Dramatic Elements of Games

  • Premise
  • Character
  • Story
  • Challenge
  • Play

The problem with story: Stories are uncertain, but are resolved by authorship, not agency.

Two frameworks for narrative play

  • Embedded Narrative: text adventures, choose your own adventure, Myst, role-playing games, interfilm
  • Emergent Narrative: tabletop RPGs, simulations (Sims)
    • interactive narrative: where audience participates in the creation of the experience

Bertoldt Brecht: breaking the fourth wall.

Turing Test

  • chatbot AIs
  • Sims / Sims "advertisement" system

Business of Games

  • Publishers

    • Finance the games
    • Package, market, sell and distribute the games
    • Have a strong say in the design
    • Close relationship between producers on both sides

  • Examples of publishers: Nintendo, EA, Sony, Ubisoft, Square, Konami, LucasArts, Sega, Capcom

  • Developers

    • Come up with game ideas
    • Sell them to publishers
    • Design, prototype, and playtest the game
    • Produce game assets
    • Deliver software "builds" to publisher for QA testing

  • Examples of Developers: Blizzard, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Konami, Yahoo! Games

(flow chart) Goals -> Deliverables -> Schedule -> Budget. If budget is too high, revise previous three.

Emotional Rollercoaster

  • Concern
  • Shock
  • Relief
  • Denial
  • Grief
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance
  • Interest
  • Involvement
  • Enthusiasm

Project Plan: most important document in production.

Publisher's Team

  • Executives
  • Marketing Team
  • Quality Assurance
  • Producer, assistant producer

Developer's Team

  • Producer, assistant producer
  • Game designers
  • Programmers
  • Visual artists
  • Quality Assurance
  • Specialized Media

Statistics

  • Most gamers (44%) have been playing games for less than 5 years
  • Gamer population is growing because young people are being added when they come of age and existing gamers are not leaving as they get older
  • Console games > PC games / Edutainment
  • Ratio of Hits to Flops: 1 - 8 (movies ratio is 1 - 15)
  • Average team size by platform: NES < Genesis / SNES < PSX < PS2 / GameCube Xbox < Next Gen

Developer/Publisher Deals

  • Developer/Publisher (50%): milestone based payment from publisher.
  • Distribution Deal (20%): developer pays for all dev and takes bigger share of revenue
  • Co-Publishing (15%): risk shared between developer/publisher
  • Licensing/Developing Deals (15%): Publisher pays for license and then hires a developer on a work for hire basis

Royalty Rates

  • Where most of the developer income should come from
  • Most important contract provision is formula for how royalties are recouped
  • Royalties are calculated on "adjusted gross income"... developer gets paid after publisher makes deductions.
  • Royalties received by developer after publisher breaks even. Publisher puts a percentage of every dollar towards making themselves whole.

Rising development costs means it's getting harder to innovate.

In the future

  • Casual games: cut out the retailer.
  • Microtransanction games.
  • Online distribution.

Bottom Line

  • Creative people shouldn't shy away from business isssues.
  • Understanding them will pay off over and over again in your career.
  • GET A GOOD LAWYER.
changed April 30, 2008