My Final Idea

The Process Of The Ideas

Firstly we was told to come up with four idea's on potential games and then we will make one of those into a final game, ultimately to start off with we had more idea's than we needed so we had to dwindle them down a bit. The games didn't have to be direct sequels to the original movie but they had to have some sort of correlation to the movie such as one of the characters could be in it, or set in the same city as the movie.

The process of coming up with the four game idea's firstly was overall pretty simple due to the fact there are so many games out there right now and so many different genre's. The idea's we had were purely based on other games we had played ourselves and they were adaptations of them, but we put our own spin on the games that would tie in with Big Trouble In Little China which was pretty simple really due to the amount of things you can actually do currently. Overall the process of thinking of idea's for games was pretty simple, but thinking of ones that would be successful was a bit tougher, we narrowed our idea's down to just a few and compared them to recent games that have similar concepts to see if they would actually do well if they were made into actual games.

The final four game idea's that we had were the ones we felt very positive about and they could all make it some way or another into a successful game as their own games which is why we chose to go with them as our final four. As well as the fact they were pretty solid idea's they were also very capable to make into games without being to unrealistic about them. As a whole the we was happy with the final four ideas we had put together due to how they each have a different creative edge to them but still relate to several other games in their play style and genre.

The Requirements Of The Game

The requirements of the game were extremely lose as the only real requirements we had was a time limit in which the game has to be produced and made within and the fact it has to have some of a tie in with the original film. However there were some other important requirements that a more general than super specific such as the prior two, for example other requirements would be that it needs some form of story line for the player to actually link to whether that is just a back story to some of the playable characters to a full blown campaign based game such as last of us with no multiplayer aspect too it. But overall the requirements as i said weren't too harsh and allowed us to play around with a few idea's rather than trying to focus on one genre with a specific target audience we was allowed to have a freedom to create any idea's that we think would make it commercially.

Narrowing Four ideas to One

The first idea we had came up with was a direct sequel to the original movie that was produced, the reasoning behind wanting to do a direct sequel but in game form was that it would be able to captivate and bring in and older audience of gamer much easier than a normal one would as they would already have a relationship with the characters and know the history behind it, but still would be able to be a stand alone game very easily and would not require the player to actually have to watch the movie in order to get whats going on throughout the game, it will also be purely campaign based with no multiplayer option. The actual idea for this game wasn't inspired by any direct game but rather than the original movie and the god aspect on it and the different locations you see them travel to throughout the film. However the combat features within the game would be inspired by Dynasty Warriors and how they are able to have big battles and the fighting system is excellent.

The second idea that we thought of had a small link to the theme in it being that the main character within the game was the same one that was in the film(Jack), other than that small correlation the game doesn't have all that much in common with the film because it is a car based game where you race in a campaign based mode against the AI trying to get a better car as you go through levels. Again the game does not have a multiplayer aspect however it could get included into a later point within the games life because it is purely campaign based trying to capitalise on the story line within the game. We got this idea from the old Need For Speed games and how they used to be extremely popular but that genre has died down a little and is not as popular as it once was, so this game would be able to capitalise on that and actually become extremely popular.

Our third game idea was another campaign based game and is loosely based off of the film because it will have some references to the movie but you would be able to play the game and understand it completely without watching it. The idea is that you are a girl that has been institutionalised by a corrupt government trying to make a super army and you escape from the facility and try to find out who you are whilst getting revenge and trying to stop the corrupt government at the same time.

 The fourth idea we had is completely different to the others as it doesn't have a campaign mode at all, instead it is purely multiplayer based and has a ranking system. It doesn't really tie with the movie what so ever except for some key maps which you would have to be a big fan of the movie to understand but other than that it is completely different. We got the idea for this game and the ranking system off of other successful titles that are around currently and we tried to combine that with a different kind of feel such as the maps are completely different as well as the characters are too. The main inspiration for this game idea was actually from Overwatch with the ranked system however the combat system and guns are inspired by Call of Duty because the mix of the two games has a new fresh feel to it.

The Final Idea I Will Use

The final decision to choose one final idea that i want to actually move forward with and make an actual game of was extremely tough, mainly due to the fact that there are several ideas that are fun and creative and would actually make a decent successful game. But the one i actually decided to go with is none but rather a variation of a few of the idea's combined into one to make an ultimate game that i will have fun making due to the genre and idea's i have for the game. The main reasoning behind the decision to create a hybrid version of a few of the idea's is mainly due to the fact that those idea's are good on the own but combined they could create a truly great and successful game that fans of all ages would enjoy to play where as with some of the ideas i am going to combine together there developed would be things such as the combat system from the first idea because it will be a third is a direct age limit if you will, due to graphic features etc. The things i will take from the idea's we person game, some of the locations from several idea's because they are really beautiful locations and you could adapt them to however i want them too look. Also it will be a campaign based game however you can play co-op so you are able to play with friends or random players if you choose but you can also play by yourself if you decide too, there will however be some form of arena area where you can battle other players and test your skill against them and you can gain a rank from this so it is a form of the ranked play from the final idea we had.

 The Expectations Of the Game

My expectations for the game are not unrealistic as i have been set a deadline that i feel i can meet with this game as it is not overly complex and will not take every minute of every day to complete but with hard work should be able to complete it at some point next year. I expect the game to be a success and have multiple levels to it with average graphics at this time. I also expect that the movement system will be very fluid and smooth when you are running around so it doesn't feel choppy or slow.

Software and Hardware

• Software

Unreal Engine-

Unreal engine is a games engine made by a company called epic games, you can use this software to design your games with one of the top engines out there, but this does come with a royalty cost. The royalty cost is 5% of every sell you make after you reach the £3000. Unreal engine 4 actually has a fixed price per month which is $19.

Unity-
Unity is a game engine that is used for multiple cross platform games, and is used a ton by Nintendo. Nintendo actually include a free version of this for every licensed Wii U developer. The Unity pro version would cost $75 per month, or one fixed price of $1,500 each year which is unlike unreal.

Cryengine-
Cryengine is a German developed engine, and was firstly used in the original far cry game and has since been used in multiple other games. The software has been updated since and has actually featured in many third party games due to the licensing contract. Cryengine is actually one of the cheaper software systems you can use in being only $45 per month which is a huge difference compared to the other software, but with this price they do not take any money from what you make so no royalties are included.

Games Maker-
Game maker was originally designed for the novice game maker as it is very simple to use with the drag and drop format it comes with, this isnt really used for more advanced games like i said it is more of a starter platform. Since releasing game maker they have updated and re-written the entire programme and calling it "Game maker 2" this is just an updated and overall better version of of the original. However the original is completely free the upgraded version cost $99.99 which is a one off price that you will only need to pay once.

Construct-
Construct is a very simple games engine where it is a drag and drop method like game engine, but uses the C++ coding language. Like game maker it is mainly aimed at novice designers that are just starting out and know the very basics.  There are actually three versions of the software which have different prices, one is for free, the next is $65 and then the most expensive version of it is a whopping $255.

Maya-
Maya is an engine that primarily is known for its 3D capabilities and how good it is at making the 3D characters and world. Maya is used for multiple things from games to films, due to how good it is at making 3D objects. Maya has multiple ways you can decide to pay for it, as well as a free trial option. The first option when purchasing maya is a monthly price which is £170, a yearly price which is £1,370, a price for two years which is £2,605 and then a three year subscription which is a total of £3,700.

3D Studio Max-
3D studio max is primarily known for making 3D animations, models, games and images. This was developed/produced bu Auto desk Media and Entertainment. It was initially released in 1990 and is written in C++. . This software is also primarily used on Windows.The cost for a month would be £228, then onto a year it would cost £1818, 2 years would be £3456 and finally 3 years would be £4908.

Hardware-


Peripherals-

Peripherals are pretty much accessories to the main system, for exam you could have a PS4 controller that would be classed as a peripheral because its not the main system instead it is something included with and you can buy it separate. You would also class that a mouse is a peripheral due to it being an accessory to the PC system and again you can buy them seperate.

Dev Kits-

this is a set of software development tools that allows the creation of applications for a specific software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system or video games console.


Publishing-

Steam- this is a system which uses the community's help in picking new games to be released on Steam. The developers would post a certain amount of information, screenshots and videos of their games and try and find the community's support for the game in order to get selected for distribution. 

You can also post to the apple store if you have created a small game that is suitable for the app store, you need to make sure that you do not exceed the amount of memory the phone can store at once due to the large files of your games so it has to be a smallish file.

IP property and Copyright law-

The copyright law means that no other company or solo developer can steal your idea's, thjis also means that they are not permitted to use any of your content or idea's without your permission else they will face prosecution and can be sued.

Patent law is similar to the copyright law, but this applies to inventions and has the same implications in the fact that you can be taken to court and fined if you do not have permission to do so. The patent can actually be sold to another person which would mean you would not be able to use it.

a trademark is the main symbol your game or company would be recognisable by, for example all of the well known companies or games all have their own unique symbol you would recognise if you seen. A trademark allows your company or game to have its own unique logo or symbol showing that it is made or own by a specific group, if somebody or another company steal or use the logo without permission then legal action can be taken against them. Paying for a trademark can be costly and all depends on what application it would be used it but it will be costly never the less, but definitely worth doing so due to the fact that if you don't pay for it somebody may steal and pay for it so you cannot use it no longer.

Age Rating-

No matter what country you are living in there will be some sort of age rating for every form of video game and movie, but I'm just focusing on the gaming side of the ratings board rather than the film industry. Whatever game you buy from the shop in any country there will be a age rating somewhere on it which would indicate the how old you have to be in order to buy the game. In the UK the company that does all of the age ratings is known as Pegi, this is a very highly used system and actually helps a lot since younger children should not be allowed to be more graphic games. The ratings given by PEGI are 3, 7, 12, 16, 18, in the UK PEGI ratings over 12 are enforceable meaning that they can refuse to supply people under the age rating for the game.

Promotional Websites-

Promotional websites is a very good way to get your game to a wider and bigger audience due to the amount of people that are currently using social media and the internet as a whole. So the best way to advertise your game would be to advertise it on some bigger mainstream websites or create your own and let people know all about your game and what it entails. A really good and cheap way to create your own website is by creating it on godaddy.com which would cost around £2.99 each month. You would also have to pay for a URL which is roughly around £10 each year so super cheap really, you just have to make sure that it does not infringe on any copyright laws since there are millions of other websites out there.

Assignment 2

• Call of Duty: Modern warfare

Call of Duty Modern Warfare was one of the most successful games in the call of duty franchise, and is highly praised within the console gaming community. When the game first came out it was predicted to be the best selling game within that year, and had an average rating of 9/10 off of every major critic. In 2007 when the game first came out the main console it was being played on was Xbox 360 where it sold around 1.57 million units, currently the xbox 360 version of this game is ranked third in sold units from the year 2007 being beaten by halo 3.

To get this amount of success on a relatively new game, as it wasn't as big back then as it is now would have been hard due to the amount of research required in order to be successful. First of all they would of had to researched the previous games they had made and what they could do to improve upon them, as well as they would have talked to the public to see what they could improve also, as well as these two major things they would also look at there rivals and what they are doing which at the time would of been halo.

To conduct this type of research they could have used multiple methods but the most common would be through trailers and how well they do when put out into the audiences eye. When releasing a trailer you are giving the public a rough and short look into what your game is going to be, and it is too excite the customers and increase the amount of hype around the games release, judging on the amount of comments and views on a trailer would be a rough idea of how well your game will do when it is actually released. But as well as a trailer to help show you well your game can do they cannot always be relied upon, a lot of companies that are releasing a new game that have previous ones made would look at them and see how well they sold, and how they could market the game better and how they can just improve the overall game so that they get better results which is something this company would have done as we all know how big modern warfare was upon its original release. As well as the prior research techniques many companies would use, they would also choose multiple locations for their main target audience, so basically its the place where they will get the biggest reception and the main area's their game would be sold in. For a franchise like call of duty it could be considered that they release the game all over the world, which they do, but when they were just starting out and making games that weren't as popular as they are now, they would have had to pick a set location or locations to aim towards. The main two location they would have aimed their game towards would have been the whole of America as that is where the game is made and they would have had a good idea of what that region wants. The second major location they would have targeted is the UK, this is because they would have gotten a lot of sales from the UK alone if they are successful as well as this form of success would help them widen their audience.

• FIFA 07

FIFA 07 wasn't the first football game to ever be released and nor would it be the last, but I chose this because it came out around the similar time as the previous game I had chosen did. This game was rated an average 8.5 but has had its ratings go down in recent years. This instalment was predicted to be very successful and it was, winning numerous awards and being one of the highest selling games of that year in the UK. The game was being played on multiple platforms and had even been made for the next generation console at the time Xbox 360, this marked the end of its life cycle on the original Xbox and numerous other consoles.

At the time FIFA was already a huge success in the UK with some of its previous games doing extremely well and played all the time, this form of success allowed the creators to continuously keep producing the football game genre and later on expand to multiple other genres. FIFA was primarily successful in the UK and not as much so in America due to the fact that it is the main sport all over UK and the majority of Europe where as it isn't in America. In order to maintain this form of success they would have to do tons of research on what they could improve each year and how they could beat their rivals at the time PES.

The form of research they would have done could be done through multiple ways like always, but the most expected and one of the first form of research would be looking at the reviews of their previous games and see what the fans and critics think that they could improve upon. They would have looked at reviews from popular websites such as IGN, metacritic and numerous other online reviews, in doing so they would of been able to get a rough grasp at what their audience would like to see in the next instalment as well as seeing what they did correctly. As well as looking at the reviews at their old games they would have looked at some of the reception their competitors game got and see what they are doing differently to them and see if they could perhaps implement it into their game or improve upon it as their is only so much you can do in a sports game. In order for them to get a rough idea of how well their competitors game done they would have looked at reviews online, reveal trailers and the overall reception the public gave the game. Since EA had made a game previously they could just look back and improve upon that game but if they hadn't and they was creating a complete new game with no history the research technique would have been completely different as could have changed the way they made the game. After they have looked at old reviews and scouted their competitors game, they would most likely implement some of the newer things they had learned from their research and actually put together a small trailer for the public since this is considered one of the better ways in order to get feedback. Once they have done all of the major things leading up to the games release they would most definitely have a target audience and it would be really specific to the location as releasing in America in large amounts probably wouldn't be as successful as it is now, instead they would have looked at the countries that football is the main sport and prioritised those countries, so pretty much the entire of Europe. They would have targeted these location primarily because that's where the majority of sales would come from however they would still sell the game in other countries such as America due to the wide variety of people that would still purchase the game.

• Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare

Call of duty Infinite Warfare is the most recent instalment of the franchise and was released in late 2016. This game was made by the same developers of Modern Warfare however is nowhere close to what that game was like due to new movement systems etc. The more recent Call Of duty games have been receiving a lot hateful comments towards them as they are all futuristic and all tech suits, which fans do not like anymore it seems. However the game still received a pretty solid 7.7 rating on average which isn't the worst score ever. Considering they would have started development on this game almost three years ago when everybody wanted futuristic and new movement features there was very little they could do when the community started complaining that they wanted the original boots on the ground movement system, they couldn't change it at that point so in hindsight it really isn't that bad considering. Even though the community had very little optimism for the game it still was quite a success as the campaign was voted very highly, and the game got nominated for a few awards so it wasn't all that bad.

At this point the call of duty franchise has already cemented its place into the hearts of a lot of dedicated fans that would buy the game no matter what people say about it or how bad it appears to be, they also have a lot of people that buy it just because its a fun game to play and you can always play it with friends as it seems even though every year its supposed to be a "bad year" millions of people still purchase the game. The past three years have been pretty rough for the community gaming wise and not very many people liked the new movement and future aspects of the game even though some loved it. With call of duty you can never really count them out as even though tons of people say they wont buy the game, they still do no matter what, its purely just for the enjoyment of being able to play with friends for a couple of hours with no hassle. However since the first major call of duty game there has been some new rivals that have arose, such as battlefield which is made by EA. battlefield is a more open and realistic game compared to call of duty as of recent times anyway, as they focus on World war era and just mayhem. Currently a lot of the fans have converted of to this franchise but may convert back to call of duty next year once they start releasing boots on the ground games.

To start of on a completely new game with new movement systems you would have to look at other games like this that are sci-fi games, with advanced movement systems and how well they have done. Since they haven't made any games like this when they started creating this game they would of looked at games such as Halo and of they have made that game so successful with the futuristic elements in that, as well as Destiny which is another futuristic game and how they have been able to do so well. They would of had to look at a few different games to what they are used to. However once Advanced Warfare would of been released which was the first advanced movement game released by the call of duty team, they would have looked at what they have done within there game, including the maps and how they could incorporate that form of movement system into the call of duty maps and game modes, the guns they used because you wouldn't expect a WW2 weapon to still be being used in the future. After they have looked at these sort of games they would try and incorporate some of it into their own game and how they can be successful. After they had looked at what the game looks like, contains and is actually received by the public they would look at a lot of the reviews, now in the modern day you can release trailers everywhere with the social media aspect, as well as online reviews you can look at them as their are lots of those around too, so they would have spent quite a while looking through all of these different things and trying to find out what the public would like and dislike about these games I have mentioned, once they have found out a rough idea of what the public would like to see they would try and put it into their game too keep everyone happy and even try and get more people from different games to come and buy this one. Once they are quite a way through the developing process and about 5-6 months before the games released, they would have composed a small teaser trailer of what you can expect from the game and see how the public reacts to this. Unfortunately the public reacted very badly to the trailer of this game and it is actually one of the most disliked video's on the YouTube website, so they had to try and figure a way to make the public change their mind somehow, so they released a beta of the game for everyone to play and give feedback which actually helped a lot as many people actually liked it once they had played it which was a huge relief for the company making the game. These forms of research where very decisive in the initial sales process because without the beta the game could have done much worse than it actually did.

• FIFA 17

FIFA 17 is the latest instalment of the FIFA franchise, and has changed majorly over the 10 year span of which FIFA 07 was released in. The game was made by the same developers that made the game back then which is EA, but was actually helped with the graphical side of the game by using the frostbite engine which is actually used to create battlefield too which is highly praised on the graphics of the game. Even though it has been 10 years since FIFA 07 there hasn't been huge changes within the game except for a couple of extra modes, graphical effects and a couple of extra small details within the game. In fact the critics rate the game the exact same as FIFA 07 with an 8.5 average score so it is very consistent with its ratings, and has actually improved its marketing techniques very well due to the fact it is always one of the top selling games in the UK for a very long time now, sharing the position with Call of Duty. However the competitors haven't changed they are still PES, but currently FIFA have been able to get a huge lead on them due to some details within the game.

FIFA is still one of the most played games in Europe and tons of people love the game, devoted even in the sense they never get bored and can play just that one game until the new one is released. This is mainly due to the excellence of research EA do when a game is released. EA had already made FIFA one of the biggest games in Europe which is huge on its own, but they actually got the game pretty big in loads of different countries too since FIFA 07 including America which is a huge contributor to the games success. The game cant change that much due to the limited things you can do with a sports game, but despite that EA still manage to sell millions of copies each year worldwide, due to its great addition of new modes which is actually due to them listening to the fans in a way.

FIFA, realistically doesn't change all that much, the main thing is that they do is the research area of all of their games, and honestly they excel at it due to the amount of good feedback they get from each of their games. Now FIFA is a game pretty much everyone has each year, they can do a ton more research rather than what they could do 10 years ago, the first form of research would be how well their previous game did and what their fans thought of it. They would also look at what PES did and if they did anything that could be implemented into their own game, after they have done this first bit of research they would more than likely brainstorm some idea's of new modes they may add in and whether the fan base would like them or not, this year personally I think EA did a very good job listening to what the fans wanted due to the added ultimate team features and a new mode called the journey which was highly praised by fans and critics. But when they have actually implemented these added features or modes they would compile a small trailer that's a quick synopsis of what the mode is about and what it contains within. The trailer for their new mode the "journey" was very well received by the public and when the demo was released shortly after the fans loved it even more as they could make their own story about a teenage braking into the first team and could see first hand what being a professional footballer was like. After they had released both the trailer and demo they would have a look at more reviews about both and see how the public felt on them and if they could improve upon them at all. Which they did and added a couple of things only small things though. After they had done this they would finalise it and pick some specific countries as there targets again as they would do each year but instead of picking countries they knew would do good regardless, they aimed smaller countries with the new leagues added in, and new languages which is a very good thing too do within the game.

• Conclusion

I did these four games so that I could assess how much the developers and creators had changed over the years and just to see how two different companies actually do their own research and whether or not they take in what the fans say. As you can see from what I have wrote, the call of duty team tries to listen to the fans but due to the three year company cycle deal they have it is very hard to do so as you cant change a game that's been in development over two years, where as EA and FIFA do it perfectly meeting everyone's wishes and improving a game that has very little improvements to be made.

Contracts Of Employment

• Contracts

A contract is a legally binding agreement between an employer and the employee, in a games design job you can be expected to work at least 35 hours per week. When you are sick you can still get paid but if it is not in your contract then you will not.

Within the contract you might be able to negotiate some terms depending on which job you are at and which terms you want to negotiate upon, upon reading the contract provided you can find how much you will get paid, how many hours you are expected to work each week or day, as well as you will find how many breaks and holiday you are allowed each year. Judging on which religion you are you may be allowed certain other holidays specific to your religion for example if you are Jewish you would be allowed to have Hanukkah off which does not apply to people that are not Jewish. Usually within a job you would get a maximum holiday of 28 days, this could be small holiday throughout the year with advanced notice, If you are a female and get pregnant you will be allowed to leave work at a certain point of your pregnancy and then come back after so many weeks which you would still get paid for regardless. Regardless what job you are working in you would be allowed something called compassionate leave. You would only be allowed this type of leave if the person that is sick is a dependant which is someone that you care for, for example your spouse, child or parents, as well as this there is no allocated time for how long you can actually spend caring for them and is entirely dependent on how much your employer wants to allocate you, but within this break you can be unpaid. Within the games industry your boss can actually force you to work overtime which is rarely done but they can if they feel the need to regardless of other things you may have planned on that day. Within a contract there is usually a clause that does not allow you to make separate games during your own spare time, but this may not apply to everyone and you would definitely have to check your contract regarding that.

• Employment Contracts

Within the employment contracts there will be numerous details that are inside, this can be different for each job you are working within but I will only be talking about the gaming industry. First of all the main thing within the contract most people concentrate on is the amount you will get paid each week or month depending on how the company wants to pay it to you. You will also get a variety of other bonuses such as a health insurance. Whilst working for any company there will be a part of the contract that is specifically for health insurance and what you will get once you are working for them, and if you get injured whilst at work what you will be expected from the company. You will also get retirement bonuses which are what you get from the company once you retire, this will include a payment package throughout your entire time of working with the company and the total sum will raise depending on how long you have worked there.

Within the contract there will also most likely be a confidentiality clause so that you cannot discuss the game or anything you are working on whilst at the company, if you do violate these terms and get discovered about it you will get fired from the job and most likely sued by the company for violating there terms.

• License Agreements

License agreements only really are applied when a developer wants to create a game based on a film, TV series or even a book. Within this license the developer would need to get several things such as the main story line, main characters and the title of the movie so that they can use it for there game. If the developers and designers use something that is not specified within the contract the deal can be cancelled or the company making the game can even be sued. 

Another thing discussed within the contract is how much the rights will cost a company to purchase them for.  More often than not there will be a payment given first to guarantee that they are serious about making the game, as well as if the game does well there will most likely be royalties which means that they will be getting more money depending on how much they both agreed upon.

• NDAs and Confidentiality agreements

NDAs are non disclosure agreements and a lot of gaming companies use this form of contract, this only applies when you have a huge secret that you do not want anyone else knowing other than the people that are working on the project within your company and they would all have to sign these confidentiality agreements so that if they do disclose information they will be prosecuted. In order for this contract to actually be started a secret within the company has to be told to the employees else there is no point in enforcing it. The employees working on the project or even if they are not yet know about the project would have to sign a confidentially agreement so that they are not allowed to talk about the project without any punishment. If they do agree upon the contract then they cannot talk to anyone outside of work about the project else you can be sued and fired from your job. In some cases when people breach the agreements they have to pay a large sum of money in order to compensate for the damage they have done to the business with releasing disclosed information without authorisation.

• Collaboration Agreements

Recently a lot of people and small companies are building indie or hobby games. It is extremely pivotal that they come to some sort of agreement in compensation and ownership of the games creation due to the amount of risks of creating a game that is not currently considered mainstream. The majority of indie and hobby games tend to fail in someway due to the ownership and how much they can expose the game to try and get it to be a success but if it does fail they need to make sure they know who is going to get what. Using a collaboration agreement it sets in motion how the entire project is controlled throughout the creation process and the games life cycle if it is made. It also states clearly who owns the IP, how the game is intended to be used within development and how its going to be released as well as how any possible income is going to be handled within the owners of the project. This agreement would also include how the termination process would happen if the owner wanted to do so. 

https://www.gov.uk/employment-contracts-and-conditions/overview
http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/licensing-agreements.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement

Game brief

The Darkest of days

The survey to my brief is here if you would like to answer- https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/5BJHR3J

• Storyline

The main storyline behind this game is that there has been an apocalypse of sorts where it has created zombie type characters, as well as several blood thirsty animals such as dogs, foxes and wolves. You will be able to create your own character and design him how you want and as you go through the game you will be set small tasks that show you what you are supposed to do and how you should do it, like skyrim in a way when you learn how to make a weapon and armor for the first time you have a task from the blacksmith you meet. But unlike skyrim the game will be entirely up to you and without a script but with very minor missions that you can complete in order to get extra items but if you do not it will not effect the game at all. Your first real objective when you start the game is to get resources so that you can build yourself some clothes in order to survive because the weather is always changing and can give you huge effects that will effect your stats such as stamina, hunger and health. You will play with the character you made and try to stop the apocolypse from happening(doesnt work) which then turns pretty much everyone into these zombie type characters and you are just trying to survive whilst helping people you meet throughout the world that will give you side missions to complete. But overall the main storyline is to survive on this planet that has been infected with a disease that is ripping the planet apart and due to all of the power going out and buildings collapsing there are very few safe places which means you would have to build a base overtime and try make it secure because at night time hords of zombies will come out all over the map, you would also have to level up your character which would give you points to unlock new items that you can make with certain resources that you get around the map as well as giving you a single point to increase one of your stats that help you survive within the game.

• Gameplay

As you rank up and unlock new items that you can make you will have to get certain items will be required in order to make these items. For example to build the different stages of armour you will need to get these items that are harder to get and find, the first piece of armour you can get only needs simple materials such as fiber and thatch to build which is very easy to find.

• Game description

The game will be in a third person perspective but with the capability of being changed to first person if you would prefer a different angle within the game as it may favour some scenarios that pop up in the game. It will also be an open world game that has the capability of playing online on a server full of players with the max being 100 players in one server, if you didn't want to play online however there is still a solo mode where you can choose the map you want to play on and then play by yourself.

• Goals within the game

As you level up you will be able to unlock new items that are exclusive until you reach that level, this is a goal that will be accomplished no matter what you do because you can get XP from several different objectives. But the main objective throughout the entire game is to just purely survive and build a base where you feel safe, the game doesn't have a set end as there are tons of things to do and countless bosses you can beat in caves, and lost mountains throughout the map. Another small objective which could be classed as a main objective is to find other survivors that are friendly and team up with them and try build a tribe and base with them.

• Controls

Since the game can be played on both consoles and PC's there are a lot of controls that need to be implemented within the game. obviously on pc to move around you would use the normal movement which is w,a,s,d(forwards,backwards,left,right) and in each direction the letters correspond, you would also look around with the mouse and click with the mouse to hit things. To pick things up off of the floor it is E, to interact with various people or functions it would be f, to access inventory would be the tab button, to sprint you would hold down the shift button and to crouch and become quieter when sneaking it would be ctrl and z is to go prone, when playing on a multiplayer server and to enter the chat it would be t. When playing on console there arent as much variation in the button system, but still can be quite complicated. First to move around would be using the left analog stick in the direction you want to move and whilst doing so if you want to look around you would move the right analog stick in the direction you want to look or turn. To pick things up around the map you would use the L2 or LB button depending on which console you are playing, to interact with people and things around the map you would hold the triangle button or Y. to sprint in the game you would press down the left analog stick and press it again to stop. to access the inventory you would press the triangle button or Y instead of holding. to crouch on the game just simply press the circle button or B, or to go prone you would hold it down, also to jump within the game would be using the x or A button. to enter online chat if you are playing the online aspect of the game it would be the touchpad and L1 or the options button and LT. To shoot with you weapon it would be R1 or RT and to aim it it would be L1 or LT.

• Dlc and in game currency

Throughout the life cycle of the game(presumed to be 2-3years) there will be an extensive amount of dlc throughout the time, new additions would consist of new types of zombies, new objectives, festive updates and new animals within the game. But there will also be new maps every four to five months depending on the amount of updates required throughout each 5 month span, the new maps will contain new islands that you can explore, new bosses and new waves of zombies and animals. Also in games currency will be a form of coins that you can spend on armour upgrades, weapon upgrades and new items that are exclusive and you can only get them using these coins that you can find in raids, and caves throughout the map.

Assignment 2- james

Understanding the games industry- financial issues

Introduction

during this blog i will be talking about several financial issues of the games industry, and how a game destined for great success can actually end up to be a huge failure and what they could have done better to ensure that there game would not be a huge flop. As well as talking about this i shall be talking about games that have done really well and how they have done it.

Last year the games industry in the UK alone really took off as well as worldwide with things such as Esports getting a lot bigger and a lot more revenue coming in from the gaming industry alone. Statistics show that over the past three years the revenue from games being sold in the UK alone has increased slowly with each passing year. In 2015 alone the statistics show that the revenue from the game industry was reported to be worth around 4.2bn which was an increase of a total of 7.4% from the previous year that reported it was worth around 3.94bn. Currently the UK is rated as the 6th largest video market in the world in terms of revenue and sales, with other huge countries taking higher placings such as china and america being at the top of the list. Overall being 6th on the list for UK is actually quite an achievement as games arent judged to be as big here as other countries like america so it shows how much an impact the UK have on the games market in terms of sales.

Costs when making a game

Despite many people thinking that games are relatively easy and not that expensive to make it actually is with all of the behind the scene things that have to take place for every interaction to take place, such as the campaign within the game alone would cost quite a fair bit of money depending on what sort of voice actors you have and the sort of graphics you want to go for.
A list of all of the costs included when making a game-

• Production and development costs

first of all their would be all of the developers salaries that are included for them being part of creating the game, and they are obviously not going to work for free so you have to make sure you account for them when deciding how much of a budget you have when creating a game. Then there would be the voice acting as i previously mentioned which would cost more money else the story will not make sense, as well as if it is a multiplayer game there are usually smaller and small call outs or catchphrases throughout the maps or levels. As well as those two huge costs alone, you would also have to hire or pay for a soundtrack for your game which would  cost a lot especially to get all of the rights to use that song if you do use an already made song, if not you would have to hire a band or a singer in order to record a soundtrack for your game which would actually cost a lot of money. As i briefly touched on there you would also need licensing for everything that you use which would cost a fair amount but not as much as getting sued if you use copyrighted music and images.

• Marketing and promotions

Within making the game you would have too advertise your game extremely well in order to hype it up and get a lot more exposure for it, this can actually cost quite a fair amount. The main and most popular advertisement would be the television advertisements which is where you make an ad as good as you can expressing all of the good features in your game to try and lure people in, but this is actually very expensive because you would have to pay for what channel you want to be advertised on and what time frame you want to be in. Also there is print advertisements which has things like posters within it and you can do these pretty simply and it would not cost a lot you would just have to hire an artist to create you the best poster possible and pay for it to be placed within popular stores to get the maximum exposure possible. As well as there is online advertisements which are small trailers or a small picture on the side of the website or on a web page such as facebook, you can choose the website that you want your game to feature on and depending on how popular the website is and how long you want the advertisement to feature on there for, this would also make the price of the advertisement vary because a high calibre website like youtube would cost a fair amount to have an advertisement feature where as if it was a smaller website that doesn't get as many views and isn't as popular it would cost considerably less. Finally there would be events and launch parties in order to boost the games publicity and try get more more fans to come and see the game as it is developing over time. These events could be things such as E3 or gamescom where tons of gamers and developers go to see games as well as try get there own more out into the public eye. In order to get into the bigger types of events you would want a ton of gameplay or at least a small snippet for people to play and get a taster at the event, you could also have a video playing in the background which would show people walking by you game. there are also smaller events that would not require as much preparation but either way it will most likely cost quite a fair bit in order to get all of the posters, videos and everything working smoothly as well as transportation costs.

• Manufacturing and distribution

First of all regardless of what type of game you are making you will have a good idea of what type of product you will be sending it too such as console or arcade, both of these will cost quite a lot in order to make due to the excess amount you would need to make. In order to make a arcade machine game it would still cost you quite a lot of money even though they aren't as popular as they used to be and would result in money loss unless it was a huge success. The arcade cartridges cost so much to develop because they must be able to programme it into there current machines or you would have to make a whole new arcade machine purely for that one game and if you do that multiple times for several arcades and they aren't hugely successful you will already be at a money loss. Also the price is around the same for a console game due to the amount of risk you are taking on it, the risk factor comes in due to the amount of games that are already out for every console available so theres no guarantee your game will be success unless it is being published by a big named company. The main amount of cost with this game would be the amount of discs you would order in advance of the games release judging on how many you are predicting to sell.

• How can a game in production be funded?

The first thing that comes to most peoples mind when they even think of creating a game is how it is going to be funded due to most people not having a lot of money to spend on developing and creating a game from scratch. You can still fund the game you are creating yourself though, I wouldn't recommend this if you didn't have a bunch of money due to the amount the overall cost would be and there is no guarantee you will ever see a penny back from however much you spend on the game, it still as benefits if you do decide to go with this though however because you would not have to convince anyone or rely on anyone else to fund your game as you are doing it yourself as well as all of the profit that you make from the game will go mainly to you due to you doing everything and not having any third parties helping you finance it along the way. You could also take out a bank loan which could be very expensive depending on if you can pay it back within the time frame as well as it not being completely reliable due the fact if they do not think that your idea is going to be successful enough for them to get there money back plus tax over time they will not give you a penny. But if you are able to get a bank loan they will give you substantial amount that will help you a lot with the creation of the game and will most likely be enough to carry you over for quite a while depending on how long the game takes to make and how much you are spending on staff and things I have previously talked about. You could also get an investor if your ideas are enough to convince them that you game is worth making and will actually make them a large profit on what they have already gave you, but like the bank loan you would have to convince them and they are more than likely only going to give you the amount you need in small doses due to the risk factor and if they feel that the game is not going anywhere they can pull all of the money straight away whenever they want which is very bad., As well as when the game if actually on the market they will take a large cut f the money due to them being a big investor. But the main advantage of this would be that they would be helping you get bigger as they would also want to be making a profit from the game and want it to do as good as possible. And they will try and get you into events and give you honest feedback and regular funding if you require it. As well as you can have numerous investors so you can get a ton of money overall if you need it but in turn it would be hard to convince them to invest in the first place. Then finally you have crowd funding which is where you create a page online such as on a website like gofundme or on kickstarter. Both of these websites get a ton of money donated to worthy causes if people actually want to see the end product, kickstarter is the main one for games because I believe the main game on there that got the most funding purely from the public was star citizen with 23million dollars in total, but this is also risky because you cannot always rely on the public helping you and you never know if they will, but it would be very rewarding if they did because like I said prior you game get a huge amount of donations which would also kick up your popularity rating overall.

• The problem with being a small developer or creating a small indie game

The main problems when creating game when your a small developer would be the fact that it is very hard for you to get your game out into the public and make it extremely popular, this is mainly because there are tons of titles that are out for every gaming system and pretty much every genre has been covered by big named company's that have already made a name for themselves. Another problem within these two categories is that you wouldnt not already have an established audience supporting your game as well as it would be a lot harder for you to get a loan of the bank due to you having pretty much nothing other than an idea which would not always be enough in order to win them over.

• Conclusion

In conclusion i think there a lot of things to take in consideration when you are thinking about creating a game, and make sure that you are financially stable throughout the entire process of making it. Also there is a ton of risk involved in making a game too due to the fact that anything could go wrong, and there is no guarantee that your game is going to be a huge success with people. Overall i personally wont be creating a game anytime soon due to the amount of money required to even make a start as well as all of the costs within the production of it, also it is far too risky to partake in right now as i am not in a position where i can guarantee that i could create a game and still have money left over to live on within the process.

Electronic Arts inc.

Electronic Arts

What type of company are they?

Electronic arts are both a publisher and a developer because they help develop a lot of games or create them completely such as more recent games like FIFA, NBA and madden. They also have many partnerships with a lot of different producer company's and help them publish their games or get them to help them develop and improve current games. Such as companies like Dice have partnered with EA because they help create a lot of hype around a new release of the game such as battlefield 1 due to how big of a company EA is.

The history of EA

EA is an american video game company that is situated in Redwood city, California and was first founded on may 28, 1982 by a man called Trip Hawkins. The company was a pioneer of the early computer games industry and was notable for promoting and developing many of the designers and programmers behind the games. The company began developing in house games and first supported by consoles in the early 1990's. EA later then grew through purchases of multiple successful developers. By the early 2000's,EA decided to move towards direct distribution on digital games and services with the acquisition of a very popular gaming website called pogo.com in 2001. EA had grown to become one of the worlds leading third-party publishers. On may 4th, 2011 EA had reported a $3.8 billion in revenues for the year ending march, and then in the following year on January 13th the company had exceeded $1 billion in digital sales. And then in 2011 EA launched Origin. An online service to sell downloadable games directly to users, there is also a "on the house feature" that allows you to download full versions of some EA games for free. This site is also used for multiple big titles games for the function to play online and interact with friends, such as FIFA with the online aspect and battlefield with the battle-log feature. After sega had published the successful title of ESPN NFL 2K5 had grabbed all the attention away from EA's dominant madden games in the early 2004, EA decided to make multiple large sports licensing deals that included an exclusive one with the NFL. EA's success is due to it being one of the first companies to release sports games such as Madden, FIFA, NFL, NBA live and tiger woods.

What games have they produced?

The big games EA have produced would definitely be the sports genre games. The first one would be Madden because this was the first major sports game released and was an instant hit. At the time this was the biggest sport game around. They then published and created a lot of different sport games such as FIFA. FIFA is still a huge hit today and remains as the biggest selling football game outselling its rival pes with the most recent game by 40 times more. They also released NBA which has no rival and sells extremely successful every year due to the amount of people that love NBA and cant play it anywhere else really.

What are they like to work for?

A couple of reviews from previous workers i found online:

The deal is: employees also get a lot out of working for EA. I did, at least. There are lots of very talented people at EA, and (usually) opportunity to ‘craft’ your own career. Working on blockbuster titles, for the latest consoles, is fun stuff. Hardcore engineers (like me) love having access to the equipment – and the opportunity to make significant contributions to a high-profile product. 

EA has the coolest and some of the smartest bunch of employees I've seen at any Silicon Valley/Bay Area company. This is also true for employees at other offices (but I can't speak to how they compare locally). If you're an outgoing, young person, you'll make a lot of great friends that are smart, fun, and hard working. You won't make much money, but that's ok.

How is the company perceived?

EA are perceived very badly because for numerous years in a row they got nominated the worst company in america by Forbes. The review from the actual article is linked here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/04/09/ea-voted-worst-company-in-america-again/#724400d816d2

Who works at the company and whats their role?


Andrew Wilson- CEO
Ken Barker- SVP, Chief accounting officer
Chris Bruzzo- Chief marketing officer
Blake J Jorgensen- CFO
Joel Linzner- Executive vice president
Laura Miele- Executive vice president
Peter Moore- Chief competition officer
Ken Moss- CFO
Samantha Ryan- SVP, Ea mobile, maxis
Jacob Schatz- SVP, General Counsel, Corporate secretary
Patrick Soderlund- Executive Vice president,
Gabrielle Toledano- Executive vice president, Chief talent officer