Information about Computer Game Developer
A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game system, such as the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.
Some developers also specialize in certain types of games, such as RPGs or FPSs, an example of which would be Square-Enix who are mainly associated with the RPG genre. Some focus on porting games from one system to another. Some focus on translating games from one language to another, especially from Japanese to English. An unusual few do other kinds of software development work in addition to games.
Most video game publishers, such as Electronic Arts, Activision, and Sony, do maintain development studios, but these companies are generally called "publishers" and not "developers", as publishing is the primary activity of these companies.
Outside of publishers, there are well over 1,000 video game development companies today. Many are tiny 1- or 2-person operations creating Flash games for the web, or games for cell phones. Others are large companies with studios in multiple locations, with hundreds of employees. As a rule, developers are privately held companies; only a very few non-publishing developers have ever been publicly traded companies.
Historically, the preferred development method has shifted several times. The original arcade and console games of the 1970s and early 1980s were developed in-house by manufacturers such as Atari and Williams, with each game using a single programmer. Meanwhile, the home computer market attracted hobbyist programmers who lacked the resources to publish their own games, which led to the first developer-publisher relationships. Although the earliest of these developers were effectively independents, selling directly to computer stores, industry trends towards larger, more expensive games and larger publishing contracts for national and global retail encouraged the development of a strong third-party. By the 1990s, independent development had almost disappeared from the industry consciousness, with a rare exception in id Software. In the mid-2000s, however, independents have seen a renewal of industry attention, primarily due to concerns over the overwhelming scope and cost of the games that major retail publishers now demand. Some developers are responding to these pressures either by leaving the retail publishing market entirely, or by streamlining their process with a new emphasis on outsourcing the bulk of their work, much as movie studios do.
The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered, for example, every four to eight weeks. By receiving updated milestones, the publisher is able to verify that work is progressing quickly enough to meet the publisher's deadline, and to give direction to the developer if the game is turning out other than as expected in some way. When each milestone is completed and accepted, the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties. The developer uses this money to fund its payroll and otherwise fund its operations.
Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. In general, however, third-party developers tend to be small, and comprised of a single, closely-knit team.
Third-party game development is a volatile business, as small developers may be entirely dependent on money from one publisher. A single canceled game can be lethal to a small developer. Because of this, many of the smaller development companies last only a few years or sometimes only a few months. The continual struggle to get payment for milestones and to line up the next game contract is a persistent distraction to the management of every game developer.
A common and desirable "exit strategy" for an extremely successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, and thus become an in-house developer.
In-house development teams tend to have more freedom as to the design and content of a game, compared to the third-party developers teams. Part of the reason for this is that since the developers are employees of the publisher, their interests are as exactly aligned with those of the publisher as is possible. The publisher can therefore spend much less effort making sure that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the ultimate expense of the publisher.
In recent years the larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house" they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner, each with its own culture and work practices. For example: Activision acquired Raven (1997), Neversoft (1999), Z-Axis (2001), Treyarch (2001), Luxoflux (2002), Shaba (2002), Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue to operate much as they did before acquisition, with the primary differences being in exclusivity and the financial details.
History has shown that publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget and missing deadlines than third-party developers.
An in-house development team that works for a console hardware manufacturer is also known as a first-party developer. A company that is closely tied to a console manufacturer (or occasionally a publisher) is known as a second-party developer. Rather confusingly the publishers themselves are sometimes referred to as third-party developers in the context of their relationships with the console manufacturers (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo). This particular distinction of first, second and third party developers does not generally apply to PC games development.
Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the huge marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products never get as much recognition or popular acclaim as those of larger publishers. However, they are free to explore experimental themes and styles of gameplay that mainstream publishers would not risk their money on. Other independent developers create game software for a number of video game publishers on various gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline, with the larger publishers such as Electronic Arts and Activision increasingly turning to internal studios, usually former independent developers that they have acquired for the majority of their development needs.
Many find this type of environment to be rewarding and pleasant, both professionally and personally. However, the industry is also known to require generally high working hours of its employees, sometimes at a level seen as unsustainable and destructive. [2]
It should be noted that in addition to being within the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry, and most sectors of the entertainment industry (such as movies and television) are generally known to require long working hours and dedication from their employees. The creative rewards of entertainment industries in general attract more potential labor to the industry than some others, creating a competitive labor market within the industry and thus requiring a higher level of performance from those who wish to remain competitive as employees. However, even given this, many feel that current working conditions in the industry are causing significant deterioration of the quality of life of its employees, and within industry communities (such as the IGDA) there is an increasing amount of discussion about the problem. Factors such as 'crunch time', described below, tend to heighten the overload.
An extremely common management response to this is to invoke "crunch time", dictating a 60- to 80-hour week with work over the weekends, in the hope that the team will be able to catch up. The complexity of the work flow in video game creation makes it very difficult to manage the team's schedules, meaning that it is an unusual project that does not surprise its managers with slippage at some point.
Controversially, employees in the United States are not paid overtime pay when crunching, as all developers maintain salaried employees. Salaried employees are classified as exempt, who are not paid by the hour, and are classified as "professionals". Therefore, most state laws on overtime pay do not apply. A notable exception is California where software developers are specifically protected by enforcing a minimum hourly wage (for every hour worked) to be considered exempt. As of 2006, this minimum salary works out to about USD$99K/yr, assuming a 40-hour week.
Attention to crunching came to something of a head in 2004 when a blog entry titled "ea_spouse", a manifesto of sorts, was published. Railing against the cruelty of crunch time, it was posted by Erin Hoffman, the then-fiancee of Electronic Arts developer Leander Hasty (Hasty and Hoffman have since joined an independent development studio, 1st Playable Productions [1], and founded a website oriented towards the discussion of the game development environment industry wide, Gamewatch [2]). Hoffman said her life was being indirectly destroyed by the company's work policy. This led to a great deal of debate in the industry, but without any visible changes until March 2005, when Electronic Arts internally announced that it was planning to extend overtime pay to some of its employees not currently eligible.
The underlying problem of poor scheduling remains. Game developers, especially newer ones, have a reputation for allowing excess enthusiasm for a project to override good sense, with reality as to the immense amount of work that has been taken on setting in after the commercial schedule has already been decided.
Japanese
日本語
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Outsourcing became part of the business lexicon during the 1980s and refers to the delegation of non-core operations from internal production to an external
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Some developers also specialize in certain types of games, such as RPGs or FPSs, an example of which would be Square-Enix who are mainly associated with the RPG genre. Some focus on porting games from one system to another. Some focus on translating games from one language to another, especially from Japanese to English. An unusual few do other kinds of software development work in addition to games.
Most video game publishers, such as Electronic Arts, Activision, and Sony, do maintain development studios, but these companies are generally called "publishers" and not "developers", as publishing is the primary activity of these companies.
Outside of publishers, there are well over 1,000 video game development companies today. Many are tiny 1- or 2-person operations creating Flash games for the web, or games for cell phones. Others are large companies with studios in multiple locations, with hundreds of employees. As a rule, developers are privately held companies; only a very few non-publishing developers have ever been publicly traded companies.
Types of developers
Video game developers fall into one of three main categories: third-party developers, in-house developers, and the smaller independents. Developers usually employ a staff of programmers, game designers, artists, sound engineers, producers and testers, though some of these roles may be outsourced. Confusingly, an individual person in any one of these roles may be referred to as a "video game developer".Historically, the preferred development method has shifted several times. The original arcade and console games of the 1970s and early 1980s were developed in-house by manufacturers such as Atari and Williams, with each game using a single programmer. Meanwhile, the home computer market attracted hobbyist programmers who lacked the resources to publish their own games, which led to the first developer-publisher relationships. Although the earliest of these developers were effectively independents, selling directly to computer stores, industry trends towards larger, more expensive games and larger publishing contracts for national and global retail encouraged the development of a strong third-party. By the 1990s, independent development had almost disappeared from the industry consciousness, with a rare exception in id Software. In the mid-2000s, however, independents have seen a renewal of industry attention, primarily due to concerns over the overwhelming scope and cost of the games that major retail publishers now demand. Some developers are responding to these pressures either by leaving the retail publishing market entirely, or by streamlining their process with a new emphasis on outsourcing the bulk of their work, much as movie studios do.
Third-party developers
Third-party developers are usually called upon by a video game publisher to develop a title for one or more systems. Both the publisher and the developer have a great deal of say as to the design and content of the game. In general, though, the publisher's wishes trump the developer's, as the publisher is paying the developer to create the game.The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered, for example, every four to eight weeks. By receiving updated milestones, the publisher is able to verify that work is progressing quickly enough to meet the publisher's deadline, and to give direction to the developer if the game is turning out other than as expected in some way. When each milestone is completed and accepted, the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties. The developer uses this money to fund its payroll and otherwise fund its operations.
Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. In general, however, third-party developers tend to be small, and comprised of a single, closely-knit team.
Third-party game development is a volatile business, as small developers may be entirely dependent on money from one publisher. A single canceled game can be lethal to a small developer. Because of this, many of the smaller development companies last only a few years or sometimes only a few months. The continual struggle to get payment for milestones and to line up the next game contract is a persistent distraction to the management of every game developer.
A common and desirable "exit strategy" for an extremely successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, and thus become an in-house developer.
In-house development teams tend to have more freedom as to the design and content of a game, compared to the third-party developers teams. Part of the reason for this is that since the developers are employees of the publisher, their interests are as exactly aligned with those of the publisher as is possible. The publisher can therefore spend much less effort making sure that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the ultimate expense of the publisher.
In recent years the larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house" they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner, each with its own culture and work practices. For example: Activision acquired Raven (1997), Neversoft (1999), Z-Axis (2001), Treyarch (2001), Luxoflux (2002), Shaba (2002), Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue to operate much as they did before acquisition, with the primary differences being in exclusivity and the financial details.
History has shown that publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget and missing deadlines than third-party developers.
An in-house development team that works for a console hardware manufacturer is also known as a first-party developer. A company that is closely tied to a console manufacturer (or occasionally a publisher) is known as a second-party developer. Rather confusingly the publishers themselves are sometimes referred to as third-party developers in the context of their relationships with the console manufacturers (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo). This particular distinction of first, second and third party developers does not generally apply to PC games development.
Independent developers
Independents are small software developers that are not owned by or beholden to a single publisher.Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the huge marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products never get as much recognition or popular acclaim as those of larger publishers. However, they are free to explore experimental themes and styles of gameplay that mainstream publishers would not risk their money on. Other independent developers create game software for a number of video game publishers on various gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline, with the larger publishers such as Electronic Arts and Activision increasingly turning to internal studios, usually former independent developers that they have acquired for the majority of their development needs.
Quality of life
Video game development is usually performed in an extremely casual business environment. T-shirts and sandals are common work attire. Work hours are usually flexible; many developers start the work day at 10:00 AM, though employees usually work at least a full 40 hours a week. Employees are paid fairly well for what seems to outsiders to be light work. Many developers have some sort of profit-sharing plan to reward their employees.[1]Many find this type of environment to be rewarding and pleasant, both professionally and personally. However, the industry is also known to require generally high working hours of its employees, sometimes at a level seen as unsustainable and destructive. [2]
It should be noted that in addition to being within the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry, and most sectors of the entertainment industry (such as movies and television) are generally known to require long working hours and dedication from their employees. The creative rewards of entertainment industries in general attract more potential labor to the industry than some others, creating a competitive labor market within the industry and thus requiring a higher level of performance from those who wish to remain competitive as employees. However, even given this, many feel that current working conditions in the industry are causing significant deterioration of the quality of life of its employees, and within industry communities (such as the IGDA) there is an increasing amount of discussion about the problem. Factors such as 'crunch time', described below, tend to heighten the overload.
Crunch time
Most video game developers are notorious for overworking their employees. "Crunch time" is the point at which it is not going to achieve everything needed in order to complete the milestone on time, meaning the publisher will not pay the developer until the milestone is indeed completed; and since most development companies are such small operations, this presents a real risk that the company won't be able to pay its employees on time. Worse threats occur when it becomes apparent that the team won't be able to ship the game, as a whole, on time.An extremely common management response to this is to invoke "crunch time", dictating a 60- to 80-hour week with work over the weekends, in the hope that the team will be able to catch up. The complexity of the work flow in video game creation makes it very difficult to manage the team's schedules, meaning that it is an unusual project that does not surprise its managers with slippage at some point.
Controversially, employees in the United States are not paid overtime pay when crunching, as all developers maintain salaried employees. Salaried employees are classified as exempt, who are not paid by the hour, and are classified as "professionals". Therefore, most state laws on overtime pay do not apply. A notable exception is California where software developers are specifically protected by enforcing a minimum hourly wage (for every hour worked) to be considered exempt. As of 2006, this minimum salary works out to about USD$99K/yr, assuming a 40-hour week.
Attention to crunching came to something of a head in 2004 when a blog entry titled "ea_spouse", a manifesto of sorts, was published. Railing against the cruelty of crunch time, it was posted by Erin Hoffman, the then-fiancee of Electronic Arts developer Leander Hasty (Hasty and Hoffman have since joined an independent development studio, 1st Playable Productions [1], and founded a website oriented towards the discussion of the game development environment industry wide, Gamewatch [2]). Hoffman said her life was being indirectly destroyed by the company's work policy. This led to a great deal of debate in the industry, but without any visible changes until March 2005, when Electronic Arts internally announced that it was planning to extend overtime pay to some of its employees not currently eligible.
The underlying problem of poor scheduling remains. Game developers, especially newer ones, have a reputation for allowing excess enthusiasm for a project to override good sense, with reality as to the immense amount of work that has been taken on setting in after the commercial schedule has already been decided.
See also
References
1. ^ The Game Industry Salary Survey 2007 from GameCareerGuide.com
2. ^ EA: The Human Story from LiveJournal
2. ^ EA: The Human Story from LiveJournal
External links
- Breaking into the game industry from the IGDA
Computer software is a general term used to describe a collection of computer programs, procedures and documentation that perform some task on a computer system. [1]
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Software developer may refer to:
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- A software company or other organization that develops software.
- A developer, a person who develops software such as a project manager or programmer.
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video game is a game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device.
The word video in video game traditionally refers to a raster display device.
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The word video in video game traditionally refers to a raster display device.
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video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or electronic device that manipulates the video display signal of a display device (a television, monitor, etc.) to display a game.
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Sony Corporation
ソニー株式会?
Public (TYO: 6758 ; NYSE: SNE )
Founded May 7 1946 (adopted current name in 1958) by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita[1]
Headquarters Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan[1]
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ソニー株式会?
Public (TYO: 6758 ; NYSE: SNE )
Founded May 7 1946 (adopted current name in 1958) by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita[1]
Headquarters Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan[1]
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Flash memory input
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- MemoryStick/PRO/Duo*
- SD/MMC*
- CompactFlash/Microdrive*
- HDMI 1.3a out
- S/PDIF out
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Microsoft Corporation
Public (NASDAQ: MSFT )
Founded Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA (April 4 1975)[1]
Headquarters Redmond, Washington, United States
Key people Bill Gates, Co-founder and Executive Chairman ;
Paul Allen, Co-founder ;
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Public (NASDAQ: MSFT )
Founded Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA (April 4 1975)[1]
Headquarters Redmond, Washington, United States
Key people Bill Gates, Co-founder and Executive Chairman ;
Paul Allen, Co-founder ;
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Nintendo Company, Limited
任天堂株式会?
Public
TYO: 7974
NTDOY
FWB: NTO
Founded September 23 1889
Headquarters Kyoto, Japan
International:
Redmond, Washington, USA
Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
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任天堂株式会?
Public
TYO: 7974
NTDOY
FWB: NTO
Founded September 23 1889
Headquarters Kyoto, Japan
International:
Redmond, Washington, USA
Richmond, British Columbia, Canada
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WII may refer to:
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- Wildlife Institute of India (WII)
- Wii, a video game console released by Nintendo
See also
- World War II (WWII)
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video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or electronic device that manipulates the video display signal of a display device (a television, monitor, etc.) to display a game.
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personal computer (PC) is a computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals.
It is unknown who coined the phrase with the intent of a small affordable computing device but John W.
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It is unknown who coined the phrase with the intent of a small affordable computing device but John W.
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computer role-playing game (CRPG[1]) is a broad video game genre originally developed for personal computers and other home computers. The earliest CRPGs were inspired by early role-playing games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons
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RPG is an abbreviation with several different meanings:
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- RPG programming language, a native programming language for IBM's System i servers
- RPG Life Sciences, an Indian pharmaceutical company
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porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed (e.g. different CPU, operating system, or third party library).
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This article contains Japanese text.
Without proper ,
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Without proper ,
you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji or kana.
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English}}}
Writing system: Latin (English variant)
Official status
Official language of: 53 countries
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
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ISO 639-2: eng
ISO 639-3: eng
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Writing system: Latin (English variant)
Official status
Official language of: 53 countries
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: en
ISO 639-2: eng
ISO 639-3: eng
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A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer.
As with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video game publishers are responsible for their product's
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As with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video game publishers are responsible for their product's
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Electronic Arts, Inc
Public (NASDAQ: ERTS )
Founded 1982
Headquarters Redwood City, California, United States
Key people Trip Hawkins, Founder and CEO to 1991
Larry Probst, current chairman of the board and CEO from 1991-2007
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Public (NASDAQ: ERTS )
Founded 1982
Headquarters Redwood City, California, United States
Key people Trip Hawkins, Founder and CEO to 1991
Larry Probst, current chairman of the board and CEO from 1991-2007
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Activision, Inc.
Public (NASDAQ: ATVI )
Founded 1979
Headquarters Santa Monica, CA[1]
Industry Computer and video games
Products Call of Duty series
Spider-Man series
Quake series
Tony Hawk's series
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Public (NASDAQ: ATVI )
Founded 1979
Headquarters Santa Monica, CA[1]
Industry Computer and video games
Products Call of Duty series
Spider-Man series
Quake series
Tony Hawk's series
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Sony Corporation
ソニー株式会?
Public (TYO: 6758 ; NYSE: SNE )
Founded May 7 1946 (adopted current name in 1958) by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita[1]
Headquarters Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan[1]
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ソニー株式会?
Public (TYO: 6758 ; NYSE: SNE )
Founded May 7 1946 (adopted current name in 1958) by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita[1]
Headquarters Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan[1]
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Player support only: GNU/Linux (Intel, x86) and Solaris (Intel, SPARC) [1]
Genre: Multimedia Content Creator
License: Proprietary EULA
Website: Adobe.com's Flash page Adobe Flash, or simply Flash
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Genre: Multimedia Content Creator
License: Proprietary EULA
Website: Adobe.com's Flash page Adobe Flash, or simply Flash
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mobile phone or cell phone is a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication. In addition to the standard voice function of a telephone, current mobile phones can support many additional services such as SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching
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A game programmer is a programmer who primarily develops video games or related software (such as game development tools). Game programming has many specialized disciplines; practitioners of any may regard themselves as "game programmers".
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A game designer is a person who designs games. The term can refer to a person who designs video games, or one who designs traditional games such as board games.
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Video and computer game designer
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A game artist is an artist who creates art for one or more types of games. Game artists are responsible for all of the aspects of game development that call for visual art. Game artists are often noted in role-playing games, collectible card games and computer and video games.
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A game producer is the person in charge of overseeing development of a video game.
The earliest documented use of the term producer in games was by Trip Hawkins, who established the position when he founded Electronic Arts in 1982.
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The earliest documented use of the term producer in games was by Trip Hawkins, who established the position when he founded Electronic Arts in 1982.
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A game tester analyzes video games to document software defects as part of a quality control process in video game development. While popularized as a dream job for gamers, interactive entertainment software testing is a highly technical field requiring computing expertise,
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worldwide view of the subject.
Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page.
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Outsourcing became part of the business lexicon during the 1980s and refers to the delegation of non-core operations from internal production to an external
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