Friday 17 February 2017

Year 1 - Unit 13 - Understanding the games industry Assignment 2 Task 2 - Industry and Marketing Trends

Unit 13 - Understanding the games industry Assignment 2 Task 2 - Industry and Marketing Trends


      This report is about the trends in the current industry and marketing, it covers who plays these games and what they want. Industry trends are the large companies and the technology they produce and develop and Marketing trends are the type of people that play the games and what they like.
      Market Trends - In Britain 7 out 10 people have played some sort of video game within the last six months. People that are 45+ are playing more than that of kids/teens. The most used format are apps with smartphones being the most popular device. Trivia/word/puzzle games are the most popular genre led by older women. However, consoles are used for the most amount of time. Due to the older women playing puzzle games, there are now more women playing video games in the UK than men according to a report. The gaming audience had reached 69% of the UK population, that's 33.5 million people, by 2014 (all stats are from 2014). There are now less children and teenagers playing games than people over 44 years old. 61% of games in 6 months of 2014 acquired were free to purchase. Gamers aged 16+ spend an average of 11 hours gaming whereas 8 - 15 year olds spend around 20 hours. Apps are the most popular format with 55% of the British playing them, this is then followed by online games at 48% and last but not least, disc-based games at 40% of the population. The things that actually drive the UK market are cheaper and more intelligent smartphones in the market, growth and variety of social networks, easier access to internet of a higher speed, tablet PC market growth and the amount of leisure time that customers enjoy. The UK has over 30,000,000 smartphones with the majority being higher end.
     Industry Trends - The idea of VR with friends is an interesting one. When VR was first developed it felt like it would be a long wait before we got multiplayer (or even if we ever would). VR is such an amazing concept alone that it developing any further was asking too much of the product. The only visible downside of this platform is the sale price, but the industry aren't concerned about the amount of sales going lower than expected because of the pure demand it has. VR stands for Virtual Reality and, as the name suggests, it creates a virtual world that the user can interact with and be immersed into. AR (Augmented Reality) has a big future in the gaming industry, specifically the mobile gaming industry, and its current reputation which is staggeringly positive. The most well-known app that uses AR was Pokemon Go that came out back in last years summer period, but there are many other apps out there creating more immersive gameplay at our fingertips. AR generates a users view of the real world and should make them find it hard to distinguish between what is reality and what isn't. Incremental Console Upgrades are quickly becoming a major part of the gaming industries future. Soon console models will be upgrading as quickly as phones with small changes added to a console and then sold as a new console. An example was the Xbox One S making it slimmer and slightly better. Because of this, consoles will be coming out much faster making companies gain more of a profit. Freemium (Free + Premium) is used in free apps to generate revenue for its company. However, many people believe that this is ruining the mobile gaming industry because of how it is aimed at people who are competitive with friends and will spend a lot of money, without realising the cost, just to get ahead at something. This way of gaining profit can be very effective when done correctly (whether ethical or not). Freemium creates a state of urgency to upgrade, it leads its free users towards paid for updates and often offer promotions. All of these definitely have more positive effects and results towards the industry rather than its customers, however, the customers can gain more entertainment so who can really blame them?
      In conclusion, I'd say that I was really surprised by the statistics about women playing more video games than men but I definitely feel like it would be the other way around by a mile, if it was just console and PC platforms. I found the fact that the market and industry trends are very different very surprising as they don't often go hand in hand or join up. The market is about catering to what the people want and the industry is about developing new products and gaining more money in new ways. If I was a games developer the only Industry Trends I'd take advantage of would be the AR and VR as they are both more focused on developing whereas, the Incremental Console Upgrades and Freemium feel too much like taking advantage of people. I would however, take advantage of all of the marketing trends but only to try and please the audience I'd have.

References:
http://www.thecreativeindustries.co.uk/industries/games/games-facts-and-figures/market-strengths-and-trends
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/11-video-game-trends-that-will-change-the-future-of-the-industry
http://augray.com/blog/emerging-trends-in-gaming-industry/
https://medium.com/@LatePanda/how-freemium-is-destroying-the-games-industry-5d255bb39a98#.ah4yy2hgo
https://theappsolutions.com/blog/marketing/freemium-gaming/

Year 1 - Unit 73 - Assignment 1: Sound for Computer Games

Level 3 Games Design
Unit 73: Sound for Computer Games
Assignment 1 - Understanding the use of music in games and the methodology of recording and production.


Task 1 - Compare and contrast game music:






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      The game music for Little Big Planet 3 is very dramatic and unsettling but still a very good background sound that you don't completely focus on. This is one of the many reasons why the developers used it, along with how it gives a feel of feeling of stealth and there is as much to come as has just gone. Not only this but the track doesn't change dramatically all that much throughout its length. The Last of Us is a lot calmer and less dramatic but still as unsettling as Little Big Planet 3 and helps create a calmer take on an apocalyptic world. Both of these work extremely well and create the prefect mood for the game, therefore, I personally would not change either of the tracks. The music is very important to the game, it creates an environment for you and can change an impression of a game whether it be first or midway through.
The psychology of these are used to convey information to the player through thing like iconography, metaphors and symbolism. Sound symbolism is the idea that certain sounds represent a certain place or feeling etc. which help then set the scene for, in this case, a game. The slow and repetitive beat and long symphonic notes create a feeling of doing something in a slow and sneaky way in Little Big Planet 3, this adds to the intensity. The acoustic notes in The Last of Us show an idea that we're witnessing the aftermath of something, creating a calm and relaxed mood while still being on edge. Therefore submerging the player deep into the game. This is a good example of how audio manipulates how you play a game, this can be in a good or bad way, but the majority of the time it is very beneficial and crucial to the gameplay.
The audio environment can be created using mono, stereo and surround sound. Both of these tracks would create the best using surround sound as the the player would literally be surrounded by all the sounds at different angles. Luckily all are very common with at least mono sound (uses a single a channel from one position) and surround sound (using two channels to create sound from two channels from the left right and middle) being widely available to all/most audiences. Both games can be played with any of the three method above. Here is a Dolby Digital test of Surround Sound HD: https://youtu.be/PvnlpPWAcZc  Here is a test of Stereo Sound HD https://youtu.be/TAOQWSmkofA
The theory of sound is the wavelength (one wave to the next), amplitude (maximum interference from its undisturbed position), frequency (number of waves per second), pitch (whether a note has a high or low tone), hertz (unit of frequency, one cycle per second), sound generator (vibrating object that generates a sound), foley (use of reproduced sounds) and timbre (describes characteristics which allow the ear to differentiate sounds that have the same pitch and volume). These songs all have different pitches and loudness which change with Little Big Planet feeling generally lower in pitch than The Last of Us and louder in volume as well.
The gaming format that you would be playing on creates the sound for the speakers to output using a sound generator that is internal. Any sound for a game (or anything else like a video or general sound) is run by a sound generator, this is a vibrating object that produces a sound which is then generated by a speaker. This device is located inside the console or PC itself.
Legal issues can come from the sound sources, if you were to download and upload (or just download) the soundtrack without meeting the proper copyright terms it would class as an infringement. Copyright means that the owner has paid for the rights to the sounds of the game, The Last of Us music is owned by Sony rather than the creator, Gustavo Santaolalla, because they enlisted him. Little Big Planet 3's, I can only guess, has it's ownership by Sony and the partly the developer, as they are the only people with such rights.



Task 2 - Methods that could've been used to record and produce this music and why:

      The file formats used in audio can be lossy compressed (loses quality as it discards info. Eg. MP3, RA and VOX) this is best used on ipods and phones so its very unlikely that these high quality tracks are stored like this. They can also be uncompressed (almost perfect version of the original recording but uses up more space than lossy compressed files. Eg. WAV, AIFF, AU, SMP and VOC) which gives us better quality and uses more space but is best stored on game discs or PCs because they have more disk space. The likelihood of these tracks being uncompressed is very high. Below are some compressed and uncompressed examples of sound files and how their file extensions could look.

The audio sample rate is measured in Hz or kHz and is how many samples of audio carried per second. The bit-depth is the number of bits of information in each sample and the resolution is how values the sample can take on, the higher the bit-depth and resolution the higher the quality and file size. Therefore this music must have higher bit-depth and resolution because of its high quality and large file size. To the left are digital audio sample rates showing how much clearer and accurate you hear the sound as the sample rate gets higher.
 Audio does has its limitations, these include, DSP (Digital Signal Processor), can process data in real time making it ideal for applications that can't tolerate delays by taking a digital file and handling it to improve it to a clearer sound; RAM (Random Access Memory); PCM (Pulse Code Modulation), its the form of sound that digital sound is decoded into to be outputted to the speakers; File Format, can change the readability of a file, it's quality and the amount memory used; and Audio Output, mono, stereo and surround with surround sound being the best. To record a good quality audio file you need a good amount of RAM , these tracks must have been recorded with a good amount of RAM in the recording device.
There are also many types of audio recording systems, the most common are Multi-track Recording, allows separate recordings to be put together into one track; MIDI (Multi Instrument Digital 
Interface), allows a single person to have access to multiple instruments at the same time, its enables electronic instruments, computers and other electronic equipment to communicate and sync up together; DAT (Digital Audio Tape), a single recording and playback medium on tape; Analogue, used to record analog signals which allow playback later (to the right is a vinyl as an example of an analogue sound. These are personally my favourite way of hearing a sound as they are much more pure and gritty to the original sound.); Software Plug-ins, adds a specific feature to an existing program, they can be used to generate, process or analyse sound; and Software Sequencer, it's a class of application software giving functionality of music sequencer, it can be controlled by either the GUI or a specialised input device. From the list of recording systems above its safe to say that Little Big Planet 3 and The Last of Us' tracks used multi-track recording to fit all the different parts together and probably Software Plug-ins to capture the different parts.

In conclusion, there are many factors that benefit, neglect, underestimate and purify the use of sound in any game. Any sound used in a game should be true to the games meaning and how the developers wish the game to be felt, connected with and most importantly, how it submerges the player into the game itself and how the feeling surrounding them should match this. Sometimes stereo and mono sound create the same, amazing atmosphere as that of surround sound if placed in the right circumstances. I feel, like many others, that both of these amazing pieces of music but I still must feel like The Last of Us' general soundtrack does a much better job at creating the perfect mood than Little Big Planet 3 because of how much of a simplistic feel it has to it.

References:
All taken from P1 and P2 - http://sarahsgamesdesign.blogspot.co.uk/