1. Monday 7th October
Different modes of games
development

2. Monday 7th October
Different modes of
games development
There are a few other ways you can make
video games rather than the Rockstar way. The
first is a business model but brings home just
how expensive it is to make games these days
especially for the PS3 and 360.

3. Monday 7th October
The ‘Tent Pole’ business
model
This is similar to the business model a lot of Hollywood studios:
the idea is that the publisher releases one ‘blockbuster’ game
accompanied with heavy marketing and investment. Then the
money made from this game supports the development of other
‘riskier’, potentially more creative games.
For instance: Grand Theft Auto brings in a lot of money for
Rockstar which allows them to invest smaller hits such as Canis
Canem Edit (Eventually Bully…) , Manhunt and future products
such as LA Noire and Agent.

4. The Boston Matrix

5. The Boston Matrix
These kind of businesses have a range of products.
• Cash cows – products that can be relied on to bring in
money. Aka a GTA title for R*
• Dogs – Units with low market share in a mature industry…
low market share in a slow growing industry
• Question marks – products that are growing rapidly but
have low market share so they do not generate much cash
– huge potential and should be looked at carefully…
• Stars – high market share in a fast growing industry. The
hope is that stars become the next cash cows.

6. Monday 7th October
The ‘Tent Pole’ business
model
Eg. EA rely on the annual updates of Madden and
FIFA to create cash for the research and
development of other games. In 2008 EA spent
$372 million on research and development (R&D)
– the reason for this is that PS3 and Xbox 360
games can cost up to $30 million to make.

7. Monday 7th October
The ‘Tent Pole’
business model
Problems with this:
The problems with this is the
company are gambling on that one
game being a hut, and sometimes
even big games don’t return the
money – eg. Spore, sold 1 million
copies in its first 17 days, but the
development costs were so big that
EA only expect to make their
money back with 5 years of
updates and sequels.

8. The Hollywood model
• The idea is to contract out parts of the games
design (art, car physics, quality assurance etc.)
to other companies in order to lower
development costs. So instead of having a
permanent in-house development team of
50+, developer can have a team of 10-20
piecing the work together undertaken by
specialist external teams.

9. The Hollywood model
• Eg.
• Stunt teams,
• Director of photography
• Scriptwriters
• Etc – all elements are contracted out, just like
in the production of a AAA blockbuster movie.

10. Independent Game
Development
• Until recently games development was a costly
business, usually requiring a developer to a have a
publishing contract in order to pay for the
development and the license fee required to
develop for a particular console. However, now
there is a growing ‘Indie Game’ market thanks to
open source software, Apples App Store and Xbox
Live Marketplace small teams and even
individuals can create games, get them
distributed and make money.

11. Independent Game
Development
• The point to make is that because of new
technology, convergence and new ways of
distribution we have a return to the bedroom
development culture weird, wonderful, often
abstract games – so it means not all games
have to be GTA 4.

12. Independent Game
Development
• Aside from basic development costs, console
game developers are required to pay fees to
license the required Software Development
Kits (SDKs) from the console manufacturer.
Manufacturers often impose a strict approval
process and take a percentage of the game's
net profit in addition to yearly developer fees.

13. Independent Game
Development
• As of this writing, to develop for Nintendo Wii,
Xbox 360, or Playstation 3 requires an SDK license
fee of between $2,000 and $10,000 USD, in
addition to yearly developer fees and profit cuts.
Interestingly Sony have slashed the SDK cost from
$10,000 to $2,000 in order to cut development
costs and hopefully increased third-party
productivity.

14. Independent Game
Development: Braid
Braid
• Braid was created by Jonathan Blow, taking three years
and $180,000 of this own investment , to make. It was
originally released for the PC and sold 55,000 copies in
first week (making £530,000 in revenue).
• Blow then agreed to release a version for the Xbox Live
Marketplace but had reservations as Microsoft have the
final say on what goes on there and have a four stage
approval process:

15. Independent Game
Development: Braid
‘Blow was critical of the Xbox Live certification process, as he
believed the effort to meet all the requirements could have been
better spent on polishing the game. At the same time, the
certification team allowed him to retain certain aspects of his
vision for the game that were otherwise contrary to the process,
including giving the player immediate control of the game instead
of requiring a start-up title screen.[52] Microsoft also requested
that Blow include some additional hints to the player based on
results of playtesting, but Blow held his ground, refusing to release
the game if he was forced to add these.[21] He said he would
likely not release a game again on the Xbox Live service under the
same business model.’ (Wikipedia)

16. Developing for the
iPhone
Developing for the iPhone
The iPhone SDK is a software development kit
developed by Apple , targeted at third-party
developers to develop applications for iPhone
OS, released in February 2008.
• The SDK itself is a free download, but in
order to release software, one must enrol
in the iPhone Developer Program, a step
requiring payment and Apple's approval.
As of January 2010, cost of enrolment in
the iPhone Developer Program is US$99
per year (the cost varies from country to
country) for the standard program.
• Developers who publish their applications
on the App Store will receive 70% of sales
revenue, and will not have to pay any
distribution costs for the application.

17. Developing for the
iPhone
Examples – Doodle Jump, released
April 2009, it has had nearly 4
million downloads.
Doodle Jump is the brainchild of
Igor and Marko Pusenjak, two
Croation brothers who released
the app under the banner of their
company Lima Sky.

18. TASK: If you are watching
this online – check out
• Make your own Blog notes on the the trailer here and
modes of development the official website
mentioned here
• When we have all done this, we
will be watching a documentary
movie: Indie Games – The Movie
released this summer that tracks
the development (and problems)
of three indie games:
Super Meat Boy, Braid and Fez