Task 1- Structure- The Value Chain

Task 1- Structure- The Value Chain
Profile each of the main sectors within the industry:

Developers
Publishers
Console Manufacturers/First Party Publishers
Distribution and Retail
Outsourcing Companies
Press and Media

Each sector has an influence on the type of games that are produced.


You are aiming to comprehensively explain organisational structures in the games industry with reference to elucidated examples. You should be using subject terminology consistently and correctly.



Developers are people who create the game. They work on the actual game and it can be a company ranging from 1 person to over 500 employees. Someone who develops the game solo will work on the graphic, programming and all the other bits, these are known as indie developers. Even though an indie developer can be interpreted differently, some indie companies get funding from a publisher (such as hello games got funding from Sony for No Man's Sky), hello games will no longer be classed as an indie company to some people. Bigger companies who create AAA games such as Treyarch will contain over 200 employees, for example, these employees will include specialists in each department working on the game. For example, they could have 10 people working on concept art for the game, while you would have another 10 levels designers, and so on. Developers can also include lawyers and financial people, even though they are not designing the game they are still in the company helping out wherever they are needed. There can be multiple developers working on a game (detailed further on), such as sister companies (for Treyarch it is Infinity Ward) or an outsourcing company, which will be mentioned later on in more depth. Many of the top developers are renowned for their work, Treyarch state on their website "We employ the greatest engineering, design and creative talent" which shows how the expectations of AAA employees are higher compared to an indie developer.


Sometimes a game can contain multiple developers working on it, for example, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 contained two developers. These were Sledgehammer Games and Infinity Ward, each of these developers worked on a separate part of the game; Sledgehammer Games worked on the Multiplayer and Infinity Ward had worked on the campaign. In the industry, developers play more of an important part than we think, for example, Mojang (the developers of Mojang) created a new type of game, combine adventure with an open world in which we would play in a  computer generated world, none are the same. These worlds would allow us to create structures from castles to theme parks. Mojang allowed the player to use their imagination as a key part of the game, this was a new type of game in the industry and had shaped the future for some games. For example, some developers have made zombie games inspired by Minecraft. As well as this GMOD (Garry's mod) which has various mods for it has a Minecraft mod allowing people to use GMOD's mechanics in a Minecraft clone. Furthermore, today Minecraft has got a new game for the story mode, developed by TellTale series and there is still updates going to be released in the future for Minecraft so the future of the industry can still be impacted by these updates depending on what will be released.


Image result for activisionPublishers are people who help with the funding of the game and sometimes publishers do own the development company. Publishers can sometimes contribute to the marketing of the game (other times it can be done separately). Publishers are also responsible for guiding the product in the right way, so the developers can meet realistic deadlines as well as the manufacturing of the game. Usually, indie games don't get help from a publisher due to them having to pay the publishers for their help and indie games are usually run on a low budget like I said before there are occasions where indie games do have help from a publisher. Publishers such as Bethesda are also developers themselves, making it possible for them to fund and publish their own games, even though it is rare this happens. Activision, which is most commonly known for being Publishers of the Call Of Duty series, are also usually experienced within the development of games as well and they are known as parenting companies to developers, meaning they own them. This doesn't mean that every game Activision publishes is by a developer they own, and it also doesn't mean that Activision control the companies they own because some developers/publishers can work in various ways, also the companies will be bound b by a contract for a set amount of time before it expires and/or renews. For example, Valve doesn't have a hierarchy system because they believe that everyone should have equal jobs and be able for anyone to convey their ideas but some companies will use the hierarchy because it is an effective and organised method, especially when having a huge amount of employees.

However, there are some Publishers such as EA who are notorious for buying developers and then destroying the company, there are many victims to EA's methods of working. This is has affected the industry in various ways, such as for EA many people don't trust them, so the games they produce are known to be bad so this could result in less profit for the game, which can affect the future of EA and any company they have bought out. However, companies such as DICE who are a part of EA are not failing and actually developing/producing one of the best FPS series' we have seen (Battlefield) and Battlefield 1 had over 13 million players, making it the biggest beta in gaming history. So EA aren't all bad are they? In my opinion, publishers need to start to listen to the community, just like developers are doing, this will help the marketing of the game and the profit the company gets due to the fact of people buying the game.


Image result for SonyConsole Manufacturers/First Party Publishers are companies that manufacture the consoles and this same company can be a first party publisher. What is a first party publisher? A console manufacturer is simple to understand and so is a first party publisher. A first party publisher is a company such as Sony or Microsoft who make the console but also will hire a developer to make a game for them, these games are usually known as console exclusives. For example, a console exclusive for Xbox is Halo, which is now developed by 343 Industries but was created by Bungie (who have recently made destiny alongside Activision). But for PlayStation, we have exclusives such as God Of War and Little Big Planet, which are published by Sony. Most of the time when a console is released by a manufacturer they will hire a developer to release an exclusive for the first game on the console, for example, the PS4 had Knack as their console exclusive, it was also the first game to allow control of the touchpad on the controller. These first party games are massive in the industry, this is because like I said the first game on each console is an exclusive, depending on how good the game (or games) look can depend on how many people buy the console for the game. So these first party publishers which are also the manufacturers can have an effect on how many sales their console gets due to the quality of the exclusives they offer at release. Consoles such as Nintendo have most of their games produced by Nintendo, which is a first party publisher, this can affect the sales of the console because if no one likes Nintendo games such as Mario then no one will buy the console or on the other hand if an audience really likes Nintendo games then it will encourage more people to buy the console, increasing sales. As well as this, some of the very few games that are released on a console are by the company as a way to send the console off. The Last Of Us being one of the most iconic exclusives was one of the last games on the PS3 and one of the first remasters on the PS4, boosting the sales of both consoles.

Distribution and Retail are how the game is sold and where it is sold, whether it be digital or disc copies of the game, possibly both. Many modern games are selling their games as both digital and disc sales because as we progress through the times more and more of our physical items are becoming digital such as music and obviously games. Many companies such as steam, only sell digital games for PC's which can be seen as both good and bad. The advantage is that it stops you buying the discs, basically, if you are someone who buys games frequently having disc copies would take up a lot of space, but when you have the digital copies you can have them stored on hard-drives or Class 10 SD cards. Even though there are Platforms such as PlayStation and Xbox who have both digital and physical games available, for me this is better because I prefer the physical copies of the game because you have something to show for your money rather than just game files. Also with digital copies unless there is a sale on the games will most likely stay the original price for a long time, meanwhile physical copies can drop the price over time. In terms of retail, more and more general supermarkets are starting to sell games, rather than you having to travel to your local Game you can travel to Tesco or Asda which are usually closer depending on where you live. Also, retail shops are now getting specific exclusive DLC to the game. Usually, personalization packs are available for certain shop exclusives. However, Amazon who sell both digital and physical copies of the games, their exclusives can be different cases such as steel books. This means that distribution of games in the future could be focused more towards physical retail because of the exclusive DLC of the games, this appeals more to a wider audience. Tesco, advertise many games online as well which aren't in their shops, stating on their website "discover our huge range of games", also an article from Eurogamer also states that Tesco is buying second-hand games.
Image result for modern warfare 3

Outsourcing Companies are companies that are hired by a developer to do work that they are unable to do, either before the deadline of the game development or because they can't do it well. For example, a company could hire a company to do 3D modelling for them or to do the marketing of the game. A well-known example of an outsourcing company is Sledgehammer games, even though they have developed their own games, their introduction to the Call Of Duty franchise was via outsourcing for Modern Warfare 3, where they were hired to work on the multiplayer of the game. Even though there are some examples of companies who specialise in outsourcing, such as Polygone Studios who are available for many areas of the industry such as Programming, motion capture, games design, as well as 2D and 3D design. This is great for the industry because it means that one company isn't feeling pressured to do all the work, they could hire these outsourcing companies to help them out. Furthermore, this could really affect the industry in the future, we could see more outsourcing companies coming out into the open, this means it could be a company of specialists who are able to be hired by game companies rather than them just working on a game themselves. Even though this could affect the industry in a negative way because then more and more developers will be spending money on outsourcing companies rather than spending more money on the game.

Press and Media are everything from YouTube to the indie company I write for, it is anything that involves the game itself being written about or played. Many games are now being played by Youtubers such as PewDiePie, when these games are played it makes the game more well known in the gaming community. A big example of this Outlast, this is actually an indie game which was made as big it is by PewDiePie and other Youtubers playing it, gaining popularity to the game itself. So now thanks to that there is a second Outlast being in development which is getting the same amount of hype as an AAA game. Also if the game is viewed as a bad game through social media, such as YouTube, this can negatively affect the sales because fewer people will want to buy it and this can decrease your sales. For example, Infinite Warfare is one of the most disliked videos on YouTube, even though tey will still earn a lot of money from the sales but it does give the game bad publicity. Furthermore, there are websites (like the one I work for) which do reviews and news articles for games. This can give people information on the game itself as well as the good and bad points about the game. For example, the company I work for (Orange Bison) has a system where at the end you rate the game out of 10 and give pros and cons about the game. This system is seen throughout review sites such as IGN, this is good because it gives a summarised but precise points on the game. This form of press is found in magazines which can give news articles on the games but can also give reviews on upcoming games. Even though magazines are becoming less common as time goes on because most sites are internet based. However, the only problem with review companies is if they are trustworthy, some companies such as IGN have had claims against them saying that they are paid to give a good review of the game. Another example is PewDiePie who was paid to give a good review on Shadow Of Mordor, this makes the reviewer less trustworthy and can affect the industry itself. it will affect the industry because then people will lose trust in that company as well as the development and publisher companies because we know they will pay for a good review. this represents the lack of faith they have in their own game because they need to pay for a good review but will also affect the sales of their future games because people won't trust them.
Bibliography:
I mainly used my own knowledge for this task, especially within the press and media part but I did use Google Definitions to get quick definitions for the actual header and I also used
http://www.game-focus.net/news/over-13-million-people-played-battlefield-1-beta-355
http://www.treyarch.com/about.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-20-tesco-buying-used-games-nationwide
http://www.tesco.com/direct/gaming/games/cat3376217.cat
orangebison.com/author/cameron_chapman/page/2/
http://www.polygonestudios.com/
http://uk.ign.com/