CO1301 Games Concepts Week 19 Employment: Industry

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CO1301 - Games ConceptsWeek 19Employment
Industry Culture

• Gareth Bellaby

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References

• Rabin, Introduction to Game Development, Chapter
  1.1

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Lecture Structure

• Games
• The games industry
• Culture

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Populous

• Populous, Bullfrog, 1989
• Populous II, Bullfrog, 1991
• Populous The Beginning, Bullfrog, 1998
• Peter Molyneux
• God game
• Isometric projection.
• Progressive levels.

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Black White

• Black White, Lionhead, 2001
• Black White 2, Lionhead,
• Peter Molyneux.
• The game incorporates machine learning. One of
  the few games to include machine learning.
  
• Uses learning trees. We'll look at this technique
  in later years.

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Doom 3

• id Software, 2005
• More a thematic remake of the original Doom than
  a sequel.
  
• Good use of tension and lighting.
• Parallax mapping.
• Shadows.

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Games you ought to play

• Play a representative of every one of the main
  commercial genres FPS, RTS, RPG, Platformer,
  TBS, etc.
  
• I've done a lecture on the history of games and
  this touched upon some important games.
  
• There are other games which are widely recognised
  within the industry and which an employer would
  expect you to be aware of.
  
• No need to play a game in full. Download the
  demo, 15-30 minutes play to at least have a basic
  knowledge of the gameplay.

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Games you ought to play

• Civilization.
• Starcraft. (A SF-themed sequel to Warcraft).
  Regarded as one of the best RTS's. In particular
  viewed as being the best balanced RTS.
  
• GTA San Andreas.
• The Sims.
• Final Fantasy VII
• Silent Hill (any of I, 2 and 3).

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Games you ought to know

• Fallout
• Zelda (Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess)
• Deus Ex (the original not the sequel)
• Halo
• Mario
• Sonic
• Tomb Raider

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• The games industry

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People you ought to know

• Ian Livingstone (Eidos)
• Peter Molyneux (Fable, Black White)
• John Carmack (lead programmer on Doom, Quake, id
  Software, authored several important graphics
  papers)
  
• Sid Meier, (Firaxis, Civilization)
• Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario, Donkey Kong, Legend of
  Zelda)
  
• Chris Crawford (founder of the Game Developer's
  Conference)

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People you ought to know

• Brian Reynolds (Alpha Centauri, Rise of Nations)
• Richard Garriott (Ultima series, Tabula Rasa)
• Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy)
• Warren Spector (System Shock, Deus Ex)
• Roberta Williams (King's Quest)
• Will Wright (SimCity, The Sims, Spore)
• John Romero (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake,
  Daikatana)
  
• David Braben (created "Elite" with Ian Bell, now
  head of Frontier)

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Manufacturers

• Nintendo
• Sony
• Microsoft

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Nintendo

• Nintendo, Japanese, 1889
• NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Game Boy
  (portable)
  
• Current Wii, Game Boy Advance
• Game Boy Advance still strong especially in the
  East
  
• Publishers
• Need to adhere to their requirements

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Sony

• Sony, Japanese, 1946 (name in 1958)
• PlayStation, PlayStation 2
• Current PlayStation 3, PSP (PlayStation
  Portable)
  
• PS2 games still being published
• PS1 is still supported
• Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE)
  (technical help, profiling, testing)
  
• Need to submit games
• Need to adhere to their requirements, e.g. max
  loading times
  
• Publishers
• Developers

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Microsoft

• Microsoft, American, 1975
• XBox
• Current XBox 360
• Software developers, Windows, Office, etc for the
  PC
  
• DirectX (used for PC and XBox). Work closely with
  video card manufacturers.
  
• Developers (Microsoft studios)
• Some hardware (XBox, some peripherals such as
  mice, NOT computers or components such as video
  cards)
  
• Need to adhere to their requirements for the
  XBox
  
• No control over the PC releases.
• XBox Live Arcade becoming increasingly more
  important.

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Publishers

• Eidos Interactive
• EA
• Paradox
• Capcom
• Koei
• Vivendi
• Take-Two Interactive
• Ubisoft

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UK employment

• If you obtain employment within the games
  industry it is almost certain that it will be in
  the UK.
  
• Employment in the non-English speaking world
  requires knowledge of the language and, possibly,
  a visa.
  
• US requires a visa and this is difficult to
  obtain especially for a graduate job.
  
• Therefore you need to know about UK games and the
  UK industry.

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UK Developers

• Over 200 UK Developers. This doesn't include
  developers of games for mobile phones,
  Interactive TV or Flash games.
  
• Some important names and product you need to be
  know.
  
• Companies change names frequently, e.g. Climax
  Racing now Black Rock Studio, acquired by Disney
  Interactive Studios (MotoGP)
  
• Almost all of the large internatational studios
  have UK offices as well.
  
• Microsoft and Sony a significant UK presence.
  Nintendo to a lesser degree but still important.

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UK Developers

• Blade Interactive (World Snooker Championship,
  Hydrophobia)
  
• Traveller's Tales (Lego Star Wars)
• Bizarre Creations (The Club, Project Gotham
  Racing)
  
• Kuju (6 studios in UK, Battalion Wars, Buzz,
  SingStar (latter now Zoe Mode))
  
• Evolution Studios (Motor Storm)
• Rare (Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Pinata)
• Team 17 (Worms)
• Blitz Games (Spongebob, Bratz the Movie)

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UK Developers

• Creative Assembly (Total War series)
• Lionhead Studios (Fable, Black White)
• Codemasters (Turning Point, Clive Barker's
  Jericho)
  
• Rockstar (Rockstar Leeds, Rockstar North in
  Glasgow)
  
• Climax Studios (Silent Hill Origins)
• Eutechnyx (Big Mutha Truckers)
• Relentless Software (Buzz! The Game)
• Real Time Worlds (Crackdown)

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UK Developers

• Activision (Call of Duty 4, studios all over the
  world)
  
• GameLoft (mobile games)
• Midway (Stranglehold, offices in Newcastle,
  London as well as US)
  
• Rebellion (Gun Showdown)
• Stormfront (The Lord of the Rings The Two
  Towers)
  
• Studio Liverpool (part of SCEE, Wipeout Pure)
• Revolution Software (Broken Sword)
• Frontier (Thrillville)

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World Developers

• The UK developers are the companies you need to
  set you sights on. However, you should know about
  the main non-UK companies as well.
  
• Konami (have a branch in the UK, PES2008, in
  Japan Resident Evil)
  
• Firaxis (Civilization)
• Blizzard (World of Warcraft)
• id Software (Doom)
• Valve (Half Life)
• Insomniac (Ratchet and Clank)

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World Developers

• Koei (Dynasty Warriors)
• Lucasarts (Star Wars)
• Namco Bandai (Warhammer Mark of Chaos)
• Naughty Dog (Drake's Fortune, Crash Bandicoot)
• Maxis (Spore)
• Ubisoft (primarily publishers, also developers,
  have a UK branch)
  
• Square Enix (Final Fantasy)
• Epic Games (Unreal)
• Tecmo (Project Zero)

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Graphics Cards Manufacturers

• NVidia
• ATI
• Companies work closely with games developers.
• Work closely with the developers of DirectX and
  OpenGL.
  
• Both companies employ graphics programmers.
• White papers.

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Industry news

• Gamasutra
• Game Industry biz
• http//www.gamesindustry.biz
• MVC
• Develop magazine
• The Edge

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Industry conferences

• Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and
  Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH). Presentations
  printed in the ACM Transactions on Graphics.
  
• Game Developers Conference (GDC)
• Develop conference. UK conference in Brighton.

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Industry organisations

• International Game Developers Association (IGDA)
• The Independent Games Developers Association
  (TIGA)
  
• Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers
  Association (ELSPA)

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• Culture

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Culture

• A gaming culture.
• Need to distinguish between games made as tie-ins
  and those where the culture informs that games.
  For instance, there is a difference between the
  film-of-the-book and and books that inform the
  gaming culture (even if the book then gets made
  into the film).
• Mainly Fantasy, SF and Horror.

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Comics and Films

• Comics
• Alan Moore, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell
• Frank Miller, Sin City
• Manga
• Films
• Blair Witch
• Evil Dead
• Bladerunner
• Studio Ghibli, Nausicaä (originally a serialized
  manga), Spirited Away.

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Books

• Horror
• H P Lovecraft, "Dreams in the Witchhouse", "Call
  of Cthulhu" (Quake, Call of Cthulhu, Alone in the
  Dark, 7th Guest and lots more)
  
• Clive Barker, Books of Blood (Undying, Jericho)

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Books

• Fantasy
• Tolkein, Lord of the Rings
• Michael Moorcock, Elric stories
• Jack Vance, Dying Earth series
• Warhammer novels, e.g. Dan Abnett

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Books

• SF
• Frank Herbert, Dune
• Mark Lanier, Dad's Nuke. Lanier wrote the story
  for Half Life
  
• Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric
  Sheep?. Filmed as Bladerunner. Cyberpunk.
  
• Charles Stross Halting State, contemporary SF
  novel dealing with computer games

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Games based on books

• Not a complete list
• SALKER. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Roadside
  Picnic. Filmed as Stalker by Tarkovsky.
  
• Terry Pratchet, 3 Discworld games
• Douglas Adams, Bureaucracy, Titanic
• Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish. Basis for The
  Witcher
  
• Sergei Lukyanenko, The Night Watch