing on the type of setting the character is in, setting the mood.

Themes- The moral and message aspects of a game, does it convey a message and follow smoothly with the theme?

Conclusion- Overall thought of game through all aspects and justifications for points made to get point through to the reader.  

BIOSHOCK REVIEW ANALYSIS

After learning about the different review structures we analysed a professional review for bioshock seeing what structures we can find

Writing my own review 14/11/23

My review for Fromsoftware's Bloodborne (2015)

Job roles in the games industry 21/11/23

In todays lesson I looked at the different job roles in the games industry for each section (developer, publisher, distributor). 

In this lesson I was aimed to better understand the varierty of job roles avaliable in the games industry.    

CREDITS/UNKNOWN ROLE(S)

  

Firstly in the lesson, we looked at the credits for Oddword: Abe's Oddysee and noted down any roles we didn't understand. One role I wasnt aware of was the art traffic coordinator, I have newly learnt that this role is in charge of the flow of art and ensures it comes in and is working smoothly, they also check to ensure there are no problems from blocking artwork to be completed.

ROLES IN THE INDUSTRY

Later on we looked at specific roles in each industry in game design and picked out two of which we were most interested in or see ourself working as in the future to come, my list follows as

Development (developer, marketing, HR, finance)

-Concept artist

-Senior concept artist

Publisher (publishing, HR, financing)

-Graphic designer

-Game scout

Distributor

-Branding artist

-Video editor

WHICH ROLES AM I INTERESTED IN?

In the games industry I'm interested in the development role the most out of the others. In the development role I'm interested in the concept artist role as that allows me to be the most creative and I find that to be enjoyable as a career path. Concept artist seem to make £55,431 per year/£28.38 per hour. (minimum £39,375. Highest £90,844). To become a concept artists you need to have a set of skills needed to be of value in the industry. The skills needed to be a concept artist require good art skills, creative thinking and innovative skills. You need to be able to  think up of many different designs based off of a description. As a concept artist you can also reach up to be a senior concept artist or a creative designer.

Another role that I also like in the is the publisher role as the graphic designer job fits my narrative of something I would like to pursue in the future. Graphic designers make about £27,427 per year/£12.62 per hour. To become a graphic designer you will need a good set of art skills in both 2d and 3d, you need to know how to use a 3d software and be able to sculpt the pieces you make. As a graphic designer you can lead into many roles like making assets for a videogame or making assets for a movie.

Talent. (2024). Concept Artist average salary in United Kingdom, 2024. [Online]. talent.com. Available at: https://uk.talent.com/salary?job=concept+artist#:~:text=The%20average%20concept%20artist%20salary%20 [Accessed 21 January 2024].

indeed. (2024). Graphic designer salary in United Kingdom. [Online]. indeed.com. Last Updated: 17 january 2024. Available at: https://uk.indeed.com/career/graphic-designer/salaries [Accessed 21 January 2024].

How to become a game designer 23/11/23