How the Gaming Industry is Changing and Advancing
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In the past for about 30 years people in the gaming industry use to hire offices then the setup studios to create games and employ workers to work in-house after which they assign publishers to fund and allocate the projects. Getting out of that setup will make one work alone or in a small team, therefore, operating in a completely detached stratosphere. For the time being, in the setting, the industry has been working seven-year cycles dictated by the lifetime of the major consoles. That appliance was of circumspect gears and it rusted and fell apart because of prolog and invention of new things.
The imminent of the broadband internet period has gradually permitted developers to hand out their games digitally instead of distributing them as boxed copies and with this; the charge of manufacturing and distribution has been reduced. When the Apple iPhone arrived it created a steady market place for the recently disorganized gaming sector of mobiles and new applications such as Unity, GameMaker and Twine were released and with them there is no need of having to know how to code to make games or developing graphic engines ( Giachetti & Marthi, 2010). Large companies began noticing and the console manufacturers opened online stores and courted indie developers to produce peculiar titles for example World of Goo and Braids in 2008 thereafter the arrival of steam opened the Pc games market.
As a result, the industry worked in a drastically different way than it was over the last ten years. Console makers have remained with one architecture for the lifespan of their current machine interfering with the form-factor or the HDD size or increasing new peripherals but not often tinkering with the processing capacity (Johnson, 2016). Sony and Microsoft are expected to broadcast mid-lifecycle upgrades to their machines . PlayStation 4 Neo has to add CPU and GPU power to tackle the virtual reality and the 4K screens while Xbox one is expected to evolve closer to the PC in order for it to run the Universal Windows applications that will bring together computer and console gamers.
Also, the structure of the game is changing radically with the rise of downloadable content and in-game microtransactions, that are intended to extend the lifespan of major new console releases ( Dean, 2016). There is a need to pay out for a season pass by players when they purchase the new title for example Fallout or Call of Duty because this will buy them all the subsequent map packs and content additions keeping engaged in the product. Because the model depends on consumers payments of $50 in advance for the original game and most of them cant afford the industry is toying with new models.
Individual may involve a release of a limited version of the game at a cheaper price point which will allow buyers to pay extra for the features requirement and downloading new levels. The latest Hitman and Street Fighter V use variations on this method and Microsoft has been experimenting with a free-to-play variation of its console hit Motorsports that is intended only for the PC market. Day by day, Triple A games are getting more expensive to produce and the audience for those experiences is not growing, therefore, they are becoming riskier. To reduce that strong risk one should have the audiences that will purchase the game like in the case of Hitman were they found customers and are keeping them by offering to them what they want to buy.
Education and Potential Earnings in the Game Industry
The UK higher education strongly supports the game industry with her universities and colleges providing undergraduates and master video game courses. Most of the courses are offered in London, West Midlands and Humber provided in top universities for example Staffordshire University, university of East London and Sheffield Hallam University. Some of the courses offered to revolve around game designing.
In game design, there are both masters and bachelors programs where knowledge in computer and video game are important skills to have not forgetting proper communication skills, writing, liberal arts that develop artistic strengths. This game design program often combines a computer programming curriculum with courses on narratives techniques, project management and design theory. These classes often involve the contribution from other students and are based on projects. There is no option to specialize in a certain game design topic for example storytelling but you can decide to explore serious video game design that refers to games designed to inform, educate and entertain.
Getting jobs in the gaming industry are often competitive and the one with higher gaming experience often earn the highest salaries (Richardson & Thomas, 2012). Game designers earn annual salary range of $36,023 to $95856. In many jobs, salaries are based on experience so does in video game programming were salaries are based on years of experience, areas of expertise and the rank of an employee. Those with more experience are paid more. Another factor that is considered in this industry is whether a given programmer has a skill that is termed as premium skill at that moment. For example for the last decade, graphic designers were paid more while these days server programmers are paid more. Coders who program game servers get more salary, therefore, it is necessary for those wishing to land in this career to observe the premium trends carefully.
A Typical Day in the Game Industry
Workers in the video game industry dont often wake up early in the morning, therefore, many game developers begin their day at around 10am (Wright, 2015). Most of them begin by checking their emails and attend morning meeting to discuss on the tasks to be performed by each one of them on that day. The daily meeting usually takes the form of Daily Scrum with everyone in the meeting required to answer three questions: what they did yesterday, what they will do today and the barriers that stop them from being productive.
After the meeting, the developers split into their respective discipline that is programmers, designers, and artists to have their respective meetings. After that everyone begun working on their assigned tasks. A project manager might visit each one of them to discuss their task. Most workers will prefer to go for lunch together unlike the believe that staff in the game industry are not social. After a lunch, team members will continue with their daily assigned tasks thereafter informal meetings are conducted in the afternoon to discuss design issues, technical shortcomings, play testing or planning of new projects. In most companies, the work day typically ends around 7pm. On the other hand, when the games launch date is around the corner and it is then obvious that it is hard to be completed in time if staff works on their normal hours, workers may show up early but certainly works late.
Teams may work up to 10pm or midnight and the company will offer to feed them dinner. They can decide to work the whole night so as to get a vital build that is needed to demonstrate a trade show is delivered on time. Work day for producers at a game publisher, sales, marketing or business development is also different because a lot of time is spent on the telephone or dealing with an instant messaging with clients and contractors at a far distance. Traveling is also necessary for these fields. Tester staffs often work as an hourly worker who works for a few weeks or months on a project. For most workers, their typical day involve looking for new jobs because companies go out of business each year.
Best and Worst Parts of Game Development
Some of the best practices that can help one avoid common mistakes are:
1. You should not make assumptions about the screen size because after developing a game for ios only it will run on a vast amount of various devices
2. There must be a separation of game mechanics and game content. Modeling game mechanics in code and modeling game content in resource files is important for level based games and other content rich games.
3. Using the update tool for time-dependent actions. You should not set up your own timers for your timed actions instead use the timer of the game engine.
4. It is important to use composition in sharing behavior between classes
5. It is important to use factory methods to create subjects that use composition
On the other hand, These worst part of game development is getting it done because it requires team work, an end product that satisfies consumer needs, a metric ton of assets for example data storage and drive, dedication, motivation work and effort.
References
Giachetti, C., & Marchi, G. (2010). Evolution of firms' product strategy over the life cycle of technology-based industries: A case study of the global mobile phone industry, 1980-2009. Business History, 52(7), 1123.
Johnson, T. M. (2016). Let's Get Virtual: Examination of Best Practices to Provide Public Access to Digital Versions of Three-Dimensional Objects. Information Technology & Libraries, 35(2), 39-55.
Dean, D. S. (2016). Hitting reset: devising a new video game copyright regime. University Of Pennsylvania Law Review, (5), 1239.
Wright, A. (2015). It's all about games: enterprise and entrepreneurialism in digital games. New Technology, Work & Employment, 30(1), 32.
Richardson, S., & Thomas, N. J. (2012). Utilising Generation Y: United States Hospitality and Tourism Students' Perceptions of Careers in the Industry. Journal Of Hospitality And Tourism Management, 19102-114.
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