Unit 4 & 5
Game idea development and Pitch
Task 1
Contractual -
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| Contractual Brief |
With a contractual brief you would have sign it, once signed you are then forced to agree to all terms written inside the brief. It must be exceedingly descriptive, this is because it should describe exactly what is required by you and what you should do to complete the task. It would mention multiple factors of the brief that would need to be considered, these things could include; the time frame, this could be short or long depending on the brief at hand, perhaps if someone was creating a soundtrack it may possibly take nowhere near as long as someone who must create an entire game alone; the pay, a smaller and quicker task probably wouldn't include as much pay as a lengthy task which would take more effort; deadlines, which again like the time frame could be short or long depending on the severity of the task; and the job requirements, this is a pretty obvious part of any brief. This sort of brief is generally used if in a situation the client has a lack of trust with their employee or if a large sum of money is involved. These seem pretty obvious once you realise that if you were to break any of the terms you could face legal action.
This brief could be used in the game industry if a development team was approached by a publishing team, the publishers could write up a contractual brief for the developers to fully create the game. This would most likely be a contractual brief because there would be a large sum of money involved so if the employee broke off the contract they would lose the money and face further charged rather than it being blamed on the client.
Negotiated -
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| Negotiated Brief |
If a brief is negotiated it gives more lee way to the employee from the client, this is because you can alter basically any part of the briefs aspects. Although some people argue that all briefs may be negotiable this one in particular is almost entirely up to the employee. This could be for many reasons but the most obvious is that the client is open to new and interesting options and ideas. From this brief you can gain the opportunity to gain more use of your creativity towards the project and have more control yourself over what must be done. If you go to your client and ask to negotiate you would have to come to an agreement or arrangement that would still satisfy both your needs. Things that could be negotiated could possibly be things related to the time period given, pay, hours that must be put in or maybe even the original ideas that you would have to work off. You must remember that the client and yourself both have the same amount of right to change it and you shouldn't push ideas as you could lose the project all together.
The most likely time that this brief would be used in the gaming industry would be if a developer went to an artist to ask for some concept art or the finalised work. This would be because a development team might not have their own ideas or they might not be good enough.
Formal -
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| Formal Brief |
In a documented formal brief it should outline what specific things should be combined into the specifications of a service or a product. Much like a contractual brief it should be set out clearly and structured within a neat and orderly way.Because it is formal the language that should be used in it must be formal meaning no abbreviations nor slang. Inside it should clearly state what the employee must do by being clear and thoroughly explained. Ways of clients making their briefs look more professional can be achieved by having their own logo on it. The main reason that this is different from a contractual brief is that it is not always classified as a legal document. It is classed by clients as a slightly more relaxed type of brief and only includes the most important information but it is still explained clearly without having any unwanted information involved.
This type of brief would most likely be used within the gaming industry if a publishing team met together and made some formal decisions or ideas towards a game they are publishing. Generally this would occur strictly within the workplace because they may not feel the need to legally bind people in their own company to a contract because they could just be let go but they should still have the same amount of detail in them so the work is done well enough.
Informal -
An informal brief is probably the most easiest and quickest to come up with when creating one as it can be as simple and as quick as you would like it to be. It can be made in any way, some examples may include; a piece of text, whether this be a small word document or a literal text message; an email, just a few lines or maybe a few words depending on the extent of the task; or it doesn't even have to be written it can just be more of a verbal agreement. A verbal agreement could even just be within a meeting where nothing is too important and is not required to be legally binding. It generally only includes just a request of work from someone, because it is so simple it is most likely to be used when very little money is involved or if its simply between friends. One of the most renowned things these briefs include is slang and abbreviated words. This, of course is the exact opposite of a formal brief because it uses very informal language and most likely will have a few grammatical errors.
If this brief was to be used anywhere in the gaming industry it would probably be used if two game developers from the same team came to agree on working on a certain part of the game together. Something like this would only happen if the two are close and have a lot of trust in each other and their work.
Commission -
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| Commission Brief |
If you were to use a commission brief you would know exactly who you want to hire to do the work for you. This means you are able to save time and money for looking at potential employees as you can just go straight to the company of your choice. This method would be used instead of going to a tender with your brief. Clients generally only usually gives commissions to a company to fulfil a brief if the client has established relations with. This is used most likely by a large corporation (or one bigger than the other to employ a smaller or independent company to do the work for them. These is normally just as detailed as a formal or contractual brief.
If this brief was to be used in the games industry it would probably be used by a developer like Toby Fox (who created Undertale) to employ a freelance artist such as Temmie Chang to create the art for his game. Toby is an indie developer so he may not be what we call a big company but he has made enough of a name from himself to be the best example I could find.
Competition -
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| Competition Brief |
A competition kind of brief is probably the most different as it is opened to all of the public and a wide range of production companies depending on what they want done. The reason that this is so popular is most likely to do with the fact that it allows a wide range of people who have a spectrum of talents to create a product based on the brief they were given for free. Only the winners of the competition will get the prize or whatever reward they are presented with. This means that the client spends a lot less money on a product as they do not have to pay anyone for the wealth of ideas that they are presented with unless that is stated so in the brief sent out. There should be a set deadline in which once that deadline is reached anymore entries sent after are discarded and the ones that were sent on time are judged and then the winner is announced and taken in to be published by the client.
If a competition brief is used in the gaming industry it is most likely going to be because a large developer like Valve asks the public to create some sort of music or other element of a game. The reward they would probably give could be anything from just a simple credit in the end/beginning title, to earning royalties themselves from the work the winner did. However competitions like these are rarely open to everyone unless its an indie company, larger companies tend to only open their competitions to slightly smaller companies. This is probably because they would much rather spend as little time rifling through the entries unless it would do the company well within the public eye. This then would make it more of a tender brief.
Tender -
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| Tender Brief |
A tender brief is very similar to a competition brief, because the client posts a brief that is only open to outside companies. These companies will then pitch their ideas to the client for the work, the best will then be selected and given the opportunity to work for the client. They will then be able to develop their ideas and create the clients project. The client tends to post an advertisement on a site like http://www.tendersdirect.co.uk/ which basically says that they require a product to be created. Within the pitch from the possible employee they tend to initiate a brief, budget and then a proposal.
As I stated in the above section about competition briefs these are only really used by companies of an equal standard, knowledge and popularity. In the gaming industry a company like Naughty Dog could have written a tender brief asking for a publisher to publish some of their games like Crash Bandicoot or Uncharted. If this had have happened Sony would've been one of the publishers to reply asking if they could publish the game by pitching their conditions and they would've been the company that Naughty Dog chose to go with.
Co-operative -
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| Co-operative Brief |
You use a co-operative brief when it is two or more companies who are working on the same task, this has probably been done for a number of reasons with the most common being multi-skilling as well as deadlines that are tight. One company may not have resources to complete an assignment on their own and if a deadline is short hopefully two companies will be able to finish the work with successful timing. The two or more companies must work in unison and as a team to complete an assignment, if it is not done well then the client will be hesitant to reemploy either sides of the team whether it be alone or together.
If this brief was to be used in the games industry it would most likely because two developing companies come together to create a game. There could be one Animator working with an artist and a musician to create a part of the games cut scene and they must work together to sync up their different parts and create an amazing result inside their group.
Reading a brief -
When reading any type of brief you need to be able to recognise what kind of brief it may be, when you know what kind of brief it is it makes it a lot easier when you have to come up with ideas and also when you have to create the product itself. The main things that you will have to take into consideration are; the final dates, when would you have to be by and also how could you meet them; the timescale, how long do you have to complete the task at hand; ca actually do it; and what is required equipment wise or would it need any special requirements. If the brief is not read properly the employee could do a terrible job and the client could either not hire them again or pay them less than was stated.
In the gaming industry everyone would probably have to read a brief at one point in time, one company may be employed by another company and will have to check that they actually have the resources to complete the task at hand. This could be important whatever situation they are in, whether that be that they are creating just some concept art or the whole game. The brief much be met to the clients standards.
Negotiating the brief -
Like said in negotiable briefs, all briefs can be negotiated to an extent so when you first have one you should always do your best to read carefully through it to make sure if there is anything that you would like to change as it may not be possible for you to do alone or at all. Negotiating can be a crucial part of any brief mainly because if something is not possible or it could cause you more negatives than positives (like causing you to lose money rather than gaining a profit). Things you may want to negotiate could be the time frame as it may be too short and therefore not possible for a timely completion or maybe if the budget is way too small and the project eats up more of the budget than you can afford to lose. If the brief is legally binding then the chances of it being changed after it is finalised are very slim and if you cant complete the assignment because the constraints are too tight then you could face legal action. This proves how important it is to plan ahead and figure out what you need to achieve the main goal.
In the gaming industry different members of a company may need to ask for a larger budget due to resource costs, this could be the programs that are used or the equipment they need. They could ask for a time extension because they may not have enough of a team to get it completed on time or small technical difficulties such as if the rendering times may be too long.
My Brief -
The brief that I have been given is probably an informal brief but is also very negotiable. I have been asked to create an original game based on my story ideas I came up which was based on the film Big Trouble in Little China. The game will be developed for the platform Windows PC and I will be expected to present 4 game ideas at the start. They will be then narrowed down to one which will be chosen to create a full design document on. My final idea will be pitched and I will be given full feedback before I begin my production. Over the course of its creation I will be expected to document weekly logs detail what process the game has gone through. The things I will need to create my game will be my initial ideas which are all document on paper and in Word Documents, I also have a few concept art ideas on physical paper that are hand drawn which will help in the creation of my models. Possibly the most important thing I will need is a Windows PC, this is because not only the majority of programs I will use are only available on the Windows platform but also because I will need to test run games. I will also need programs and applications these are; Microsoft Word, I can use this to further my initial ideas and also come up with new ones and make notes/adjustments on there; Microsoft Excel, this is a great program to use to organise, log and plan out progress over the next few weeks and keep track of deadlines using the built-in timeline template; Maya, this is a modelling software that I can use to create digital objects, characters and vehicles for my game; Unreal, a games engine that I can use to actually code the game in C++ and create the environment; Google Chrome, I use Google Chrome as main browser because it makes life easier when transferring work from college to home as all of my bookmarks are in once place, not only this but its also the best resource to find research like finding inspiration and creating music, art and textures, its also the best and quickest way to find help; Adobe Photoshop, this the best way for me personally to create detailed concept art using a graphics tablet; and last of all Microsoft PowerPoint, for presentations and pitches this is probably the best method to use.
Opportunities -
The opportunities that I will gain are the new skills that come with process I must take, I have in front of me the opportunity to learn so many new skills that will help me later in life, such as, using programs like Maya to learn how to do 3D modelling or Unreal to learn to program in a new language. I will also expand my knowledge at digital art skills in Photoshop and hand drawing skills when creating my concept art. I feel as though I can have some self development over this project as maybe it can help me figure out which part of games design I want to carry on doing next year. I will also have a variety of different skills after working on each set as multi-skilling. There is a possibility that I could gain contacts if I enquire to companies about things that I want to learn about or get advice on if I put myself out there. The experience I could gain would over everything I learnt and worked, I am working in a team so I can gain experience in that and also what its like to create a game from the roots up with the art, programming, animation and modelling etc. I will learn to communicate with my team mates and be able to merge all of our ideas and work together. If I can put on my CV I created a game it could look amazing on there and could definitely help me get a job by seeing all the skills I have gained through the process. Also the different things I worked on can go inside my portfolio and show off my many skills.
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