Game Developers

Without game developers, entertainment would no doubt be a duller and more complacent activity. Whether independent companies of 15 to 200 people or subsidiaries of larger publishers, developers create the immersive experiences that inspire millions to forego reality for fantasy. Game development involves the very technical disciplines of programming, including code optimization for target hardware, physics and artificial intelligence simulations, camera and interface development, and creation of tools to improve development efficiency. The art of game development lies with designers who envision everything from game balance to placement of doors in a level, artists who realize previously unimagined characters and worlds with an eye toward technical efficiency, and animators who marry a character's appearance and personality through motion. Producers keep the train on the track, identifying roadblocks before (or as) they occur and negotiating solutions among all stakeholders (Figure 1.2.1).

Figure 1.2.1: Position of each entity in the product path for a console game.

Full-Service Game Developers

Game developers in this category incorporate all the disciplines necessary to create millions of lines of game code from a single idea. Projects range from six-month, tightly focused opportunistic releases to three years of complex asset integration into a whole that is vast in scope. More than one recent project has exceeded five years and US $50 million to complete, although the cost for a current-generation console release on a single platform now ranges 12 to 24 months and US $2 to $5 million.

The proverbial brainstorm-turned-million-seller is rarer than industry aspirants care to believe. Of games actually published, the majority are based on intellectual property owned or controlled by the publisher, initiated by the publisher with a team whose qualifications (not the least of which is cost) complement that IP. Publishers can initiate "surefire" projects based on a blockbuster movie or book license, or "questionable" pet projects of a particular executive. Larger publishers can mine the seam of past releases for remakes, due to the hotly debated publisher practice of acquiring intellectual property rights to a promising developer's original game idea. Two truisms unite all these methods: a "no-brainer" concept does not guarantee a great game, and an offbeat idea, regardless of the source, sometimes sells spectacularly.

Developers interact primarily with their publisher and, on occasion, with the platform provider, who provides them with direct technical assistance for the target platform. When called upon by the publisher, developers also grant interviews and preview their progress to the media.

Independent development companies work with publishers on a contract basis. The publisher pays the developer "advances" against a schedule of development milestones. Frequently, the publisher also grants a royalty per unit sold to the developer; however, the royalty is only paid once the publisher's advance payments have been recouped against sales volume. In one recent example, a developer was granted $4/unit royalty, but recoupment against significant development advances ensured the developer would only receive royalties after the 900,000th unit sold. Scenarios like this feed ongoing industry debates about more equitable revenue-sharing for developers. Many developers have quietly resorted to building their target profit margin into their proposed advance payment schedule.

Development groups also exist as wholly or partially owned subsidiaries of publishers. As employees of either the parent company or the subsidiary, internal team members draw corporate salary and benefits. Stock options, bonuses for achieving sales targets, and profit-sharing programs vary widely by publisher; the development community generally acknowledges that the relative stability of working for a major publisher goes hand in hand with a smaller piece of the profit pie on momentous successes.

Other funding alternatives such as venture capital, completion bond funding, and angel financing play a small but growing part in game development, and are addressed elsewhere in this book.

Historically, many development groups have gotten their technological start creating PC games. Wide availability of technical information and a small but active engineering community supported many of today's marquee developers as they created early hits such as Doom. Today, developers such as Bioware, id Software, Valve, and 3D Realms include user-creation modules in their games, with which their player communities can modify parts of their games. Many entry-level designers or programmers in the industry today earned their position through a compelling "mod" presented as part of their portfolio.

Development for today's consoles—Sony's PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, the Nintendo Gamecube, and the Xbox videogame system from Microsoft— is harder to break into. The expense of proprietary development kits—up to US $10,000—and the requirement of a preexisting relationship with a publisher closes the door to all but the most innately talented startup groups. Consequently, many developers earn their credentials in PC gaming, and then make the leap to console on the strength of proven technology, design, and relationships.

Motion-Capture Service Providers

As hardware platforms follow Moore's law of increasing computing power, consumers and publishers have demanded increasing realism in certain types of games. In particular, developers can now replicate the uniquely identifiable characteristics of human motion with great accuracy for the first time in gaming. Mechanical leg movements on a football player gliding as if on ice have been replaced by true running steps with the inherent force, momentum, and style of the original player. To be sure, we cannot ignore the stunning contributions of painstaking manual animation to this advancement. However, for the speed and efficiency of achieving realism in human movement, we have motion-capture technology to thank.

Motion capture is the technological process by which scripted movements of human actors are "captured" by magnetic or optical sensors, yielding data which is then inserted into the game engine. "Mocap" is usually used when lifelike human movement is essential to the game concept. For example, a perfectly replicated signature move in a football videogame is a selling point to consumers playing as their favorite wide receiver, while a cartoon character might benefit from manual exaggeration of certain animations to emphasize its unreality. A mocap session is similar to a movie shoot, usually involving a director, a script or "moves list," an engineer manipulating the software that processes captured data, and actor(s) selected for their ability to repeat the desired action sequence accurately. Once the session is complete, the animation team works through the raw data, tweaking an elbow position or sword arc until the model behaves exactly as desired in-game.

Developers access motion-capture facilities in two ways: the publisher makes its onsite studio available, with costs allocated internally to the project, or the publisher directly subcontracts an external mocap service provider. Only rarely does a developer possess its own mocap studio, as costs involve much more than purchasing the hardware. As with any marriage of the subjective with technology, mocap works best with trained specialists at every level. Publishers with key franchises requiring mocap (such as football games) can recoup on the investment and training for an in-house studio; for most others, mocap is contracted out at costs exceeding US $150,000 for a full-service session.

As demand has increased for motion-capture services, the competition among independent mocap studios has led to price pressure. Some leading providers have honed their service-side offering as a result, providing not only shoot management but also data processing, animation tuning, assistance with engine integration, and post-shoot troubleshooting. One provider has productized their data processing software, offering it for license independently of its services. All providers continue to refine the accessibility of data throughout their processes, so developers can benefit from the efficiency of mocap without sacrificing the artistry of keyframed animation.

Art and Animation Service Providers

The increase in computer processing capability in game hardware has provoked an exponential increase in the quantity of art assets required. Onscreen processing limits of several characters comprising a few hundred textured polygons have exploded to millions of polygons making up a main character, several AI characters, a 3D deformable environment with actionable objects, extensive special effects, and realistic environmental lighting. The resulting productivity demands sometimes require outsourcing of the art production process.

Generally, the publisher and developer agree upon the outsourcing of art at contract. A full-service developer might bring an art group to the table based on a previous working relationship, or a publisher might specify a group on its vendor list. In either case, the cost of outsourcing is factored into the project cost and paid during the advance period. Developers generally list contracted art as a separate line item in their proposal.

Art production is one way for fledgling developers to build their reputation on a console platform, particularly if the group's members have a PC background. The developer not only gains access to the proprietary development systems, but also learns the constraints of art production for the target platform and game engine— from simpler matters such as per-character polygon count to the currently bedeviling issue of limited texture memory. Art production teams who master these issues, build impeccable working relationships with their partner publishers, and carefully hire top-flight programmers have the best chance at breaking through to full-service independent development.

The cost of art production varies wildly with desired quality level, quantity of assets requested, duration of project, and extent of process/logistical integration with the full-service development team. In addition, art production houses run the gamut from long-established, full-time art houses charging top dollar for experience, to startup groups looking to break in at any price. Billing can be per man-month, per minute of cutscene animation, or flat-fee, and can occasionally include royalties if the artwork is integral to the project's brand identity. For the pressured development team who receives a perfectly executed art asset delivery in time to hit a key milestone, and for the publisher whose high expectations for graphic quality were met in that milestone, every dollar is worth it.