Post on 12-May-2015
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INTRODUCTIONSession 1
David Mullich
Survey of the Videogame Industry
The Los Angeles Film School
Who Are You?
1. What is your name?
2. Where are you from?
3. What is your favorite movie?
4. What is your favorite game?
5. What is your career goal?
Who Am I?
My name: David Mullichdmullich@lafilm.edu@David_Mullich
From: Los Angeles Favorite Movie: 2001 A Space Odyssey Favorite Game: Civilization Career Goal: Prepare you for a career in
the game industry
Geek
Wannabe
Cal State Northridge
Computer Science
What Does A Programmer Do?
Computer Confusion
Interactive Fiction
Rainbow Computing
EduWare
EduWare
EduWare
EduWare
Designer
Programmer Programmer Programmer
What Does A Game Designer Do?
What Did I Learn?
You may love to play games, but a game developer loves making games. And that means you need skillz.
Bought Out And Crushed Down
Electric Transit
Distribution
Publisher
Distributor
Retailer
Over Production
What Did I Learn?
Game development is a calling, because success does not come easily. Most games don’t break even.
Disney Licensor(Creates intellectual properties)
Licensee(Uses others intellectual properties)
PublisherPublishing Company(Markets/Sells Games)
Development Studio(Creates Games)
Pitches and Greenlight
What Did I Learn?
Anyone can have a good game idea. You need to also be able to persuade, plan, and prove you can deliver.
Cyberdreams
Cyberdreams
Voice Over
Music
Artist
Designer
Developer
Licensor
Producer
What Did I Learn?
The game industry is full of people even more talented than you, but that's one of the benefits.
3DO
What Do Game Artists Do?
3DODirector
LeadDesigner
LeadProgrammer
LeadArtist
LeadAudio
Assistant Designer
Writer
Level Designers
Engine
Gameplay
Artificial Intelligence
User Interface
Audio
Multiplayer
Tools
Concept
Textures
Characters
Environments
Special Effects
User Interface
Cinematics
Sound Effects
Music
Voice-Over
What Do Audio Engineers Do?
What Did I Learn?
Game development is a team sport for geeks. You need to be able to communicate and work well in a team.
Activision
Activision
Operations
QualityAssurance
Marketing
Finance
Legal
Developer
Producer
What Does A Game Producer Do?
What Did I Learn?
Game development is a business. A big business. Bigger than the movie business.
Abandon Mobile
What Did I Learn?
Games can now be played anywhere, any time.
Spin Master
What Did I Learn?
Gamers are no longer just teenage boys. People of all ages and types now play games.
Jet Morgan
What Did I Learn?
You can learn just as much working on an advertgame for cats as working on the latest gazillion $$$ mega title.
Boy Scouts
Game development is no longer just for geeks. Everyone now wants to get in on the action.
What Did I Learn?
PROFESSIONALISM
Gamer
Professional Gamer
Team Newbee – ChinaTotal earnings: $1,005,661 each
Valve’s International Dota 2 Competition
Lee Jae DongSouth Korea
$519,086: Starcraft
Danil IshutinUkraine
$452,841: Dota
Johnathan WendelUnited States
$454,919: FPS games
Jang Min ChuSouth Korea
$453,926: Starcraft
Gaming Professional
John RomeroCo-Creator DOOM
Id Software
T.Q. JeffersonVice President, Game Production
Marvel Studios
Kathy VrabeckPresidentActivision
You may love to play games, but that doesn’t make you a developer.
I love to eat dinner, but that doesn’t make me a chef.
Do You Have Skillz?
Gamers are good at digital interfaces
Gaming professionals are good at both digital and human interfaces
How to Succeed in LAFS
Be your own Career Entrepreneur 3 Keys:
DevotionPersistenceRe-invention
This is a College Class
Studying game development at college is still college study.
Take Notes Study Read
Take Notes
Having one of these is a minimum requirement.
At all times.
Study
Review the Lecture Notes
Think Understand Reflect and
Connect
This means communication.
With grammar‐Nazis.
“...the different ways they done it like in the game play and the scenes ad the props”
...is not communicating and will incur their wrath.
Game development is a team sport for Geeks.
All Business is Communication
Publisher to Customer Developer to Publisher Boss to Team Team to Boss Team Member to Team Member
Good Communication
Precise
Clear
Brief
Written Communication
Informal Communication
Its cool to werk in gamez.u get too do anything u want & stuff
Formal Communication
It’s cool to work in games. You get to do anything you want and stuff.
Written Communication
Capitalize the beginning of sentences, names, game titles, and the word “I”
Use proper spelling and punctuation Put a space between punctuation mark
ending a sentence and the start of the next sentence
Don’t use “u” for “you”, or “&” for “and” Don’t confuse “its” and “it’s”
Attention to detial
It matters.
Assignments
If you can’t be bothered to: be creative strive for originality even within established
norms or constraints look beyond your initial idea actually enjoy and actively want to do the above
Then get used to the phrase
“Would you like fries with that?”
Assignments
Word counts are there for a reason.
Use them wisely and avoid: Padding Going off topic Repeating yourself Padding by stating the obvious in a way that takes quite a lot
of words but really isn’t saying anything new Repeating yourself but in a different way Padding, wadding, lining, extemporising, extraneous content
or going on any other kind of Synonym Safari TM
Assignments
“On Time” means 5 minutes early.
Unless the stakes are really high, in which case it means 24 hours early. Or a week early.
Pssst....Sometimes developers make false internal deadlines to avoid calamity such as missed milestone payments. Maybe you could do the same if graduation is at stake?
First Rule of Success: Show Up
DON’T BE TARDYBut if you know you will be late, EMAIL ME!
DON’T BE ABSENTBut if you know you will be gone, EMAIL ME!
Tests
Study for your tests! Refer to the slides. If you see on a slide, it will probably be on
the test. If you don’t know the answer to a test question,
guess!There are no points deducted for wrong answers on
multiple-choice questionsI will award some points for clever or knowledgeable
answers on short-answer questions, even if they weren’t the answer I was looking for.
“All I want to do is just pass this class”
Classes are not kidney stones.
If you think about them in these terms, maybe you’re on the wrong career path?
<<<Expand your horizons>>>
Just because it doesn’t have the word GAMES in it, doesn’t mean it’s not going to inspire, inform or be useful to you every day for the rest of your creative life.
This is especially true of non‐electronic information such as: Books Museums Art History
Impressions
Your colleagues and faculty will most likely be your doorway into the industry.
How do you want them to think of you?
Leave a professional and lasting impression. They’re your first referees, either on paper or via word of mouth.
The Golden Rule
WHAT IS THE VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY?
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games 1. Motion control makes gamers out of everyone
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games 2. The rise of digital distribution brings convenient ways to buy games
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games
3. Independent developers are feeling the love
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games 4. Online multiplayer is now a requirement
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games
5. Crowdfunding gives developers a way to bypass publisher control
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games 6. Mobile gives handhelds some serious competition
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games
7. The rise of free-to-play makes some developers rethink sales models
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games 8. Consoles became all-in-one media centers
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games 9. DLC and firmware updates add hours to our games and fixes for their bugs
Ten Current-Gen Innovations That Changed The Way We Play Games
10. Developers now interact with their fans
Technology-Led Transformation for 2015 Games As Service Mobile Gaming Big Data Security Streaming Social Connectivity Unified Game Engines
EA CTO Ken Moss, Gamespot
StjohnColon.com
Top Ten Video Game Facts
10
Parents are present when games are purchased or rented 91 percent of the
time.
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9
Eighty-eight percent of all games sold in 2010 were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or "E10+" for Everyone 10+.
www.esrb.org.
Top Ten Video Game Facts
StjohnColon.com
Top Ten Video Game Facts
8
Forty-four percent of gamers play games on their smartphone, and 33 percent play games on their
wireless device.
StjohnColon.com
7
In 2011, 29 percent of Americans over the age of 50 play video games, an
increase from nine percent in 1999.
Top Ten Video Game Facts
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6
Forty-eight percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly
greater portion of the game-playing population (36 percent) than boys age
18 or younger (17 percent).
Top Ten Video Game Facts
StjohnColon.com
5
The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 35 years old.
Top Ten Video Game Facts
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4
The average game player is 31 years old and has been playing games for 14
years.
Top Ten Video Game Facts
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3
Purchases of digital content accounted for 53 percent of game sales in 2013.
Top Ten Video Game Facts
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2
Consumers spent $21.53 billion on video games, hardware and accessories in
2013.
Top Ten Video Game Facts
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1
Fifty-nine percent of Americans play video games.
Top Ten Video Game Facts
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Global Games Market 2012-2016
Source: The NPD Group
Source: Newzoo, 2013 Global Games Market Report
StjohnColon.com
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
As of 2010, there were about 118,386 direct and indirect U.S. workers in the game industry.
The top 5 states employing workers in the game industry:
1. California (accounts for 41% of US game industry workers)2. Texas3. Washington4. New York5. Massachusetts
StjohnColon.com
Money, Money, Money
Average Salary (3 years or less experience): Programmers: $71,855 Producers: $59,079 Game Designers: $53,000 Artists and Animators: $50,000 Quality Assurance: $38,833
Rising costs of development: In 1990 it cost about $40,000 per game. In 2004 it cost about $10,000,000 per game. Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, cost about $266,000,000
to develop.
So You Want to Work in the Video Game Industry (7:41)
Take-Away
“I’m really good at ideas. That’s what I want to do in the team; be the guy who has the ideas.”
Join the queue. At the back.
Behind the guy who can draw; the girl who can code; and the ones who can write, plan, create, evaluate, debug, submit and deliver.
They’ve got ideas, too.
10 Misconceptions About Working In The Videogame Industry
1. We don’t just play games all day long.
2. We aren’t all programmers.
3. “My neighbor’s kid plays a lot of videogames. Can he get a job like yours?”
4. The Tech Support misconception.
5. It’s not just having ideas.
10 Misconceptions About Working In The Videogame Industry
6. Videogame music is still real music.
7. We aren’t gaming savants.
8. Testing takes skill.
9. We get that you don’t play games.
10. It’s a real job for grownups.
What Culture
IGDA 2014 Developer Satisfaction Survey
© 2014, International Game Developers Association
IGDA 2014 Developer Satisfaction Survey
© 2014, International Game Developers Association
IGDA 2014 Developer Satisfaction Survey
© 2014, International Game Developers Association
IGDA 2014 Developer Satisfaction Survey
© 2014, International Game Developers Association
IGDA 2014 Developer Satisfaction Survey
© 2014, International Game Developers Association
IGDA 2014 Developer Satisfaction Survey
© 2014, International Game Developers Association
IGDA 2014 Developer Satisfaction Survey
© 2014, International Game Developers Association
Remember, Video Game Development is a Calling
What Is A Video Game?
This is a Video Game (1:36)