CO1301 - Games Concepts Week 16 Employment & Industry Gareth Bellaby

References Rabin, Introduction to Game Development, Chapter 1.1

Lecture Structure Games The games industry Culture

Populous Populous, Bullfrog, 1989 Populous II, Bullfrog, 1991 Populous: The Beginning, Bullfrog, 1998 Peter Molyneux God game Isometric projection. Progressive levels.

Black & White Black & White, Lionhead, 2001 Black & White 2, Lionhead, Peter Molyneux. The game incorporates machine learning. One of the few games to include machine learning. Uses learning trees. We'll look at this technique in later years.

Doom 3 id Software, 2005 More a thematic remake of the original Doom than a sequel. Good use of tension and lighting. Parallax mapping. Shadows.

Games you ought to play Play a representative of every one of the main commercial genres: FPS, RTS, RPG, Platformer, TBS, etc. I'll do a lecture on the history of games and this will touch upon some important games. There are other games which are widely recognised within the industry and which an employer would expect you to be aware of. No need to play a game in full. Download the demo, 15-30 minutes play to at least have a basic knowledge of the gameplay.

Games you ought to play Civilization. Starcraft. (A SF-themed sequel to Warcraft). Regarded as one of the best RTS's. In particular viewed as being the best balanced RTS. GTA: San Andreas. The Sims. Final Fantasy VII Silent Hill (any of I, 2 and 3).

Games you ought to know Fallout Zelda (Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess) Deus Ex (the original not the sequel) Halo Mario Sonic Tomb Raider

The games industry

People you ought to know Ian Livingstone (Eidos) Peter Molyneux (Fable, Black & White) John Carmack (lead programmer on Doom, Quake, id Software, authored several important graphics papers) Sid Meier, (Firaxis, Civilization) Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda) Chris Crawford (founder of the Game Developer's Conference)

People you ought to know Brian Reynolds (Alpha Centauri, Rise of Nations) Richard Garriott (Ultima series, Tabula Rasa) Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy) Warren Spector (System Shock, Deus Ex) Roberta Williams (King's Quest) Will Wright (SimCity, The Sims, Spore) John Romero (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Daikatana) David Braben (created "Elite" with Ian Bell, now head of Frontier)

Manufacturers Nintendo Sony Microsoft

Nintendo Nintendo, Japanese, 1889 NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Game Boy (portable) Current: Wii, Game Boy Advance Game Boy Advance still strong especially in the East Publishers Need to adhere to their requirements

Sony Sony, Japanese, 1946 (name in 1958) PlayStation, PlayStation 2 Current: PlayStation 3, PSP (PlayStation Portable) PS2 games still being published PS1 is still supported Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) (technical help, profiling, testing) Need to submit games Need to adhere to their requirements, e.g. max loading times Publishers Developers

Microsoft Microsoft, American, 1975 XBox Current: XBox 360 Software developers, Windows, Office, etc for the PC DirectX (used for PC and XBox). Work closely with video card manufacturers. Developers (Microsoft studios) Some hardware (XBox, some peripherals such as mice, NOT computers or components such as video cards) Need to adhere to their requirements for the XBox No control over the PC releases. XBox Live Arcade becoming increasingly more important.

Publishers Eidos Interactive EA Paradox Capcom Koei Vivendi Take-Two Interactive Ubisoft

UK employment If you obtain employment within the games industry it is almost certain that it will be in the UK. Employment in the non-English speaking world requires knowledge of the language and, possibly, a visa. US requires a visa and this is difficult to obtain especially for a graduate job. Therefore you need to know about UK games and the UK industry.

UK Developers Over 200 UK Developers. This doesn't include developers of games for mobile phones, Interactive TV or Flash games. Some important names and product you need to be know. Companies change names frequently, e.g. Climax Racing now Black Rock Studio, acquired by Disney Interactive Studios (MotoGP) Almost all of the large internatational studios have UK offices as well. Microsoft and Sony a significant UK presence. Nintendo to a lesser degree but still important.

UK Developers Blade Interactive (World Snooker Championship, Hydrophobia) Traveller's Tales (Lego Star Wars) Bizarre Creations (The Club, Project Gotham Racing) Kuju (6 studios in UK, Battalion Wars, Buzz, SingStar (latter now Zoe Mode)) Evolution Studios (Motor Storm) Rare (Perfect Dark Zero, Viva Pinata) Team 17 (Worms) Blitz Games (Spongebob, Bratz the Movie)

UK Developers Creative Assembly (Total War series) Lionhead Studios (Fable, Black & White) Codemasters (Turning Point, Clive Barker's Jericho) Rockstar (Rockstar Leeds, Rockstar North in Glasgow) Climax Studios (Silent Hill Origins) Eutechnyx (Big Mutha Truckers) Relentless Software (Buzz! The Game) Real Time Worlds (Crackdown)

UK Developers Activision (Call of Duty 4, studios all over the world) GameLoft (mobile games) Midway (Stranglehold, offices in Newcastle, London as well as US) Rebellion (Gun: Showdown) Stormfront (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers) Studio Liverpool (part of SCEE, Wipeout Pure) Revolution Software (Broken Sword) Frontier (Thrillville)

World Developers The UK developers are the companies you need to set you sights on. However, you should know about the main non-UK companies as well. Konami (have a branch in the UK, PES2008, in Japan Resident Evil) Firaxis (Civilization) Blizzard (World of Warcraft) id Software (Doom) Valve (Half Life) Insomniac (Ratchet and Clank)

World Developers Koei (Dynasty Warriors) Lucasarts (Star Wars) Namco Bandai (Warhammer: Mark of Chaos) Naughty Dog (Drake's Fortune, Crash Bandicoot) Maxis (Spore) Ubisoft (primarily publishers, also developers, have a UK branch) Square Enix (Final Fantasy) Epic Games (Unreal) Tecmo (Project Zero)

Graphics Cards Manufacturers NVidia ATI Companies work closely with games developers. Work closely with the developers of DirectX and OpenGL. Both companies employ graphics programmers. White papers.

Industry news Gamasutra Game Industry biz: http://www.gamesindustry.biz MVC Develop magazine The Edge

Industry conferences Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH). Presentations printed in the ACM Transactions on Graphics. Game Developers Conference (GDC) Develop conference. UK conference in Brighton.

Industry organisations International Game Developers Association (IGDA) The Independent Games Developers Association (TIGA) Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA)