AdeleB - Unit 12

1.
The company i researched today was Neversoft. This is a an American video game developer. They are located in Southern California and were founded in 1994 by Joel Jewett, Mick West and Chris Ward.
The company is best reconised for the Tony Hawks skateboarding games. The first Tony Hawks game was released 1999. Before this was released Neversoft made games called Skeleton Warriors and Apocalypse.
Neversoft then released Guitar Hero in 2007 and again like Tony Hawks has become a massive seller to the puplic.

2.
Three departments within the games industry were:

Designers - These are the people who draw and design the game. They do concept art for the characters and the enviroments, and they then pass this on to the 3D modelling people who then do the drawings in 3D.

Programmers: Once all the design process is complete, the programmers then program the game to make it all work. This is making sure everything moves right and that everything is in order.

Animaters: These are the people who makes the characters and enviroment move. Could be from the character running or it could be a ball rolling across the floor.

3.

5 Different job types are:

Games Tester: These test the games to see if there is any bugs that are in the game and they make sure everything is working right and to see if everything is in order. The responsiblities they have are to make sure the whole game works right because if they pass the game and it then goes out to the puplic and there is a bug in the game then it all falls back on who ever tested the game.

3D Modeller: These are the people who make a drawing in to 3D and make it all realistic as possible. The responsibilities they have are to make sure the modelling is done on time, make sure the model is at very good standed and looks like what the designers ask them to do.

Producer: These look over anyone and everything when a game is getting produced. They have to keep track of everything and make sure everything is on time such as the designs and other things that are getting done for the game. Producers are also the ones who need to present the game to focus groups, journalists etc, so they can get the game advertised etc.

Concept Artists: Once the compny has came up with a game its then down to the artist to produce drawings to match the brief. These can draw loads of drawings to present. If its a character they need to do then they have to do this character doing actions etc.

Programmer: These are the people who makes the video game work. They write the computer language etc. Their responsibilities are to make sure the game works in order.

Motion Control

With games becoming more experienced, games are now involving the people who play them more. With this new motion control, people can now interact with the game they are playing than ever before. The WII is a great example for this as the player can stand there and actually move there arms and legs to the game that they are playing so for example if they play a golf game on the WII, with the motion controller the player has to move the way a golfer would move to hit the ball.
PS3 are also expected to bring a motion controller out that acts kind of the same way the WII controller does.
Motion control has really became a hit in the past few years and it is only going to get better in the way you move with the controller and they way the consoul will reconise it.



Music Games

With guitar hero being released, this has become a very big hit with the puplic. With guitar hero you can simply use this special guitar to play your way though some of the greatest songs in the past years by pressing buttons on the guitar to the beat in the song. Also with rock band being released a group of people can now enjoy playing there way through songs. Rock band includes some drums guitar microfone etc so its like having your own little band.
Also on the PS3 you have sing star, this is were a person can sing through there favorite songs while singing into the special microfone.
Xbox are also releaseing a singing game called LIPZ. This acts almost in the same way as sing star.
Music games are a really big hit as it does bring people together and to have fun either at partys or just for fun.


Social Networking

With social networking also being big with the puplic, it is a easy way of getting to know people while you are playing games. Consouls now have places were you can message your friends etc and also see them with cameras that consouls have. Also you can speak to your friends with the built in microfone the cameras have or you can now buy a special head set were you can use this to either speak to you friends or if you are playing a game online you can use it to speak to other players. Again this is a great way to get to know other players around the world and to make friends.

Contacts

Contacts are used with a game company as it then shows employees were they stand within the company.
Some contacts are:

Work for hire agreement

This contract explains that all the work the employee produces it is all owed by the company. So if a employee leaves the company they can’t take any work they have done has the company owns it.

Work agreement

This includes all the working requirements from the employee so it can include working patterns, working hours also how many holidays they have though out the year.
Regulatory Requirements

Trademark

A trade mark is an intellectual property and is something that has to be used within a game business. It shows that the game products they produce come from a unique source. A trademark can be a the company’s logo or something they have produced, so with the trademark on it, this means that nobody else can use this logo etc as it represents the company.

Ethical
Some ethical considerations within a game company are within the work place and also in the game content. Ethical considerations in game content are to make sure the game the company is producing is suitable for the age that the company has rated it at. For example if the company was making a violent game, they wouldn’t put the age as 5+. These are the ethical decisions they have to make.
Ethical considerations within the company are basically to make sure everybody gets treated the same and there isn’t anybody that gets unfairly.