The Game Industry
From
Breaking Into the Game Industry
By Ernest Adams
Fact #1
The game industry is not a technology business, but
an entertainment business with a technology
component.
New technology certainly helps build bigger and
better games, but if there were no advances in
technology for a while, The publishers would
continue to produce new products. That’s because
this is an entertainment business, and it’s driven
by creativity as well as technology.
Fact #2
The game business in the US and Europe
has a seasonal cycle based on Christmas.
Nearly 50 percent of the game industry’s
revenues come from pre-Christmas sales,
and this imposes a schedule on game
development for the rest of the year. Only
sports games ship at times that parallel the
sport that they are simulating.
Tracing a Game to it’s Source
Subcontractor
Subcontractor
Developer
Publisher
Distributor
Retailer
Customer
Customer
The Customer
The customer is someone that wants to nbuy
a video game (duh!) You’re probably one
yourself. Video games normally give about
20-40 hours’ worth of entertainment – some
many more than that – which means that the
cost of the entertainment is $1-2 an hour.
That’s a pretty good rate of return since you
can go on playing the video game for weeks
and your friends can play it too.
The Retailer
Most of the time, the customer buys the
game from a retailer, although it’s becoming
more common for people to order games
directly from the publisher. The retailer has
bought the video game from a publisher or
distributor for a wholesale price that’s about
half the manufacturer’s suggested retail
price, but the MSRP is always inflated.
Mail-Order
Mail-order venders offer the game at the
cheapest price because they have no
storefronts, only warehouses, and no
fcustomer service staff. Buying mail-order
is definitely the best deal for the consumers,
but only if they know exactly what they
want and don’t mind ewaiting three or four
days to get it.
Software Stores
A specialty shop that only sell video games,
or computer software in general, offers the
best service and the widest selection to the
customer. A lot of people in the game
industry started their careers working inn
such specialty shops. Selling video games
isn’t very glamorous, but it’s an excellent
way to learn a lot about games.
The Distributor
A distributor is a company that does not
either develop or publish games. That is,
they don’t build them, market them or
manufacture them, nor do tyhey directly
fund those activities. A distributor is a
company that sells games to retailers on
behalf of small publishers. A distributor also
provides warehouse space and shipping.
The Publisher
A Publisher is a company that funds the
development of new games and advertises
them to the public. The publisher is the
financial – though not necessarily the
creative – heart of the game industry.They
are the equivalent of a book publisher in the
book industry. They decide what games will
be funded for development. They also have
the final word on content: since the
publisher is paying for the game they get to
decide what’s in it.
The Developer
Development companies exist to do one
thing: design and build video games. In the
early days, the developer was just one
person, a programmer who did all the art &
music himself. Nowadays, most first-class
games require teams of 10 to 50 people, and
a development company is a full-scale
business with administrators and a personal
department.
Gamer Demographics
So who actually plays video games? It’s
difficult to tell for sure, because interactive
entertainment is such a big, sprawling
business. Games vary from kids playing
with battery-powered handhelds in the back
seat of a car to grandmothers playing bridge
over the internet in the retirement home.
Video Games Are For Kids
Children and teens still make up a large part of the
player base of video games: 34 percent of PC
gamers and 45 percent of console gamers are
under 18. However, this doesn’t mean that they’re
the ones actually purchasing the games. Only 4
percent of console game buyers are under 18, and
only 10 percent of PC game buyers. Parents are
very involved in determining what games kids
play.
Video Games Are for Boys
The stereotype persists that video games are
primarily a male preserve. In reality, 43
percent of American game players are
female, and their average age is 27. The
majority of game developers are still male,
and they tend to make games that they
themselves would like.
Casual vs Hardcore
Game publishers make serious effort to
reach and keep the hardcore market,
because they are extremely reliable
customers:They often buy one or two games
a month, or even more. There are far more
casual players – ordinary people that like to
play for a few hours a day or week, but
don’t let it consume their lives. The Sims is
the best-selling “game” (toy) of all time.
Game Genres
Just as television has it’s sitcoms, cop shows,
science fiction dramas and soap operas,
commercial video games have their genres too.
They appeal to different kinds of players – and
different kinds of developers too, for that matter.
Action
• First-person shooters – Quake, Half-Life, UnReal
Tournament
• Third person games – In these games you see your
•
avatar on the screen, usually from behind
Fighting games – Ono-on-one combat with swords,
fists and other hand weapons
• Dance simulations – This recent addition challenges
•
the players sense of rhythm.
Action-adventures – Here the plots are more complex
and the obstacles are puzzles of one kind or another
• Platform Games – Also called “side-scrollers,” these
are the classic action/arcade games from the early ‘90s
Strategy and War Games
These Real-time Strategy games (RTS)
introduced time pressure along with good
sound effects and attractive animation and
opened up this market to a new generation
of enthusiastic players. Strategy games tend
to require complicated user interfaces, and
for that reason they’re mostly found on the
PC
Sports Games
Sports games are the best-selling genre on
consoles, surpassing even action games.
The new genre of extreme sports games –
Tony Hawk and others – have strongly
boosted the popularity of this perennial
favorite. Game designers find this genre a
little less appealing because, after all, most
of the game is already designed.
Vehicle Simulators
Vehicle simulators are games about driving
or flying – cars, motorcycles, civilian and
military aircraft, tanks and science-fiction
vehicles all qualify in this category. Even a
game like Drakkan, which is about flying
around on a dragon, is essentially a vehicle
simulator. Some of them are first-person
and some are third-person, but most are
switchable between camera angles.
Construction and Management
Simulations
This genre includes:Sim City; the Caesar
series; Roller Coaster Tycoon, and all the
other games in which you build a world and
try to make it run efficiently.Like real-time
strategy games these tend to have
complicated user interfaces, and work best
on PCs rather than consoles. They’re more
popular with adults than children and more
popular with women than other kinds of
games.
Graphic Adventures
Adventure games are slow-paced games,
filled with puzzles, in which the player
follows a plot or storyline, often a fairly
intricate one. Lushly illustrated adventure
games (like Myst) give you time – and a
reason – to admire the scenery. They are
particularly popular with female players
who often enjoy the exploration and
puzzle-solving aspects.
Fantasy Role-Playing Games
Here the object is to take a group of weak
characters and through exploration and
(usually) combat, build them into strong
characters with powerful abilities. Like
construction and management simulations
they encourage the player to build and
customize something, but in this case it’s a
character rather than a city or theme park.
Online Role-Playing Games
Massively-multiplayer online role-playing
games (MMORPGs, also called persistent
worlds) have experienced phenomenal
success in the last few years… These games
offer an online world filled with other
players, a situation offering all kinds of
opportunities for social interaction – both
pleasant and otherwise – that single player
RPGs don’t have.
Children’s Games
Games for young children are of course,
easier, requiring less hand-eye coordination,
and often are shorter than games for
teenagers or adults……. They resemble
children’s books, with bright, simple
artwork, and tend to avoid violence or
morally-ambiguous situations. Children’s
games are full of things that make sounds
and animate when you click on them.