Task 4 Financial planning

 Task 4 financial planning

Within the industry financial planning is extremely important because within the industry you need planning to stay organized and enable the company to because financial better off ifs it’s more organized if for say the company is not organized it will more than likely suffer due to lack of organization this could also lead to becoming bankrupted and it could lead to the company loosening money by making games because they could have spent too much making the game and not making that much back from the game so the companies need to organized to be financial stable within their business.

The fixed costs would be cost in which the business like rock star would set for themselves it is the cost in which does not change with an increase or decrease in the amount of goods or services produced. Fixed costs are expenses that have to be paid by a company, independent of any business activity. It is one of the two components of the total cost of a good or service, along with variable cost. The fixed cost is 

The variable costs of a games business would be the cost in which they depend on as a company’s production value this could be things like direct material costs or direct labour costs necessary to complete a certain project. For example, a company may have variable costs associated with the packaging of one of its products. As the company moves more of this product, the costs for packaging will increase. Conversely, when fewer of these products are sold the costs for packaging will consequently decrease without variable cost a company would struggle to make money because there production serviced would come to a hold so products would not be reaching the shop floors and making money for the business.

A break even point is when   in economics & business, specifically cost accounting, the break-even point (BEP) is the point at which cost or expenses and revenue are equal: there is no net loss or gain, and one has "broken even." A profit or a loss has not been made, although opportunity costs have been "paid," and capital has received the risk-adjusted, expected return. It is shown graphically as the point where the total revenue and total cost curves meet. In the linear case the break-even point is equal to the fixed costs divided by the contribution margin per unit.

In the games industry monitoring is a crucial part of the industry within the industry they use monitoring to monitor there budget witch they need to do to see what there spending there money on and to see if there making any profit or any losses within there company an example of this would be rock star they had to monitor what they spend there money on and weather or not they would either make there money back or make a larger profit witch would allow them to get better technology and to make a bigger and better game like GTA V or Red dead redemption. They would also monitor there budget buy watching what they spend on DLC for games witch are new or old and just need something to attract players on it.        

Task 3 business models

Task 3 business models

Arcade gaming was one of the biggest things going in the 70s and 80s. Developers came up with the idea of a game machine that you put money in so you could pay and play. The first successful arcade game was pong and this led to the development of other games in the later years like space invaders, asteroids, donkey Kong and Pac-man. These games were so successful within the industry and they enabled the games companies to developed home units. And this led to the creation of the home consoles this also meant the creation of new ways to play and a new way to spend your time instead of socializing and talking to people.

The first of many home consoles were in people’s home in the 1980s. The home consoles became big due to the success of the arcade games they made the home console to make gaming bigger and better this lead to more companies to making more consoles and better technology threw out the upcoming years.  And the amount of people buying games in store is decreasing slowly because of the ability to buy them online this almost destroyed the industry because of the torrents which allowed people to get the games for free so they weren't paying for them and the companies lost money due to that so they maid better technology to stop this so they could keep making money. 

The success of the home consoles has led to the ability of people being able to buy add-on’s their game for example FIFA you can buy extras for the game so you don’t have to play the game as much to get the dream team you want on FIFA. Now game manufactures can see what people are playing because most people are connected to the internet so they know what people are playing more and they are making the game add-ons because they know people will buy them. There is also the option of a subscription for some games that you can pay monthly or yearly and because of this it will keep you playing because you have paid for the game. 

Task 2 Job roles

Creative Development

Game Designer

A Game Designers is responsible for devising what a game consists of and how it plays their job is difficult but can be achieved threw allot of hard work and threw many hours of working on their designs.

They plan and define all the elements and the components of a game this can involve its setting; structure; rules; story flow; characters; the objects, props, vehicles, and devices available to the characters; interface design; and modes of play.

Level Editor

The Level Editor defines and creates interactive architecture threw out a segment of a game, this can be including the landscape, buildings, and objects.

They are and must always be true to the overall design specification by using the characters and story elements from the Game Designer perspective, but they often have considerable scope to vary the specific look and feel of the level for which they are responsible.

Lead Artist

The Lead Artist is responsible for the look of the game whilst working with the Game Designer in the first instance, the Lead Artist devises the game’s look style and directs the production of all visual material throughout the game’s development this is a long process and often can take longer than the time period give.

Technical Artist

The Technical Artist is practically the bridge between the artists and programmers working on a game and they have to ensure art assets can be easily integrated or associated into a game without sacrificing otherwise the overall artistic vision or exceeding the technical limits of the chosen platform.

Artist

Artists are the ones who create the visual elements of a game this can include things such as characters, scenery, objects, vehicles, surface textures, clothing, props, and even user interface components.

 Also Artists create concept art and storyboards which help communicate the proposed visual elements during the pre-production phase.

Animator

The Animators in the games industry create the portrayal of movement and behaviour.

Usually this is applied to give life to game characters and creatures even though sometimes animations are also applied to other elements like objects, scenery, vegetation and environmental effects.

Audio Engineer

The Audio Engineer job is to create the soundtrack for a game. This usually can include music; sound effects to support the game action, like gunshots or explosions; character voices and other expressions; spoken instructions; and ambient effects, like crowd noise, vehicles or rain this can vary depending on the game.

Technical development

Lead Programmer

A Lead Programmer jobs is to leads the programming team they are responsible for creating all the computer code which runs and controls a game they have a key role in the games industry.

Often Programmers have various roles and specialisms including AI (artificial intelligence), game engine development, user interface, tools development, and physics.

Programmer

The Programmers work at the centre of the game development process their job is to design and write the computer code that runs and controls the game, incorporating and adapting any readymade code libraries and writing custom code as needed.

They also have to test the code and fix bugs, and they also develop customised tools for use by other members of the development team they are responsible for ant issues in the games and the multiplayers for them.

Project Implementation

Project Manager / Producer

A Project Manager is always responsible for making sure the successful delivery of a game, on time and within budget.

They have control and they control the financial and other resources needed for a project and co-ordinate the work of the production team, making sure that the quality and vision of the game is maintained, whatever problems may arise.

Assistant Producer

An Assistant Producer works with some game's production staff to make sure the timely delivery of the highest quality project possible. Usually they will focus on specific areas of the development process.

External Producer

The External Producer has a job in which involves ensuring the successful delivery of a game, while working externally from the development team.

The External Producers are always employed by a game publisher. Whilst Working out of the publisher's head office, they will liaise between the publisher's sales and marketing departments and the game developer, which may be located hundreds of miles away.

Creative Director 

A Creative Director is one of the key directors during the game development process whilst overseeing any high level decisions that affect how the game plays and looks or sounds.

The Creative Directors are employed by development studios, the publisher-owned and independent, even though all game companies employ Creative Directors. Even though, some companies prefer to continue to split the duties between a game's lead artists, programmers, designers and producers.

Quality assurance

QA Tester

A Quality Assurance Technicians, or Testers, perform a vital role, testing, tuning, debugging, and suggesting the detailed refinements that ensure the quality and playability of the finished game.

They have the job to play-testing the game in a systematic way, analysing the game’s performance against the designer’s intentions, identifying problems and suggesting improvements.

Business Development

Product Brand Manager

The Product Manager’s has a role to help create and implement marketing campaigns to maximise the sales of the games they are working on. Operating as a part of a marketing team, they support the senior marketing managers who organise international or global campaigns.

Task 1 Structure – The Value Chain

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Developers

The people who make the games

Developers are basically companies who develop games. This job can be done by either a team of 100 people to a team of 1000 people this can vary depending on what type of game it is and depending on what the time limit of a games production is because for example if Rockstar had 5 years to make a Grand Theft Auto game They would hire more people to produce their game and to ensure they can get more things done in a less amount of time this can be useful for when a company like Rockstar if they have other titles that need to be worked on like Red Dead redemption and other good games like that.      

Publishers

The people who fund and market the games

The Publishers for Rockstar are themselves but the publishing is a different part of the franchise because the publishing part is what handles advertisement and the funding for the games they have a key role and they must always be in control of what is going on around them. When you have a big company like RockStar you will usually find that they handle most things like the publishing/Development themselves because it is much easier for them to do it themselves rather than depending on other companies or people to do it for them that is why they do it themselves not only encase anything goes wrong but to also make sure they do everything right and if not it would be on themselves and not on someone else.

Console Manufactures/First party publishers

     

The people who control the marketing

The console manufactures for Rockstar have the role in which to control the marketing this is a key role if Rockstar is to compete in the market an example of this would be Microsoft, Sony and WII these are the big three main consoles and they are what runs RockStar games on them this is important because if for example you were able to download the games free on PC there would be no actual need for a console so it is causal that games are only accessible on these consoles to keep them afloat.   

Out sourcing companies 

Outsiders who help make the games

An example of this for Rockstar would be when they need extra help on a game so they would hire an out sourcing company who would then get paid for how many days they work for Rockstar this is important if the company is to get things done sooner than later and it also makes sure that they have extra help on certain things but the bad thing is if RockStar doesn’t need any help and the outsourcing company would be making money for doing nothing so RockStar makes sure they have things to do for them to ensure they are getting their money’s worth and not being taken for granted and losing money from the outsourcing company. 

Mobile Platforms and social networking

Changing the market

An example of mobile platforms would be games like Clash of Clans this is a very popular game and you can access it on almost every mobile device. Mobile platforms for RockStar would be the social club app this is basically a mobile device where players can see their stats on all of the RockStar games most people find this useful because they can monitor their stats whilst playing the games they like to play on. RockStar also advertise future games on their apps to make their products popular and to make themselves more known by doing this.   

Distribution and Retail

People who sell the games to you

An example of this would be game this is a shop who you would go to buy a game from like Grand Theft Auto you would buy it from the people in the shop so this would be the distribution side of it where you go to the shop where you would then buy the game from the people in the shop who would then tell the people at the top who would be Rockstar and then take slice of the profits from the company and Rockstar would then get the rest of the profit so that’s how they would make the money in the retail.