This week I have just had to stop and take stock of everything. Its been the first week of my summer vacation so I have had no work to consider and I have really needed the chance to wind down. Not that this has meant I have turned off completely because I do not think I am capable of doing that. There has however been a chance for me to really contemplate the direction I want to go in and the combination of tasks from this week, conferences and interactions with others has really allowed me to think about this and come up with a plan.
Last weeks SMART targets
Well I did better with these this week but still could do more. I think my option of using the Spark forums as a way to interact was probably a bad choice, it seems that these are being used less and less as people are finding other ways to communication ideas, such as Discord. The conference last week and this week have given me a chance to also comment and contribute on others work while also discovering new options for myself from their actions and ideas.
As I have not done any development this week I have not had a chance to fulfill my second SMART target, but I do see this as a longer term goal anyway so this will happen over the next few weeks.
This Week
Well I think I have had the ‘penny drop’ moment I was looking for this week. I have finally decided what I want to get out of this Masters qualification and ultimately how I see it fitting in alongside my current career. I have decided that I want to make my own games independently, on this side of my teaching career.
I think, on reflection of the last rapid ideation project, that this is something that is perfect for me at this point of my life. I really cannot see myself going back into the AAA industry as I am just not immersed in that style of game anymore.
Also within my work I tend to focus more on the smaller style of game with the students, this is so that whatever they try to create that in its first instance it is achievable for them. Of course as part of this I have to sell the idea of smaller games to them and that is where my bombshell moment happened, in my research around this.
So as you can see from the infographic above there is a large difference in the revenue obtained through different games platforms, with Mobile far outshining the rest. This is pretty obvious when you think about the amount of devices that can be used to access mobile games.
This has prompted a small shift in the industry that shows that even the bigger publishers and developers are beginning to move to mobile, however they are bring a more high fidelity outlook to the games that they bring. As Yu (2021) describes “Activision Blizzard is already bringing PC-first franchise Diablo to mobile. And following the success of Call of Duty: Mobile across the globe, the company has outlined plans to bring other PC- and console-first franchises to the platform.”
However it remains to be seen what this high fidelity approach will actually amount to. At the moment there are already a large amount of what would be considered high fidelity games on mobile devices, and the quality and size of these games in growing by the day. Take Free Fire for example, a freemium battle royale game that recently hit 1 billion downloads on Google Play Store alone and pulling in a 4.2 out of 5 rating for this. Obviously its graphics and game play are comparable to some of the bigger AAA battle royales and this allows it to stand out on the mobile platform.
However there is another train of thought that exists within the mobile game market, hyper casual games. Games that are easy to describe, easy to play and simple in their construction. They also, a lot of the time, contain niche game play mechanics that are not usually seen in the bigger titles on the large platforms, so a little more creative.
The data behind these kinds of games is also impressive. As Bakos (2021) explains in his article 6.3 billion reasons why big brands should look at hyper-casual gaming, “hyper-casual games racked up 6.3 billion downloads, accounting for 31 per cent of all mobile games and stretching its lead as by far the biggest mobile game genre”.
Now obviously this market is very competitive and there is a lot of data behind what does and does not work, but what attracts me to it is the small scale, simple design attitude that it uses. This mirrors my own thinking and current enjoyment of games. So why not just do it. I managed to crank out Shadow Sword in two weeks so imagine what is possible if I took it seriously.
So that is now my goal, to create my own company to make hyper casual games that I can run alongside my existing career in education. To help with this I am going to use the rapid ideation 2 sessions to create something that will allow me to be able to develop and prototype game ideas for this company at a quicker rate. I think this fits the brief because while it is not a current problem I deal with in my personal life, it may well about to become one.
Version Control
As a side note we were also asked to look at version control this week. Now this is something I have had the ominous pleasure of using for about 20 years now, I have used a plethora of different types as well from Perforce to Git to SVN to Collaborate.
During our conference I stated my intent to use Collaborate as this was something that I am currently using and have had great success with, including with large teams which was a surprise for others in the conference.
However another student brought to my attention something that had completely slipped through the my net, that Unity was no longer actively developing Collaborate due to its purchase of PlasticSCM. So I did a little digging and found that this software has the same user based restrictions as Collaborate which for me is an issue as we use this at work with the students. If the support is slowly going to be wound down I will need to find a replacement for this so I considered using PlasticSCM for this project. However with the issues we have with purchasing licenses as an educational establishment I decided that I did not want to pursue this at this point.
So I might as well look at the most used version control software out there and see how I can incorporate that into my personal and professional career. So I have decided to use Github and have I have the IT guys at work already on the case to getting it working.
This weeks SMART target
So this week the SMART target is pretty simple.
Utilise the rapid ideation 2 project to create a boilerplate project to be used in the creation of hyper casual games for my own company. This project will be shared and stored on Github and completed by the project deadline (with on going development when needed).
References
Gu, T., 2021. The Next Generation of High-Fidelity Mobile Games Is Coming, and PC & Console Publishers Are on Board | Newzoo. [online] Newzoo. Available at: <https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/the-next-generation-of-high-fidelity-mobile-games-is-coming-and-pc-console-publishers-are-on-board> [Accessed 14 July 2021].
Newzoo, 2021. Mobile is the biggest game platform in the world – Revenue data for the games industry 2021. [image] Available at: <https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Mobile-Is-the-Biggest-Games-Platform-in-the-World-1920×1080.png> [Accessed 19 July 2021].
Kerr, C., 2021. Free Fire has topped 1 billion downloads on Google Play. [online] Gamasutra.com. Available at: <https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/385244/Free_Fire_has_topped_1_billion_downloads_on_Google_Play.php> [Accessed 19 July 2021].
Niklas, B., 2021. 6.3 billion reasons why big brands should look at hyper-casual gaming. [online] The Drum. Available at: <https://www.thedrum.com/profile/the-digital-voice/news/6-3-billion-reasons-why-big-brands-should-look-at-hyper-casual-gaming> [Accessed 19 July 2021].
Figures
Feature Image: Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
Figure 1: Newzoo, 2021. Mobile is the biggest game platform in the world – Revenue data for the games industry 2021. [image] Available at: <https://newzoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Mobile-Is-the-Biggest-Games-Platform-in-the-World-1920×1080.png> [Accessed 19 July 2021].
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