Trading Cards:
With the trading cards, I wanted to convey a basic understanding of the many roles that go into video game development. Each card breaks the roles down into several sections. First, an overview of the role, then the resume filling, then a couple examples of where they make games better, then a couple examples of more specific job titles under this role, and finally, some general information of the diversity and population of the role in different company sizes. The information is from Creative Skillset’s Video Game Job Roles page, which gives a bounty of information on the roles, what they do, and what someone needs to get into the roles. I found the page to be believable because it links many sources for further learning, has proper crediting of the images used, and is from a website dedicated to giving information to those going into creative fields. I believe that this genre works well for a couple of reasons: Card games are a popular genre of video game at the moment, and the cards make for a wonderful hands-on, compact and efficient method of giving information on a bunch of archetypes. With this piece, I wanted to show that there is a huge range of work to be done on games other than just programming, and how those other roles can often have an equal or greater impact on the popularity of the game than programming, especially the artistic roles.
Infographic:
With the infographic, I wanted to provide an easily digestible example of the power of PR, and how it can greatly affect the sales and popularity of a game. The infographic includes a fold-out hexagonal list of how a community can help to spread the word of a game, and it gives definitions of Commercial and Community advertising, as well as an example of each. The information on the sales of Final Fantasy 7 was taken from Siliconera’s article on the game passing 11 million downloads, which is an article that covers just that, and not much else. Information on minecraft has been taken from the game’s website, and Minecraft has never run an advertisement campaign, instead relying purely on the community to drive it. The information on the Final Fantasy marketing costs was taken from Rich Stanton’s “Final Fantasy 7 Retrospective” on Eurogamer. The article mentions the production costs, and covers some of the game’s themes and gameplay. I found these to be trustworthy because they are either from a dedicated games reporting website, or raw data collected directly through official counters. With this genre, I wanted to place a focus on the importance of the Community Manager role, and to show how keeping a happy community can greatly benefit your game.
Recipe:
With the recipe, I wanted to give insight into the components of a game, and how programming is often fairly bland without art and music to accompany it. The recipe shows the major components of most successful modern titles, and provides directions in the form of a crude mashup of cooking directions, and a game development process. The information on important components was taken from Steam’s store, by looking at the top sellers and browsing the tags and game pages for common themes between the most successful titles. I believe that this is a very reliable source of what makes popular games good, because the tags are all user-added, meaning that if a tag shows up on the front of the tag list, then the majority of the community has recommended that tag for it. The goal was to give a general understanding of how games are put together. Additionally, I wanted to show that programming quality isn’t extremely important as long as it’s not of bad quality, and how the other aspects of development are really where most of the flavor and intrigue come from.
Flow Chart:
With the flow chart, I wanted to provide a look into the amount of work that goes on in one of the non-programmer roles, driving home that there really are a lot of people working hard on the game besides the programmers. (Not to put them down, just to make sure that others get appreciation.) Since I couldn’t fit in enough information on each bubble for a reader to understand clearly, I attached a sheet explaining each node in depth, so that they may refer to it if they need elaboration. The sources used are Coffee Stain Studios, using their concepting process as an example, who I trust because of the fact that as a game development company, should be the best place to find out what exactly goes on in a game development cycle. Next, for the overall process, I used an article from Digital Worlds, for a more general view of the process, and then referred to the role descriptions from Creativeskillset.org for more detail on each step. I trust Digital Worlds as a source because it cites other, more established game journals, as well as development firms. I trust Creativeskillset because they provide definitions that fit the generally accepted uses of the terms, and because they seem to be among the biggest companies involved with getting new developers their jobs. With this genre, I wanted something that was a logical choice for a workflow, so a flow chart captures it perfectly, and shows the process fairly clearly.
Review:
In this review, I wanted to show what an average pleased user would have to say about a game they like. As you can see, most of the good things they have to say have to do more with design and artistic elements rather than the programming quality of the game. The review is based off many top positive Steam (Steam is a game store/client which manages purchases and downloads of games, and has many user features, such as freely changable names, thus the more silly ones such as you can find in this) user reviews on the games Dark Souls III and Stardew Valley. (With the name of the fictional games being parodies/mashups of the two titles) The users in the reviews mostly discussed the visual and design aspects, rather than the code going into them, showing that users pay more attention to surface details most of the time. I wanted to use this difference in what users notice to further reinforce the importance of non-developer roles in making a more popular game. I trust my sources because there should logically be few better ways to see what users like in games than to see them talking about what they like in games.
Trading Cards: With the trading cards, I wanted to convey a basic understanding of the many roles that go into video game development. Each card breaks the roles down into several sections. First, an overview of the role, then the resume filling, then a couple examples of where they make games better, then a couple examples of more specific job titles under this role, and finally, some general information of the diversity and population of the role in different company sizes. The information is from Creative Skillset’s Video Game Job Roles page, which gives a bounty of information on the roles, what they do, and what someone needs to get into the roles. I found the page to be believable because it links many sources for further learning, has proper crediting of the images used, and is from a website dedicated to giving information to those going into creative fields. I believe that this genre works well for a couple of reasons: Card games are a popular genre of video game at the moment, and the cards make for a wonderful hands-on, compact and efficient method of giving information on a bunch of archetypes. With this piece, I wanted to show that there is a huge range of work to be done on games other than just programming, and how those other roles can often have an equal or greater impact on the popularity of the game than programming, especially the artistic roles.
Infographic: With the infographic, I wanted to provide an easily digestible example of the power of PR, and how it can greatly affect the sales and popularity of a game. The infographic includes a fold-out hexagonal list of how a community can help to spread the word of a game, and it gives definitions of Commercial and Community advertising, as well as an example of each. The information on the sales of Final Fantasy 7 was taken from Siliconera’s article on the game passing 11 million downloads, which is an article that covers just that, and not much else. Information on minecraft has been taken from the game’s website, and Minecraft has never run an advertisement campaign, instead relying purely on the community to drive it. The information on the Final Fantasy marketing costs was taken from Rich Stanton’s “Final Fantasy 7 Retrospective” on Eurogamer. The article mentions the production costs, and covers some of the game’s themes and gameplay. I found these to be trustworthy because they are either from a dedicated games reporting website, or raw data collected directly through official counters. With this genre, I wanted to place a focus on the importance of the Community Manager role, and to show how keeping a happy community can greatly benefit your game.
Recipe: With the recipe, I wanted to give insight into the components of a game, and how programming is often fairly bland without art and music to accompany it. The recipe shows the major components of most successful modern titles, and provides directions in the form of a crude mashup of cooking directions, and a game development process. The information on important components was taken from Steam’s store, by looking at the top sellers and browsing the tags and game pages for common themes between the most successful titles. I believe that this is a very reliable source of what makes popular games good, because the tags are all user-added, meaning that if a tag shows up on the front of the tag list, then the majority of the community has recommended that tag for it. The goal was to give a general understanding of how games are put together. Additionally, I wanted to show that programming quality isn’t extremely important as long as it’s not of bad quality, and how the other aspects of development are really where most of the flavor and intrigue come from.
Flow Chart: With the flow chart, I wanted to provide a look into the amount of work that goes on in one of the non-programmer roles, driving home that there really are a lot of people working hard on the game besides the programmers. (Not to put them down, just to make sure that others get appreciation.) Since I couldn’t fit in enough information on each bubble for a reader to understand clearly, I attached a sheet explaining each node in depth, so that they may refer to it if they need elaboration. The sources used are Coffee Stain Studios, using their concepting process as an example, who I trust because of the fact that as a game development company, should be the best place to find out what exactly goes on in a game development cycle. Next, for the overall process, I used an article from Digital Worlds, for a more general view of the process, and then referred to the role descriptions from Creativeskillset.org for more detail on each step. I trust Digital Worlds as a source because it cites other, more established game journals, as well as development firms. I trust Creativeskillset because they provide definitions that fit the generally accepted uses of the terms, and because they seem to be among the biggest companies involved with getting new developers their jobs. With this genre, I wanted something that was a logical choice for a workflow, so a flow chart captures it perfectly, and shows the process fairly clearly.
Review: In this review, I wanted to show what an average pleased user would have to say about a game they like. As you can see, most of the good things they have to say have to do more with design and artistic elements rather than the programming quality of the game. The review is based off many top positive Steam (Steam is a game store/client which manages purchases and downloads of games, and has many user features, such as freely changable names, thus the more silly ones such as you can find in this) user reviews on the games Dark Souls III and Stardew Valley. (With the name of the fictional games being parodies/mashups of the two titles) The users in the reviews mostly discussed the visual and design aspects, rather than the code going into them, showing that users pay more attention to surface details most of the time. I wanted to use this difference in what users notice to further reinforce the importance of non-developer roles in making a more popular game. I trust my sources because there should logically be few better ways to see what users like in games than to see them talking about what they like in games.