Week 15! This industry moves so fast it's really hard to tell. That's why I need a name that's cutting-edge, like CutCo, EdgeCom, Interslice.

The game industry has well and truly arrived in the sense that it is a multi billion pound, profit making machine but this is not a true reflection of its current state. behind the figures lay a problem.

Games used to be fairly cheap to produce yet would still sell in great volumes and in return the profit margin was great. This, unfortunately is no longer the case. Increasingly more sophisticated platforms has breed an increasingly more sophisticated consumer which in turn requires more sophisticated games. As a result games nowadays have production costs in the millions and unlike previous years when a team may produce several games in a year, the product is taking 2 or 3 years to completed.

This applied pressure to the employees of the games industry. As mentioned the games take longer to develop and cost more than ever before as a result more and more is being asked of the talent involved in the production. It appears there is an ongoing issue with the amount of hours an employee is expected or required to put in when working on a project.

It is not all bad, the pay for example, although not stratospheric is something that has increased as a result of the growth of the industry and most employees are paid what you could call a comfortable salary.

It seems the industry is at a stage of make or break. Either it could continue to grow with the the opportunities for advancement the current generation of consoles have brought with them or in a strange twist they could herald the end. It is the expectation of the games they also bring which has pushed the production costs higher and higher and caused the problem facing the industry at the moment in the first place.

It has reached a point where the consumer is possibly more demanding than ever in terms of what they expect from a game so there doesn't really seem any way to go back. One of the ways this is being confronted is the lifespan of the consoles. The industry has learnt that progressing to fast is a costly exercise. Another challenge the industry faces is finding a way to keep a handle on the production costs so that it is possible to keep developing games to this standard with out the reduction and loss of profit it has recently been suffering.

Week 11! Don't hate the player, hate the game....play!

Nooooo! not gameplay again! what does it mean? As I touched on previously I consider it a loose term to describe the players experience of playing any type of game. But this of course, is not a difinative answer. I dont know if there is one. what i do know is, what ever it is, it is important in making a good game.


I would say gameplay is made up of a lot of factors all coming together to provide the experience of playing the game. Anything that detracts from this has a negative effect on the experience of playing and therfore reduces the gameplay, this could be anything from poor controls to a badly designed level.

That is how I perceive gameplay and with that said I realise these are all things that are dependant on the individual so if I regard, say, the controls of a game to be awkward and unuseable another player may disagree so gameplay is opinion based. like most things in life it is impossible to please everyone and with this in mind it would be impossible for gameplay to programmed or designed into a game.

In my opinion one man's gameplay is another mans poison, where some may find gameplay, some may find none.

Gameplay, to me then, is the overall experience of playing a game and comprises of the various factors that make up a game working in a way that the individual finds and enjoyable experience.

Week 10!

Character design has become increasingly more important in gaming. A good character is an essential part of any story and a pivotal part of engaging with the audience.

Thinking of characters I have encountered my memory is not great so i will comment on a character who rate and who I re-visited recently. I thoroughly enjoyed the bourne movies, Identity, supremacy and most recently ultimatum. I am currently reading a book which continues the Jason Bourne character, titled the Bourne legacy.

Unfortunately however, I have never read the original books the movies are based on so I'm not sure how the character was originally envisioned by the author (Robert Ludlum). So the character in the movies is the one that appealed to me. Jason Bourne is a top assassin but rather than being an armed to the teeth, gun swinging action hero, Jason Bourne comes across as a believable person doing believable things.

I think the movies really captured the sense that Bourne is highly trained killer but that is not it, he is resourceful and highly intelligent, subtle touches like slipping in and out of a multitude of languages give depth and help reinforce this element.

I think this is one of the things that was appealing to me. It was reinventing the action hero and it was interesting to me to see how Bourne would deal with the situations he was placed in, both the combative, and the everyday.

I think any character is helped by a good script and performance. A good character needs to have good things to say and know the right way to say them. This is relevant in all aspects of story telling. The performance doesn't always have to require actor though an example that springs to mind is the "birth" of sandman in Spiderman 3. Not an actor in sight but it is a captivating and emotional moment built within a computer.

I do like a hero story. Someone selfless and/or triumphing against adversity whether it be the real world that exists in the Bourne movies or the more fantastical Spiderman etc. and this does filter into the sort of games I play.