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All media objects, software, graphics, fonts, data, graphs,
tables, quotes and text are the copyright of their
original owners and are acknowledged whether the author
or artist is known or unknown.
Trademarks are also fully acknowledged.
Thanks to Professor Ian Marshall of the School
of MIS both for the talk, and for supplying your secretary
with a copy of his slides (from which the life-cycle diagram
has been borrowed).
So, when were the first computer games developed?
Around 1952 games started to appear on the hardware available at
the time.
In 1949-50 Alan Turing considered the use of computers to solve
gaming problems although he never coded any solutions on a computer.
Therefore, computer games are not the recent innovation people
believe!
The game development industry is known variously as:
- Computer games
- Video games
- Interactive digital entertainment
- Interactive software
- Console games
- Leisure software
- Entertainment software
It is NOT known as Multi-media, that just means using packages to present information.
It is only recently that the government considered the computer
gaming industry to be an industry in its own right. It has grown
to be a huge testing ground for bits of Computer Science.
The figures
below demonstrate that it has grown to be a huge market:
- $16-24 billion retail sales
- $28 average retail price
- $1-$84 retail price range
- 571-857 million units sold
- 9.4% since 1996
- 8.7% in 2002
- 10% estimated in 2003
- 25% estimated to 2005
Top 3 Global Markets
- USA: £4.5 Billion
- Japan: £2.4 Billion
- UK: £1.1 Billion
Market Size Comparisons
Based on 2002 figures:
| Product |
Retail UK Sales
(£ billion) |
Annual Growth
(1997-2002) |
| Games |
2.074 |
19% |
| Cinema |
0.755 |
6.4% |
| Music |
1.2 |
3% |
DVD/VHS Rental
& Sales |
2.25 |
27.8% |
| |
PC-CD Game |
Console Game |
| Role |
Cost £ |
% |
Cost £ |
% |
| Developer |
3 |
9 |
3 |
8 |
| Publisher |
15 |
47 |
15 |
38 |
| Wholesaler |
5 |
16 |
5 |
13 |
| Retailer |
3 |
9 |
3 |
8 |
| Manufacturer |
1 |
3 |
8 |
21 |
| Distribution |
5 |
16 |
5 |
13 |
| Total |
32 |
100 |
39 |
100 |
Typical Platforms
- Personal computers
- Consoles
- Sony Playstation II
- Microsoft X-Box
- Nintendo GameCube
- Sony PSOne
- Handheld Devices
- Nintendo Gameboy Advanced
- Mobile phones and 3G phones
- PDA
- Internet
- Interactive digital television
- Concept Phase
- Idea
- Concept Game
- Proposal
- Funding Approved
- Design Phase
- Detailed Design
- Technical Feasibility & Prototyping
- Development Schedule
- Game Design Approval
- Development Phase
- Alpha Release & Testing
- Beta Release & Testing
- Final (or Beta Gold) Release & Testing
- Publishing Phase
- Publishing Decision
- Exploitation
- Marketing & Public Relations
- Manufacturing & Distribution
| Member | How
many |
| Management | 1 |
| Game Design | 1 |
| Level Design | 4 |
| Production | 1 |
| Artists | 10 |
| Programmers | 10 |
| Audio | 1 |
| QA | 1 |
"Triple A" quality games
- Development
- Budget - $2-3+ million
- Period - 18 to 36 months
- Publishing
- Marketing budget - $1-2 million
- Target retail price - $50
"Single A" quality games
- Development
- Budget - $0.6-1+ million
- Period - 12 to 18 months
- Publishing
- Marketing budget - $0.2 million
- Target retail price - $50
"Budget" quality games
- Development
- Budget - $0.2-0.3+ million
- Period - 5 to 6 months
- Publishing
- Marketing budget - $40,000
- Target retail price - $20-30
Typical Payback
"Triple A" quality games
- 1,000,000 million units
- Retail Price $50 per unit
- Total Revenue $50,000,000
Share
- Developer 8% - $4 million
- Publisher 38% - $19 million
- Console licence 21% - $10.5 million
- 14-42 different genre, including:
- Adventure and Interactive Fiction
- Fighting
- God Games
- Platform
- Gambling
- Quizzes
- Table-Top Games
- Puzzle and Card
- Role Play
- Shooters
- Sports
- War and Real-time Strategy
- Artificial Life
- Abstract
- Different genre attract different players
- Not all games are violent
The problem was that a successful industry sprang up, taking lots
of graduates, mostly from the software development industry,
and many from microsystems industries, but no university was
producing grads for the games industry.
This flegling industry spang up thanks to David Jones, a
student on a BSc Microsystems course. He worked for
Timex at the time when they were producing the
Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum micro-computers.
Manufacturing rejects could be purchased cheaply and
repaired by enthusiasts, therefore a large caucas of
students in Scotland had access to these platforms to use them
and play on them.
David developed many games including Lemmings, which becamse so popular
that he left his degree course to form his own company
DMA. Although he never returned to university to complete his
degree, the University of Abertay awarded him an
honoury Masters Degree for his
services to industry.
The first games degree was offered in 1996 because there were, by then,
4 games companies in Scotland, but a shortage of suitable programmers. Many Software and Microsystems graduates were "snapped up" but the
shortage was recognised, and addressed by the University.
Therefore, with support from local games companies,
the University of Abertay launches:
- MSc Computer Games Technology
- BSc Computer Games Technology
- BSc Computer Arts
- BA Games Design & Production
Creating specialist graduates
- Games Technology
- PC, GBA, Console Programming
- Maths & Physics
- Games-related Computer Science
- Games Design & Production
- Sponsorship
- Sony – PS1 and PS2
- Nintendo – GBA and GameCube
- Others – Software + Time
- Currculum framework
- Critical Game Studies
- Games and Society
- Game Design
- Game Programming
- Visual Design
- Audio Design
- Interactive Storytelling
- Game Production
- Business of Gaming
N.B. GBA = GameBoy Advanced
There are approximately 100 new vacancies in the Games
Industry every year. These cover:
- Design and Development
- Programmers (£14k-£50k)
- Artists or Animators Artist (£14k-£40k)
- Musicians or Audio Artists (£10k-£25k)
- Producer or Director (£30k+)
- Game Designer (£30k+)
- Quality Assurance
- Play or Beta Tester (£0-£4 per hour)
- Quality Control Staff (£20k-£40k)
- Support
- Technical (£10k-£30k)
- Administration (£10k-£20k)
- Management
Getting a job in games development
You will need (and need to be) the following:
- Good degree
- Team player
- Good communication
- Specialist knowledge
- Game player
- Good portfolio
- Pushy
You will get Initial Training:
- 6 month contract
- Assigned to a mentor
- Placed in a team
- Some vendor specific training (perhaps)
- Find out yourself
- Depends on the course
- The best courses attract very bright students
- Excellent programmers are very creative
- 130+ courses on UCAS
- Accreditation
- May reduce the number of courses on UCAS
(130 courses means of the order of 3000 grads chasing 100 jobs
each year)
- Skillset/DTI/TIGA/ELSPA
- Working on a scheme
Further Information
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