Pre-production costs of developing a game

Pre-production costs of developing a game

Hardware:

Computers: Computers are necessary for making a game and also for testing games. It is important to have a relatively high spec computer to run the applications used to make games. A good gaming laptop can set you back £200 to £500 in addition the software can be expensive but I will cover that later on, you might also want a MacBook for sound production and at the moment the can cost between £999 to £1,399 but does come with garage band already installed.

Peripherals: Peripherals are external pieces of hardware used in game development like keyboards, mice and monitors. It is important to have high quality peripherals in order for you to be able to work at a computer for long periods of time for example if a mouse is not ergonomically designed it can lead to hand cramps impeding on your work time similarly if your monitors are not clear enough the you might miss some mistakes that people who play with a higher quality resolution can easily notice. A good keyboard can cost from £50 to £100 a nice mouse might cost from £25 to £100 depending on your requirements. Monitors can cost £100 to £400 it is also popular to buy multiple monitors to maximize screen space. Some extra things to look into is speakers, microphones (for recording voices) or sound cancelling foam to stop noise bouncing off the walls, these are all things to consider based on what you want your game to be like for example if you want to make a 8 bit style game you might not need that good a monitor.

Dev Kits: Dev kits are used to test or publish a game to consoles like Xbox or PlayStation, currently Dev kits can cost up to £2,500 and some can be free like the Xbox one offers. Dev kits are basically consoles that let any game be played on them so when you make a game for Xbox and it hasn’t been approved a normal Xbox wouldn’t run the game but a dev kited one will.

Software:

Unity: unity is a game engine that you can create for multiple platforms like ios and Xbox, it heavily relies on its asset store where people can sell parts of a game like the coding for a chat log or an entire character skin, they are sold based on the quality of the asset and the amount of content in it for example a tree pack can be sold for $150 if there is a lot off tree models in it, as can be seen here the single ‘earthborn troll’ is free whereas the ‘army of skeletons’ is $40

*Unity5 costs $1500 to buy the pro version.*

Mayer: Mayer is a 3D modelling software commonly used in games it costs £145 a month and there is a free version, the system requirements are*. The software has a lot of features including; particle effects, hair physics, fluid effects, basic animation tools, 3D typing, polygon modelling and professional camera tracking among other features.

Publishing:

There are many methods game developers use to publish their games some of these methods are;

• Steam greenlight

Steam greenlight is a feature from valve that allows indie game developers to get their games “greenlit”. This means when a person puts a game out on greenlight it can be added to the steam store, the way it works is when a user plays a game and gives it a positive response it is closer to being let on the store however if it does not receive many positive comments it isn’t allowed on the store.

• ID@Xbox

ID@Xbox is a program by Microsoft which allows indie game developers to publish their games to the windows store or the Xbox marketplace, the way it works is if someone is registered on ID@Xbox they receive two development kits for free and access to the Unity engine and an optional subscription to Unreal Engine 4.

• PSN

PlayStation offers a development kit as well it involves applying for registration and becoming a PSN partner this gives you the ability to; publish on their store, be in control of prices, ownership of your games IP, it allows you to develop for any PlayStation platform.

• Android

To develop for android you need to set up an android development environment and the game is made here, then once you have finished you must test the game on an android running device after that it may be allowed on the google play store.

• iOS

firstly you need to apply for an apple developer account then you need to make your game it is suggested to use openGL to develop the games as the game you make can be easily transferred to android afterwards.

Time scale:

Scheduling is important for game development so you don’t spend too much time on one task like sprite design, a good way of keeping track of your schedule is to make a list of tasks and deadlines to complete them by for example you can give yourself 3 days to complete a relatively simple task or a few weeks to complete a more difficult one.

personnel:
you will need certain types of people doing certain types of job, these are a few examples of jobs within gaming include:

Animator: Games Animators are responsible for the portrayal of movement and behavior within a game
lead designer: Game Designers devise what a game consists of and how it plays, defining all the core elements,
programmer: Game Programmers design and write the computer code that runs and controls a game,
lead artist: Lead Artists are responsible for the overall look of a game
level designer: Level Editors define and create interactive architecture for a segment of a game, including the landscape, buildings and objects

materials:

to make my game i will use the equipment available to me these include:
 - game maker, for making the game
- Photoshop, for creating the sprites/ backgrounds
- i do not need any extra personnel, i will do everything by myself

some things i will need to help make the game are:
- storyboards, this will help plan out the story easier than writing to down
- a game sketch, a rough idea about how things will look so anyone else working on the game have a better understanding on how it should feel to play
- script, this is so people who are voicing a character will know what to say
- box art, what the game will be sold in
 - control guide, a manual to tell the player how the game is played
 - the internet, for sounds or art i might use in the game also it can be used to find inspiration

i will not need any contributors for my game as it is only a small game though they can be useful for contributing art, music or insight into how you make the game.

codes of practice:

the ESRB rating system is used to classify the age restrictions on games these include:
- early childhood; when the game is designed for small children to play
- everyone; when the game is designed to be played for anyone
- everyone +10; when the game is designed for anyone over 10
- teen; when the game is designed for people over 13
- mature; when the game is designed for people over 17
- adults only; when the game is designed for people over 18

also while making a game you must follow the health and safety rules of wherever you are working and make sure everyone is aware of the risk assessment.