LO4 - Powerpoint presentation



This was done by both Ahmed

This was done by Junaid



This was done by Junaid



This was done by Ahmed

This was done by Ahmed

This was by Junaid



This was done by Ahmed

This was done by Junaid



This was done by Junaid



This was done by Ahmed

 

LO3 – Be able to reviews a computer console game

Street Fighter IV is a fighting game that is famous for it's combo moves and it's unique characters. The game shows the stylistic conventions of fighting games through the combos, arenas and characters presented to the player.
Compared to other big name fighting games, such as Tekken and Mortal Kombat, Street fighter IV has distinguished itself as the most popular due to the many competitions held at major gaming exhibitions around the world.

You must defeat all your opponents to face your arch nemesis and then the boss 'Seth' who is a mix of most of the characters in the game and a creation of the main bad guy 'M.Bison' who is trying to lure 'Ryu' into a battle with Seth so he can extract Ryu's data and complete the 'BLECE' project which will allow evil to rule over everything.

In the story of the game you have the choice to play as one of 19 characters, who each have a unique backstory which is revealed slowly after you beat a selected amount of opponents. You can repeat the story mode as many times as you wish with as many characters as you wish. The characters in the game will capture the emotion of the attention of the user with the interesting stories assigned to each unique character. 

Street Fighter IV was created on a custom engine that specifically developed certain parts of the game to work in a chosen way for example, the combo system in Street Fighter IV is different from any other game as the 'super gauge' fills the user has the choice to sacrifice it for a quick combo, or let it fill to the end for a 'super combo'.

The mechanics in the game are very fun and free, unlike other fighting games, street fighter allows you to create your own custom combinations which may not take away as much damage but will be entertaining to achieve.

The physics in the game are flawless as the custom engine specifically manufactured them in this way.

Each character has it's own individual personality that the user can associate themselves with. The characters have different moves and different attributes that will give them the upper hand in the game if used correctly. For example, Guile has the ability to fire projectiles, this could allow the user to keep their distance from the opponent and still win the match.

Most of the characters in Street Fighter IV have been brought in from previous Street Fighter games and all of them have unrivaled appearances and personalities that can relate to pretty much anyone, no matter what your age, gender or race is. The characters follow the conventions of the genre to an extent. Different people will use the different characters in many different ways, this makes the game very unpredictable. Users can unlock different colour costumes for characters and can also purchase different outfits for them.

The Street Fighter gameplay has made it one of the most recognizable games in recent years. The single and multiplayer battles are unrivalled on similar games as they are so unpredictable, the user must play close attention to every second of the game if they want to ensure a win in the game and this is very engaging. There are many elements to the game that are key to the success of it. For example, the combo system is one,
the simple but outstanding characters is another and the recognizable theme music is a third. The gameplay engages the user with that narrative as the story can lead to the user despising another character and wanting to beat it due to it's cheap moves, big ego, funny outfit or anything else.
Capcom usually make a new updates for the game which correct errors or bugs. After a few years another version of the game is released on different platforms, this includes new characters, new stages, new stories and more unlock able items such as concept art and music.

The age rating of the game is 12 as it has violent themes and some characters can be scary for young children, so the game's target audience is anyone from the age of 12+. The game contains violence and themes of hatred between characters.
The game appeals directly to a fan of fighting games as Street Fighter is such a well known name and the quality of games produced under this name is often rated very high when reviewed.
Compared to Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter IV is very modest. Mortal Kombat is very gory and different in many ways to street fighter in terms of characters and mechanics, but still has the same target audience.

The game can be played on an Arcade machine, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and iOS. 
The game is more suited to the arcade platform as it was made for the arcade machines. The arcade machines give the user an arcade stick which makes the game very fun and easy to play.

Identifying competition

Angry Birds

The current sales revenue for Angry Birds is £129 million

The market for Angry Birds is apps on mobile phones and tablets and it is also downloaded on Xbox, ps3 and pc.

The audience groups for Angry Birds are varied as the game is played by different ages.

Angry Birds was developed and published by Rovio Entertainment

Flappy Birds

The current sales revenues are not available because the game has been took down from the apps store however, Flappy Birds made around $50,000 in sales per day.

Flappy Birds was in the app market and was only released to the Android and Apple app store.

The audience group for Flappy Birds is very broad as many different ages and both genders play this game.

Flappy Birds was developed by Vietnam Dong Nguyen and published by GEARS Studios.

Methods of collecting data.

Questionnaire (such as the on below).
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GKNDV5S
Face to face interviews (such as the one below).

Achievements

Today, as a team we have completed the production plan and some research about the programming of the game.

Production Plan

Target Audience of the game.

Eric is a 19 year old Asian boy who studies criminology at Sheffield University. He lives in student accommodation with two of his closest friends who also study the same subject. Eric has a part time job where he works at a local newsagents. Eric is an avid gamer and has played video games ever since he was 6 years old. His favourite games series are Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row as he is extremely amused by action games as they are fast paced and exciting. Eric's favourite console is the PS3 and is saving up to buy the PS4 with his part time job. Apart from playing games Eric enjoys playing basketball, listening to rap music by the likes of 2Pac and John Cena and watching action movies such as Die Hard and Transporter on Netflix.

LO2 - Understand the importance of reviews for the marketing and promotion of computer console games.

A written comparison of two reviews of an existing computer game from different media.
 
VIDEO REVIEW
MAGAZINE REVIEW
 

After reading the Forza 5 review from IGN on the Xbox One you get the impression that the game has both negatives and positives.  The reader will become either persuaded by the review, or ignore the review. Personally I think that the review is fair.
 

“Forza 5 is gorgeous and smooth as butter”, the word “gorgeous” is quite emotive. The word is directed at the game in a whole.

After reading the review as a whole, I would probably purchase the game as it has many positive points and not as many negatives.

The video review from ThatDudeInBlue starts off very positive and makes you want to buy the game as they focus on good points "Forza 5 is everything it should be".

Compared to the IGN review, the video review from ThatDudeInBlue is far less detailed, but clearly outlines the good and bad points at the beginning of the review whilst the IGN review summarises the whole review in a paragraph.

The internet video starts of positive, but around the middle of the game the negative comments start and outweigh the positive ones.

The reviewer talks about the lack of multiplayer game modes, and says this is a big problem as some of his best memories have been made whilst playing online. This makes you not want to get the game as almost all good video games have a decent multiplayer mode.

The IGN review called "Forza 5 'Metal made beautiful" praises the game saying "it is very hard to fault", the reviewer then goes on to say how the graphics are "astonishing" due to the careful details on the "lavish" cars. The reviewer calls the game a "Titan" and a "Must have", these phrases make the viewer want to have the game.

Overall the online video review makes clearer and more in depth points in comparison to the IGN magazine review.

In the IGN review you get a sense that it is personal and engages the viewer due to the colloquial language, for example in the IGN review, the reviewer mentions the game is as though " a set of keys is wedged into the palms of a grinning teenager." The online video review lacks any colloquial language, however it is far more informative.

 

LO1 - Understand the computer console game industry and its products

Evidence of research into one chosen gaming company.
Team Cooper is a games company who also make apps. They are based in Sheffield and operate in the Electric Works building. Team Cooper was first started in 2006 by one person however, overtime more people were added to the team and now has 8 members. The company was set up to create fun and exciting games.
they first used Flash to develop their games however, they have now moved on diversifying, investigating and working with a variety of new technologies like HTML5, HAXE & Unity whilst still using old Flash, PHP & MySQL.
Team Cooper create many types of genres of games, this includes Art, action, and Arcade.

Evidence of write up of Sumo presentation.
Sumo digital came into our college and gave a presentation.
Sumo digital are based in Sheffield with over 12 years of  and have over 200 employees. Sumo digital have made many famous games such as Sonic & Allstars racing: transformed and Virtua Tennis 2009. Sumo use various software to create their games, the software differs for each department, the art department use 3D studio, Zed brush and MIA, whilst the programmers code with C++.  Sumo create games on many consoles, such as PS3, XBOX 360 and PSP, recently Sumo have had success with Sega and are now working with them, developing new titles.

Team Cooper business report.

 The games company I am going to research is Team Cooper. Team Cooper is a games company who also make apps. They are based in Sheffield and operate in the Electric Works building. Team Cooper was first started in 2006 by one person however, overtime more people were added to the team and now has 8 members. The company was set up to create fun and exciting games. Team Cooper create their products with Flash and HTML 5 and have served clients such as Sky, CBBC, Nickelodeon and Al-Jazeera.

Here is a hierarchy of Team Cooper:

Team Cooper create their products on the computer, they first used Flash to develop their games however, they have now moved on diversifying, investigating and working with a variety of new technologies like HTML5, HAXE & Unity whilst still using old Flash, PHP & MySQL.

The Facebook games which Team Cooper have developed are made using Flash, PHP & MySQL and the mobile games and iPhone/Android apps have been created on HTML5. Team Cooper’s future projects are likely to be built in Flash, HTML5, Unity or C++; for desktop, mobile or “something else” according to the Team Cooper website.

According to Team Cooper, the best technology for creating games is Flash, it is better than HTML 5 as it has faster rendering speeds across browsers and has good audio support. For viral marketing it is useful as the full game can be compressed into a single SWF file, this allows it to be distributed and copied easily around the web.

Team Cooper create many types of genres of games, this includes Art, action, and Arcade. The games Team Cooper create are all cartoon and are suitable for young children as they’re who the target audience. Examples of Team Cooper’s games are “Beehive Bedlam” and “Blockbusters”.

Team Cooper do not make games on consoles, previously they have tried creating games on different platforms but now they only make internet and mobile based games, these are sometimes puzzle games such as ‘Beehive Bedlam’, multi lingual games such as ‘The Marathon’ as or anything else ranging from skill games to arcade games.

The regulatory body in charge of rating Team Cooper’s games are The Pan-European Game information (PEGI). PEGI was created in 2003 and is one of the most commonly used rating systems as it clearly labels any inappropriate games.

PEGI’s ratings are in the age categories of 3+, 7+, 12+, 16+ and 18+. These are based on whether the game contains gambling, online play, violence, discrimination, sex, drugs, fear and bad language.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was the first regulatory body that was created specially for the games industry, it was founded in Canada and the USA in 1994.
The job of the ESRB is to give age ratings for games within the USA and Canada.

Team Cooper has never had a game of theirs banned as they have followed the guidelines given by PEGI.

Examples of video games that have been banned in the UK are:
Carmageddon, Manhunt 2 and The Punisher.

8 reviews of existing computer games.

Click links to view the review of the game (PDF):

WWE 2K14
STREET FIGHTER IV
QUAKE
MIDNIGHT CLUB: LOS ANGELES
SUPER MARIO BROS
GRAND THEFT AUTO V
CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE
FIFA 14