Game Industry Presented by: Pam Chow

Game Industry Presented by: Pam Chow

GAME INDUSTRY

A (Very) Brief History 1961 SpaceWar: Steve Russell on a PDP-1 at MIT 1971 Computer Space: First coin-op game 1972 Pong: Arcade and home - the first hit 1978-1981: Golden age of the arcade Arcade revenues hit $5 billion The most ever Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Missile Command, Joust, Tempest, Defender 1984: Console crash Coleco, MB, Mattel, Atari, many third parties

History Cont d 1985 Tetris 1986 Console revival Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System 1989-1995 16 bit era SNES, Sega Genesis, Nintendo GameBoy CD-ROMs, Doom, Dune 2, Myst 1995-1999 32 bit era Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, N64 Rise and fall of 3Dfx, fall and rise of NVidia Ultima Online, Everquest, Counterstrike 2000-2005 Last Gen PS2, Xbox, GameCube

Recent History Second-gen 3D consoles: PS2, Xbox, GameCube Microsoft joins the race, Sega drops out On-line comes to consoles Ubiquitous PC 3D hardware acceleration ATI, Nvidia MMPORGs (Lineage, EQ, WoW, CoH), The Sims, GTA, Halo Wireless mobile gaming WiFi/Bluetooth/cell: DS, PSP, phone, PDA, iphone, ipad

Current Era Next-Gen : PS3, Xbox 360, Wii Some online distribution (Xbox Live Arcade, Wii Ware, PSN Store) Sony and Microsoft fight for hardware superiority Nintendo pushes gameplay innovation Longer life cycle Accessories / Peripherals Guitar Hero, Kinect, Sony Move Handheld: DS, PSP, iphone, ipad Multiple generations of hardware DS (2004), DS Lite (2006), DSi (2008), 3DS (2010) PSP (2004), PSP 3000 (2008), PSP GO (2009) Social Networking Games Web Browser +Facebook as a platform e.g. Farmville

Current Platforms Console PC Biggest market: Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo Windows, Mac, online, nvidia, ATI Mobile iphone, ipad, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, PDA Internet Facebook, Browser, Arcade Coin-op, custom hardware Other Casino, sports bars, military simulation

Distribution Channels Online: Steam PSN Store Xbox Marketplace Apple itunes Retailers Electronic Boutique, GameStop, Best Buy, Walmart Amazon

The Business of Making Games Complex interaction between players: publishing development distribution hardware manufacturers One company may own or partly own others you can be working for a company that owns a competitor Competitors in one genre may be partners in another

Publishers Responsible for: Funding game development Acquiring, owning, maintaining IP licenses Marketing, PR, end-user tech support Sales and manufacturing of the game The majority of commercial games are: commissioned, funded, published or distributed by the major publishers Most of the revenue goes to publisher Remainder to console royalties, distributors Maybe even a little to the developer

Developers The companies or people who create the games: Programmers, artists, designers, sound engineers, musicians, producers, writers and others Ownership independent, part or wholly owned by a publisher, distributor or hardware manufacturer Funding most often by a publisher to develop a specific game some can and do fund projects internally

Distributors & Retailers The least understood (by developers, players) yet critical to the success of commercial games These companies get the games onto the shelves Publishers compete with each other for limited shelf space This is what goes on behind closed doors at trade shows like E3 The internet threatens this model Amazon, Steam Opportunity to bypass the publisher and the distributer Publishers still have the money, and the IP, though

Hardware Manufacturers PC/Mac open access: anything goes thousands of possible configurations with unknown stability and interactions between components Console Roughly 10X the size of the PC market closed access: all titles must be approved in advance Sony, MS, Nintendo get a cut of every unit sold (bigger than independent developers) fixed hardware architecture (limited resources) Rigorous QA process by Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft

Games based on Licensed IP Based upon an intellectual property (IP) Publisher or developer owns or has licensed rights to a movie, book, character, show, team, etc. Often large up-front fee to acquire rights to use IP Not good when based upon a future movie that flops Brand Recognition factor to increase sales Reduced Marketing spend Often game release is tied to other releases of the same IP (movie typically) Video games are often an afterthought Rushed development, compromised product

Costs, Time, Team Size Today's multi-platform 3D console title: $5 - $30+ million (US) Development budget only! 12-24+ months 25 100+ people Expensive trends: Higher production values Multi-genera, open-world gameplay Multiplayer game play Licensing tie-ins Fully localized content Celebrity voice acting Technical and creative arms race

Console Hardware Install Base (L.T.D) Platform HW IB 1 PlayStation 2 46,096,343 2 PlayStation 3 14,242,869 3 Xbox 360 23,564,260 4 Wii 31,842,883 5 Nintendo DS 44,777,960 6 PlayStation Portable 18,030,590

Top Racing Games in 2010 Title Dollars Units 9 PS3 GRAN TURISMO 5 $ 21,401,600 360,231 18 PS3 NEED FOR SPEED 3 HOT PURSUIT $ 10,294,900 203,910 21 360 NEED FOR SPEED 3 HOT PURSUIT $ 10,011,860 201,055 31 WII MARIO KART WII $ 467,993,353 9,507,975 53 PS3 GRAN TURISMO 5 $ 3,886,841 39,026 60 NDS MARIO KART $ 233,643,156 6,785,833 61 360 KINECT JOY RIDE $ 3,184,831 67,237 72 WII SONIC FREE RIDERS $ 2,520,971 55,516

Realities Games engineering is still fairly primitive Average game developer studio have primitive practices Don't know how to engineer fun Can fun be engineered? Even mundane stuff isn't planned very well Bad planning, insufficient up-front design is prevalent History of one-man-team, wild-west cowboy coding practices Improving over time out of necessity Of course, our practices are great!

Games are Different Games are different from application or systems software At their heart, they are entertainment, not software This profoundly changes the overall engineering process Only about 20-30% game team members are programmers Nevertheless, many classical software problems have to be solved to create a game We still have to create complex software

Game Engines are Same Like other software systems: Core Runtime Systems Tools & Pipelines Needs to be maintainable Modular Robust User-friendly Extensible & Sufficiently flexible Efficient