P2 Industry

User testing is very important as it allows for the developers to better understand what their target audience wants out of the game which will allow the game to sell better,understanding your target audience is also very important for example in Lego universe the target audience was ages 8-12 however due to their age most didn’t have a source of income and so relied on their parents to pay for the games subscription.Paid content in games can be both good and bad depending on how it implemented to the game such as for example the paid content being purely cosmetic is good however if the paid content gives the player a gameplay advantage over those who have not paid is not a good way to implement paid content as the player base will not like it.

Task 1

My chosen AAA game is Half Life 2 which was made by valve and released in 2004.

Graphics

3D Modeller

Using 3D modelling, texture, mapping, and other techniques to create graphics, visual effects, and animations.Reviewing 3D arts and recommending improvements.Creating 3D sculpts and assets to meet artistic standards.They get involved after the concept art is finished.They are usually there for the majority of the development process.

Bellow is an example of some 3D models of the combine from Half Life 2

Animator

Produce high quality animations under the supervision of Art Directors,They create character and objects movement such as a characters walk cycle and create cutscenes for the game.They get involved after the 3D modelling and textures are done.They are usually there for the the second half of the the design process as the assets they need to animate must be created.

Bellow is an example of animation used in Half Life 2

Concept artist

Responsibility

Concept artists are responsible for the style and look of a game. They are the first to draw the environments, enemies and player characters. Working with a brief from the producer, their sketches are used to help 3D artists, producers, programmers and publishers understand how the game will look.They get involved at the very start of the project,They are usually there for the first half of the design process as concept art is done at the start of the project.

Bellow is an example of some concept art from Half Life 2

Texture artist

Responsibility

The texture artist’s main duty is to create photo realistic textures for mapping onto 3-D objects used in video games, films, television, music videos, or commercials—like wrapping a gift box in patterned paper. These textures will often be created from scratch, but may also be created from existing materials.They get involved in the second half of the design process around the same time as the 3D modelling.They are usually there for the entire second half of the design process.

Bellow is an example of textures for Half Life 2

Game Design

Level Design

Responsibility

The level designers are responsible for the total environment of a game level, as well as all of the assets and characters that inhabit it. In the conceptual stage, the level designer imagines a chapter in the overarching story line of the game. He or she must determine where this chapter will take place, what characters and objects the player will encounter, and what the objectives of the level will be. Then the level designer draws up design documentation that details a complete list of required assets and explains objectives and environment layout.On two-dimensional layouts, the level designer marks each asset to be placed in the environment, including where events take place, sound effects, and the placement of scripts that trigger those elements.They get involved once the concept art is done.They would work for most of the design process as level design is a long process.

Bellow is an example of Half Life 2’s level design

UI Designer

Responsibilitys

The user interface designer are responsible for creating the HUD and UI for the game,It must include everything the player would need to know such as health,stamina,map,etc.They get involved near the end of the project.They work until the UI is completed which can vary depending on the project for example half life 2 has a very simple UI so it wouldn’t have taken very long.

Bellow is an example of Half Life 2’s UI

Audio

Sound Designer

The Sound Designer is responsible for obtaining all sound effects, whether recorded or live for a specific production. He/She is also responsible for setting up the sound playback equipment.They get involved around half way through the project.They work until the end of the project.

Musician

They are responsible for creating the games soundtrack and other musical pieces needed for the project.They get involved half way through the project.They work until near the end of the project

Voice Actor

The primary duty of voice actors is to provide voices for characters inside the game universe. They may be called upon to do a number of different accents, or alter their voices by speaking in a lower, louder or softer pitch..They get involved near the end.They work until the end of the project

Programmer

Tools Programmer

The tools programmer writes tool programs that the rest of a development team use to create games. Tools can include programs to translate data from one format to another, plugins for art packages, or even full custom level editors..They get involved near the start of the project.They work until just after the half way point of the project

Shader Writer

This group is responsible for developing, writing, and supporting shaders used by the cinematics department in creating animated computer generated (CG) shorts for all development teams.They get involved half way through the project.They work until near the end of the project

Event Scripter

The Event scripted will integrate the various scripted events and cinematic scenes into the engine throughout the production process and for the entire game in collaboration with the animation, programming, sound, level design and level art teams.They get involved just after the half way point of the project,They work up until near the end of the project

Writer

Story Writer

A video game writer works to develop the plot and write the dialogue for a video game. In this career, your responsibilities may include working to design the story for a video game during pre-production. Your duties may include working to create characters and describe the game narrative.They get involved just before the half way point.They work until near the end of the project.

Script Writer

Script writers are responsible for creating all the aspects of a script, such as the dialogue, characters and plot.They get involved around just before the half way point.They work until the final script is written which varies depending on the project for half life 2 it would have taken a long time compared to a game with a short/no story.

Management

Ceo

A CEO’s responsibilities: everything, especially in a startup. The CEO is responsible for the success or failure of the company. Operations, marketing, strategy, financing, creation of company culture, human resources, hiring, firing, compliance with safety regulations, sales, PR, etc.They get involved at the very start.They work until the very end of the project.

CTO

The CTO is responsible for establishing the company’s technical vision, leading all aspects of the company ‘s technology development and the key individual responsible for pursuing and delivering the Product agenda.They get involved at the very start.They work until the very end of the project.

Marketing

The marketing team are responsibly for showing the game in a positive way so that it sells well so the studio can stay in business to create their next project.They get involved usually just after the half way point of the project but it depends on the funding the marketing team have.They would usually work until the end of the project.

Task 2

Voice Actor

Primary Skills:confidence,clarity,consistency,coordination,characterisation

Pay:£26.11 per hour in England

Contract:Temporary

Applications:

Resume-Now. 2020. Sample Cover Letter For Animator Job Application | Resume-Now. [online] Available at: <https://www.resume-now.com/cover-letter/examples/film/animator&gt; [Accessed 15 October 2020].

Work From Other Games

John Patrick Lowrie voiced the citizens in Half Life 2,he also voiced various characters in Dota 2 and the sniper from Team Fortress 2.

Concept Artist

Primary Skills:Imagination/Creativity,Artistic Skills,Determination

Pay:£36 per hour in England

Contract:Temporary

Application:

Livecareer.com. 2020. CONCEPT ARTIST Resume Example Gearbox Software – Milford, Massachusetts. [online] Available at: <https://www.livecareer.com/resume-search/r/concept-artist-6c5b4f9837a84f54a362ff5547963b6a&gt; [Accessed 15 October 2020].

Work From Other Games

Viktor Antonov helped create Half Life 2’s concept art he has also helped with concept art for Wolfenstien:The New Order.

Animator

Primary Skills:Creativity,Drawing Skills,Patience,innovative

Pay:£13 a hour in England

Contract: Temporary

Application:

Duszynski, M., 2020. Animator Resume: Example & Writing Guide [20+ Tips]. [online] zety. Available at: <https://zety.com/blog/animator-resume-example&gt; [Accessed 15 October 2020].

Work from other games

Ken Birdwell was an animator for Half Life 2 and worked on many of Valves other games such as Portal 2,Left For Dead 1/2 and Counter Strike Source

Task 3

Identification Of Professional Skills

The most important professional skills are communication,problem solving,leadership,organisation,perseverance and creativity.Communication in the workplace is very important as it allows for high work efficiently and productivity. Employees can experience increased morale, productivity and commitment if they can communicate with their peers in the workplace.Problem solving is important as it shows that you can fix problems on your own and are independent meaning that production in the workplace would be higher.Leadership is important because it helps to to maximise efficiency and to achieve the set goals. Organisational skills are important in the workplace to increase productivity and make sure deadlines are met.Perseverance shows a level of patience and maturity,perseverance is what allows someone to complete their given task no matter what.Creativity shows that you can come up with good ideas and can allow more innovation and inspire co-workers.

Task 4

Job 1 

Location: Sheffield 

Salary: Up to 18K 

Key Skills: Games Testing / Full Testing Lifecycle / Test Documentation / PC 

Extra Details: 

We are an upcoming games studio based within the city centre of Sheffield, working on wide range of titles due to ongoing growth we are looking to add several Games QA Testers to our team. We pride ourselves on being a welcoming team, who productive a genuinely challenging and engaging working environment. You will be working alongside a game development company that has some of the industry’s finest talent. They develop different types of video games, across different platforms and need an experienced Games QA Tester to join their team. 
 

You will be joining the Games QA Tester. As part of your role you will be hitting the ground hitting with supporting the Senior Games QA Tester with testing different video games on different platforms. With your strong communication skills, you will be interacting with other departments. 

You need to have a passion for video games 

You need to have strong GCSE background 

Strong communication skills 

Job 2 

Location: Leeds 

Salary: Negotiable 

Extra Details: 

As a game tester, you are expected to have a strong passion for games and gaming experience (though not necessarily on a professional level). You should also at least have an associate degree, but a bachelor’s degree is a big plus. 

Excellent attention to detail, A+ hand-eye coordination, strong oral and written communication skills, ability to work with a team, and ability to adapt to different testing requirements and priorities are key skills that will help you do well in this role. Additionally, you should have a good work ethic and a lot of discipline and patience. 

The game tester role may sound like it is all fun and games. Yet, it involves serious work that has something to do with getting a problem fixed before a game goes public to avoid bad reviews and significant losses. Here are some of the primary responsibilities expected of the role. 

• Go through a game in its entirety to identify potential issues that can affect player experience. Areas include functionality, performance, usability, compatibility, and content. 

• Provide qualitative feedback to the development team. 
• Ensure that all features are implemented according to design. 
• Checklist and regression testing 
• Documenting and reporting defects. 

Job 3 

Location: London 

Salary: £26000 – £32000 

Key Skills: Knowledge of VR, Games Testing, Documentation 

Extra Details: 

The role requires a bright and ambitious person who is technically minded and keen to fine a career in technology/VR. 
 
The role will mean strapping into a VR headset and being the tester of the VR applications, finding bugs, faults and reporting them to be fixed. An agile and inquisitive mind will also be needed to allow the person to progress and grow their role as part of the team.

I have realised that the pay is more than i expected it to be,I learnt there are less game studios in the UK than i had previously thought and that they are quite scattered in location.The Requirements in the industry are around what i had expected.

Task 5

I have learnt that QA used to be just finding the bugs within the game however now it also includes making sure the game is an enjoyable experience and is of enough quality so that the company doesn’t receive a bad reputation.I also learnt that there is a lot confidentiality at some of the companies .I have learnt that the average pay is around £28,000 a year which surprised me.The skills that it requires are patience,analytic skills,good communication,understanding of games and discipline and you need to know how to use the required software.I think that it is hard as you may not be testing on a game that you want to test and it could get repetitive,if you find a bug you have to write a report so if you find a lot of bugs then you would have a lot of reports to write which could be hard to do for some people.

Task 6

Project management,assessing scope and feasibility are important skills as it means that when creating something the people working on it will understand all the important details such as what is being made due to a plan being in place, the time given to create it(such as deadlines for the project)and what will be needed to complete the project.With everyone understanding the project quality will be better and resources will be used more effectively so that you don’t go over the budget you have.They also allow you to see whether a project will be successful or not/if it is a realistic goal and what issues might be encountered and how to avoid and fix them before they happen,it also allows you to see if you would have the resources to complete the project.

Different types of project management are

Waterfall

This is when a project is completed in a sequence and once one part is completed you can then move onto the next part,it is a simplistic method and so is easy for people to understand this method.

Agile

It is when you use software to plan out a project and it turns a project into smaller pieces that are then done based on importance to the overall project.it also means the users can tell you developers what needs to be changed in the project so that the finished product will be like what the audience wants.

Task 7

Due to the case study on Lego Universe i have learnt that if you make a game with a target audience of 8-12(which is a very wide age range that made the game hard for the younger side but too easy for you older so neither side of the target audience enjoyed the game that much,while it was logical as Lego itself is for all ages however that doesn’t translate very well to games) then making it free with a paid subscription is not a good way to make profit so the game can maintain itself as due to the target audiences age they didn’t have an income so their parents had to pay for it which was an unstable way to make profit as well as that it was a new concept and so people were sceptical of it,this lead to the game being shut down as it couldn’t make itself enough profit.To make the game profitable they could have changed the approach profit by making the upfront game cost money with an optional subscription service that offers cosmetics and other things that add upon the base game.Scope and Feasibility are important as with it you can see if a project will be successful and with it they would have been able to see why Lego Universe would fail and so could have avoided it.

Task 8

Task 9

For project 1 I had to create my own re-themed version of pong which I at the start I was worried I would find difficult however now that I am almost finished i can safely say it wasn’t that difficult.The positives were that i enjoyed making pong and found it easy as well as due to my making of pong i have now learnt how to use Construct 3 and Photoshop and there were no negatives.Looking back I could have spent more time on the artwork because despite the fact i’m terrible at it I could have done better for some of my assets so if i were to do it again i would do that.

I had to fill out the diagnostic booklet which seemed like i daunting task however while i did find some of it challenged overall it wasn’t too hard to complete.The positives were that writing things up is usually my weak point and the booklet has helped me improve my write up and the only negative i can think of is that some parts of the booklet took me longer to finish than they should have.Looking back i could have gone into more detail in some of my paragraphs and so if i were to do it again thats what i would do.

During the course of project 1 and the diagnostic booklet i have used many different skills and learned some new skills such as Photoshop and Construct 3 which i had never had previously used.Skills I have used are creativity,determination,problem solving,organisation,researching and coding.

Analysis of skills

Photoshop-I would give my Photoshop skills a 3/5 as i’m still new to using it however I have a basic understanding of it and to improve it I need to learn the key binds so I can do things faster and do more complex thing

Construct 3/Coding-I would give my Construct 3 skills a 3.5/5 as similarly to Photoshop i’m still new to using it but when implementing my new features I had little to no issues however I could have coded my health system better and added more complex features and so to improve I will need to learn how to code more complex actions

Art/Drawing-I would give a 2/5 as i’m not very good at drawing my ideas despite how I can visualise them quite well in my head,to improve I just need to continue to practice so that I eventually improve.

Research-I would give a 3.5/5 as I can get the key points of the research but I can always get more so to improve i would gather more research which will help me make better games

Problem solving-I would give a 4/5 as during my creation of pong the very few issues I have encountered i fixed very quickly however i know that in the future I may find some problems that i cant solve or will find a lot harder to solve hence the 4/5

Organisation-I would give a 4/5 as I save my things with suitable names so I can usually find them quite fast,to improve I would use folders more