Prototype and Test

Yoni Dayan

Reminder of the stakeholder and the problem he is facing

The stakeholder is an American soon-to-be graduate from a famous video game high school, passionate by the industry. He hopes to seize his dream job through an active search thanks to his degree. But no positive results thus far and he suffers from a clear inadequacy between what the he was waiting from the school, what the school provided (in terms of knowledge, mindset, internships and realizations) and the videogame market.

There is an issue in the “bridge” between this video game school (and many others are in a similar case) and the concrete job market/the industry. The school isn’t suited for the job market with its theoretical courses and lack of links with the real world.

The problem to which we will propose solutions is: How to make the transition “videogame school >>>> videogame industry” a success for soon-to-be or fresh graduates.

IDEAS SELECTED1) Accompany the students in the early stage of the creation of their own company

With the evolution of the videogame industry, featuring a lot of independent studios made of less than 10 employees, the exponential growth of mobile gaming, and other parameters, NOW is the time to create its own studio. This idea is the most practical and the best, as it will encourage students (and former ones who are graduated since, we could say, less than two years) to gather their complementary skills and talent, to create their own company, publish their first game and make a living from their passion. The school will have to provide them an accompanying structure, an “accelerator for seed stage videogame studio”.

2) Partnerships with big publishers that are producing hundreds of titles per year, to subcontract to students and former students their less ambitious titles. We all know that in the videogame industry, there are a multitude of “filler games” that are primarily designed to make money, especially for mobile platforms. With this idea, instead of giving already trained and skilled employees these games to develop (which is decreasing their passion for the industry), they will be assigned to students (or former students who are unemployed) who, before even having their degree, could be proud of having already released a proper game. Considering the fact that videogames are an art as well as an industry where the emphasis is put on the realization, this idea is disruptive yet powerful.

Seed stage structure inside the

school

1 - Provide the room inside

the school for a dozen of game

start-up to begin working

Network the pool of talents

from the school (graduated recently or soon to be)

Provide the teams with

the equipment (computers,

software)

Weekly monitoring of

their first commercial

project by the school staff

Promote the concepts to publishers (through

internet, visits of the seed structure)

Facilitate the finding of backers,

investors, business angels

Support to the launch of the game through

traditional publishers or the school publishing

platform

Once the first game is

commercialized, help to set up a

business autonomous

from the school

Follow up from distance.

Successful teams become mentor of the next batch of

seed company

STEP 1 – IDEA 1 - Prototype of the accelerator, its structure and how it’s working, built within the game school (read clockwise from 1)

Visual concepts of the game company accelerator

Some of the different aspects of the seed stage structure, such as the granting of room, equipment, software, support from mentors, networking and promotion efforts through events and meeting with professionals and publishing. (photo sources: Intel Azure accelerator and GDC)

1 - Partnerships

with publishers with high

output (especially

mobile gaming)

Identification of the publishers’ needs (2D/3D

modeling, programming,

gamedesign, or whole games)

Matching their demand with

the appropriate school talents

through an efficient database

Provide work channel (in situ if the

studio is close, distant in the school if it’s

remote)

Monitoring from the

school staff of the first

student outsourced

work

Delivery of the

production

Capitalization phase: placement in

the company that outsourced the

students, or efficient promotion of their realizations through networking

OutsourcingProject (aka:

bring the industry work to the school)

STEP 1 – IDEA 2 - Prototype of the “outsourcing project”, its organization and functioning (clockwise read)

Visual concepts of the outsourcing project

Several stages of the outsourcing project, like local work in studio or distant work in the school (+mentoring from the staff), or work at home, leading to the commercialization of the student first game, a very useful realization for their entry in the job market.

STEP 2 – Testing the prototypes and feedback

Due to obvious logistical and practical reasons (the prototypes are implying noticeable changes in the videogame school structure), the test method here is firstly through submitting the previous abstract/paper prototypes as well as concept arts to the stakeholder. I have presented him both solutions, their structure (how they would be integrated within the school), their functioning (the different aspects of the support they will bring to the soon-to-be or fresh graduates). Secondly, we did a role playing game, where we assumed various roles involved in this problem statement, the graduates, the school staff, as well as the head of a game publisher, a producer and a human resource specialist, to try to picture how both prototypes would work in real conditions, how the different stakeholders would react to their implementation, how they will use them, what will probably pleases them or not. The resulting feedback is primarily derived from the stakeholder quotes, but some of the roleplaying is also included (for example in the questions).

What worked

- He was enthusiast by the entrepreneurial and pro-active skills he would gain through the accelerator built within the school.- Also pleased by the networking aspect of this prototype, and how his own friends and school acquaintances will become complementary colleagues.- He and the role played stakeholders liked that this idea shift graduates from job seeker to their own job creator (not passive but active approach)- He appreciated how this prototype fits with the current trend of the videogame industry, favoring small teams, “indie studio” of less than 10 employees.

What could be improved

- He would have wished more precisions on the transition between the commercialization of the first seed studio game, and their installation, autonomously from the school.

Question

- What will be relation between those seed studios and the school in terms of ownership, intellectual property and revenues?

Ideas

- The publishers could intervene directly in the first step of the accelerator program to literally order or back a project of one of the seed studio if the concept pleases both parties.

STEP 2 – PROTOTYPE 1 – Feedback of the stakeholder

What worked

- The “jump directly into the heat of the action” aspect of this prototype. Instead of doing theoretical and/or not enough ambitious and/or not sufficiently suited to the industry pet projects, the graduates will have their diploma AND a completed and commercially released game as a far more concrete and valuable realization.

What could be improved

- The stakeholder was afraid that this system may use the students as a cheap work force and abuse of their rights. This feedback will obviously push me to strengthen all the legal aspect of this prototype.

Question

- Will there be enough need from the studios for the thousands of students in gaming school?- How the payment works?- Like for the prototype 1, what about the rights of the graduated related to their outsourced work? (I answered that as they are contracted by the studios, the material is the property of the latter, but their name must be shown in the credits)

Ideas

- If the studio is too distant from the school and the graduates, in addition to the suggested distant work, representatives from the studios could visit the school- A special price (lower) and a sticker could be created for those products to push the consumers to support this burgeoning method.

STEP 2 – PROTOTYPE 2 – Feedback of the stakeholder