Success/Failure
Cases on Online Game Development 3+4--Production, Commercialization & Community Management
Abstract: This lecture will present findings from
case studies in online game development that address topics, issues,
or challenges that arise during game production,
commercialization, and community management.
The purpose is to review
both what has worked successfully, what problems have emerged, and
what now to consider in future game production, commercialization,
and community management.
This will include examination of
production, commercialization, and community management issues
associated with game content from other media sources (for example,
feature films, broadcast television, Web sites, theme parks, science
centers/museums, or print media), integrating use of future game
devices and interfaces, and establishing future game venues, as well as
what now to consider in future game production, commercialization,
and community management.
Production technical activities
- Game pre-production--research
- See materials from Lectures 15-16
- Game production--development
- Game design
- game play scenarios (for testing)
- structuring game input/output
- game structure
- game balance and interactions
- game software code structure
- factoring for rapid prototyping
- factoring for parallel development
- architecture and module configuration plan
- module interface coupling (information hiding)
- module cohesion (internal structure)
- refactoring for maintenance
- refactoring for reuse
- design evaluation and reviews
- document everything
- Game programming
- reuse of known game code patterns
- interfacing to game engine
- scripting versus programming
- utilizing middleware and device libraries
- balancing graphics, networking, AI, audio, etc.
- code inspections
- bug reporting, tracking, clearing
- extreme programming
- code version management and access control
- code archiving
- Game playtesting
- smoke testing
- black box testing
- white box testing
- alpha testing
- bug reporting
- game play experience and pacing
- (re)testing common user scenarios
- rebalancing game play plan
- rebalancing game code structure
- beta testing
- post-deployment testing of user reported problems
- Game post mortem
- what worked well
- what didn't work as planned
- surprises and failures
- schedule
- budget
- staff
- Game design technical details found elsewhere
- See Gamasutra.com, Features, Production, for range of game production technical issues
- Sample issues
- Use of Kalman Filters to process accelerometer data stream
- accommodating new user interface devices (Nintendo Wii)
- Propagation of visual entity properties under constrained bandwidth
- managing bandwidth to insure equitable game play for users with limited bandwidth
- Fast file loading
- providing for interactive storytelling in games through insertion of pre-rendered "cut-scenes"
- Building game scripting languages
- seekint to simplify developing games using a proprietary game engine
- enabling more end-users to engage in game modding
- Transitioning to concurrency and multi-core processor programming
- how to program new game consoles like XBox 360 and Playstation 3
- unclear what to do with future multi-core processors for PC games
- Binary triangle trees for terrain tile indexing
- trying to make best use of state of the art graphic acceleration cards (graphics engines)
- Steraming for new games
- providing new ways to provide game content to "heavy client-side, thin server-side" games
- trying to adapt secure "torrent" style file transfers to game play applications
- and so forth
Production business activities
- Focusing on game development schedules, budgets, staff, and pre-release game marketing
- Schedules tend to slip
- Budgets are overrun
- Staff is of variable quality, proficency, and commitment
- New staff may lack critical skills and development discipline
- knowing when and how to make technical choices to limit creative options
- Competent staff may be planning to leave to "better" work situation
- Provision of state of the art game development tools/game engines can retain or attract senior staff
- platforming skills and decisions that enable comparable game play experience across game platforms (e.g., consoles, PCs, Web)
- Also, great teams produce great games
- poor quality teams or teams in conflict do not produce great games
- game production is hard, time-consuming work
- working for a game company should be fun, helpful, and supportive
- Marketing should be focused on increasing game brand awareness
- build pre-game community
- provide previews and early asset release to fans
- recruit game beta-testers
- engage beta-testers in post-game play focus groups
Other Production issues
- Independent (Indie) game development
- Producing games with relatively little funding
- Approaching entry into the commercial game development industry
- developing derivative games
- porting established games
- maintaining existing games
- developing game mods
- Developing non-commercial games
- focusing on innovation
- creating broader visibility for developers
- building brand identity and awareness for new game developers
- creating games as arts or experimental media
- Case: Persuasive Games
- Casual games as a medium for social commentary
- Casual advergaming for social change or social activism
- Exploring the concept of "boring" games
- All games developed in Flash for "no cost" distribution and play over the Web!
- Book on the subject of Persuasive Games.
- Case: Mermaids, an MMO focusing on emergent behavior
- University research project for educating graduate students in game culture and technology
- employs commericially available MMO development tools
- Multiverse.net -- develop and deploy for free
- provides client, server, development tools, starter assets, and sample worlds
- no publishers
- 10% royalty fee paid for commercial applications
- Game developer community management and collaboration support environment
- wiki
- group blog
- discussion forum
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- instant messaging and chat (transcript recording mode)
- teleconferencing and videoconferencing systems (with transcript annotation mechanisms)
- project source and documentation crawling and indexing service
- project-wide, studio-wide, or community-wide search services
- and so forth
- Example: UCI GameLab portal
Commercialization technical activities
How to release and distribute a new game
- Game release--going Gold!
- Manufacturing game disks (CD vs. DVD vs. HD/Blu-Ray DVD)
- Packaging design
- Setup customer feedback systems
- Bug reporting
- Bug recreation and internal repair assignment
- Elicitation mechanisms for capturing user suggestions for game improvements or extensions
- Discussion forums (see Community management)
Commercialization business activities
Moving to retail distribution (U.S. market) or moving to online
distribution (Web)
- Wisdom of David Perry about problems of retail
distribution
- manufacturing game disks (CD vs. DVD vs. HD/Blu-Ray DVD)
- packaging
- advertising
- marketing
- return reserves
- public relations
- customer service
- retail sales
- retailer road trips
- other promotional events and product give-aways
- distribution and wholesalers
- insurance
- shipping
- and so forth
- Potential simplification due to electronic distribution
- marketing
- public relations
- customer service
- distribution
- Steam from Valve Software for game distribution and content delivery
- Official community Web site: Steampowered.com
Community management technical activities
Social networking technologies
- Example vendor case study: Pringo Networks
- More "open" social networks, with many weak ties and social
connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities
to their members than smaller, closed networks with many redundant ties
- Foundation
- Provide a flexible architecture to power an entire site, or
to simply enhance the user experience on an existing site, regardless
of whether the site has existing memberships or not.
- Backend
- Web 2.0 platform on which websites, communities, and social networks are built upon
- Core functionality
- Provided by dynamic site content templates
- Article management
- User contributed reviews, stories, and news and is the basic content for presentation, supporting by keywords and categories.
- Gallery management
- Media sharing
- Onsite competitions
- Newsletter management
- Discussion forums
- Event management
- Recommendation links
- User profiles
- User groups
- User awards/prizes
- User comment
- Chat and instant messaging services
- Privacy and notifications
Community management business activities
Case study: A.J. Kim, Community
Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communites,
Peachpit Press, 2000.
- Bringing people together
- People Are Talking
- Mapping the territory
- Zone for growth
- Getting to know community members
- Member profiles
- Why profiles?
- Setting up a member database
- Enabling users to create an persona/avatar for personal identity
- Evolving a social identity and role-playing
- Enabling roles and role migration paths
- Membership life cycle
- Welcome new visitors
- Instruct novices
- Reward regular users
- Empower "lead users" or group leaders
- Honor long-term users
- Providing community leadership and liaisons
- What's a good leader
- Unofficial leaders
- Official leaders
- Managing user leaders
- Organizing events online and offline
- Event planning
- Bringing groups together through planned meetings
- Showcasing performances and guest performers
- Competitions to spotlight exceptional users
- Acceptable and unacceptable user behavior online and in-game
- Develop ground rules
- Enforce rules and policies
- Community liaison as mediators
- Excluding troublesome users or "griefers"
- Evolve the rules based on experience
- Providing rites of passage
- Power of ritual
- Personal acknowledgements
- Community holidays
- Passages and real-life transitions
- Supporting sub-groups, clans, and fan clubs
- Why sub-groups
- Setting up group meetings
- Developing official clubs, events, and policies