Whilst working for Midas Interactive he had published many successful games. One of the highlighted games was the Mary King Riding Star. This was a success due to the fact that advertisement for this game was done more differently. This game came bundled with other items that girls usually buy, and there were very few games that were specifically targeting girls at that time (1990s). This was a strange marketing approach but made the game sell for large amounts.

Many of the games Paul had published were mainly sport related titles. The developers of Midas: Interactive Entertainment was lead by Paul to produce more licensed titles. This allowed him to linger around sport celebrities and getting free tickets to events at a young age, quoting “no days where ever the same”.

Back then (1990s) working conditions where appalling. Many developers are placed into a small room all working, eat, living in a confined space. Publishers had big pressures to meet deadlines. It wasn’t nice being in the industry back then. Developers had a hard time negotiating with publishers if you don’t have a back portfolio of released games. Publishers will simple turn their back on developers. Back then Paul would receive 20 or more games proposals a week which is one of the possible reasons that publishers have strict rules for picking up developers and their games. Eventually working conditions started to improve when IGDA stepped in. Could be one of the reasons for Paul being a part of IGDA.

Paul finished that job with a not so impressive bang. The last game he commission was an utter failure. Rugby Championship Manager he commissioned had been developed by Italians who have a different view of Rugby altogether.

The session was rapped up with Paul handing some helpful tips in getting into the industry, mostly concerning about developing your portfolio, writing your opinions down about articles you see about in the industry, and “live and breathe games”. He talked briefly about the future of the game industry were we could see development costs increase by 200%, a Hollywood style business model, online distribution of games which he brought up a question: “will publishers even be needed?”, and what effect liscencing will have in game creativity.

On the whole the session was very interesting talk from Paul and it’s always a pleasure hearing from a very experience individual. An very impressive and entertaining guest lecture.

Remembering his first commission from a large company was the big initial reward for starting his own business. The company’s last turnover was over £730,000 which highlights the company’s success. With these types of business constant investments for both personally and financially are need to keep the business running.

He explained that a good good work ethic is need in the business and the business is contantly upgrading its hardwares if need be. One of the advice he gave during talk was that if time taken to do something can be reduced by spending money then have that as a main option.

Anthony gave advice and tips when you are starting up your business:

• Keep positive about things.
• Always aim high.
• Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.
• Cash is KING.
• Don’t be apologetic about money own.
• Be upfront about the amount you are being paid.
• Be prepared to fire your clients.
• Keep in mind the Pareto Principle or 80/20 rule for business- where anything in a few is vital, anything in many is trivial i.e. 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your customers/clients or 80% of complaints are from 20% or your products.
• Keep in mind that not all clients are equal.

The rest of the session involved showing us some reels of works AHD has done for many of their clients. You can watch one of their showreels they’ve made available on their website: http://www.ahd-imaging.com/showreel.html

The session overall was most interesting due to the many advice and tips that where given out during the talk, although these were given in a more casual and informal way it didn’t change the form at hand and as successful as his business has been it’s a privilege to us for him to come and give a talk.

Richard Jones from 3D Frameworks (now works for ADH) gave some interesting and humorous insight into starting your own business. The complications involve adds more strain to the thought of it.

As described by Richard the thought of it must come from a reason, and he highlighted that it must be a strong reason as it is the most common place to start a business. Other reasons involve your client list. If you have a lot of contacts with numerous clients or a single large company this is one way to go and do so.

Benefits for starting your own business are the control over the work and time. With Richard, he and Tim Ash both brought up the company as they were very specialised in 3D and concept arts. What they learn is also up to both of them to decided.

It’s all fair when you have a good reason behind a company but that’s just the beginning of it obviously. You’ll need to get the company up and running, get clients, and start getting income from your work.

Richard then explained a few ways in starting a business. One of which is that one can start their own business as a Sole Trader. Setting up a business on your own has balancing pros and cons. Obviously it’s easier to setup and you have the skills need for the job. You keep track of sales and get the profit directly from them. One of the problems is that there’s no legal separation between you and your company. Products made by the company (you) that result in faultiness in some way will be held directly responsible and the sue case can cover the assets from your company and personal belongings, i.e. your house. With other types of company such at Private and Public Limited these are guaranteed safe if things do happen badly. Below is table summary of the types of business:

You can start up with a company on your own or as a team. With a team a lot more work can be done and the company will be capable of bigger projects. The work place will be more interesting and motivational as you’re working with other people. Evenly the problems are that it’s not easy to secure a finance and possibility of team members falling out.

A company must also need a secured finance and its one of the crucial process involved. As Richard calmly explained, that you will need to have a good and realistic business plan so you can receive finance for your company from banks. Richard explained, humorously, that he managed to awe the banks into supporting his company through complicated spreadsheets. Other means of finance are from other companies your business has associations with. Usually a larger company to carry the business from the beginning. One of the problems here is that you’ll have to break your own rules to tend to the needs of the company supporting your business.

Most businesses start with very little turnover in their initial year. If the annual turnover is below £70,000 you’re company can apply for a VAT registration, but when your company exceeds that amount annually it is by law that you have to apply for one. Many will ask if the company is VAT registered. This will initially tell possible supporters how much they can get from you and how big the company can be. VAT charged on your products can be claimed back in purchasing from other VAT registered companies.

Having no idea how to get started, Richard explained that its a lot more easier to get in touch with accountants, solicitors, similar companies, lawyers and keeping note of any recommendations and opinions they provide you.

As a sum up to the session, with respect to Richard, the experience he had on setting up a business relayed very well. Although throughout the whole speech it never did change my whole perspective of setting up my own business. In fact it’s made me think that this will be the last time I would do.

When you speak of mobile gaming it is just a thought to many gamers whether hardcore or casual. At least that’s my thought also. That’s when Thomas Hulvershorn stepped in and gave some pointers to what happens in mobile game development and how much similar it is and more complicated it is to produce games for various mobile phones.

First of all Thomas Hulvershorn is the Q&A Manager for I-Play mobile gaming company who’s released over 30 title since 2004 in the Q&A division. You can visit their site here: http://www.iplay.com/.

Designing games for mobile phones adds numerous complications in the process. Many things have to be considered whilst deciding the design of a game. As what you may expect from mobile phones controls aren’t that helpful in many ways. Some mobile phone companies try to create a solution to this common problem as some phones have a specific hand-held style look-a-like to them that make them feel more comfortable for gaming and for regular phone calls.

As pointed out by Thomas once control is managed to an extent the content of the game must be manage also so that the player can pick up the game and play it right away. This can be hard to get by when you try to produce a complicated games, although the genres of games mostly cover the casual aspect of gaming. Most games tend to be situated into puzzle games which fit easily into both given considerations.

Another point given out by Thomas was the difficulty of creating a software which can run on various mobile phones. As with games mobile phones in general are being produced with new/updated framework/firmware which the software has to run on. Most mobile phones are categorised likewise where testing can be done on one phone per category.

As a Q&A manager most of the speech described testing procedures in alpha and beta stages. As far as I am aware testing seems to be more vigorous and immediate feedback is required which are then handled back to the developers for some improvements.

Testing as a job in the industry is also highlighted during the talk. This itself is a discipline of games development and has become a new profession. As a graduate designer this is one ideal job to have in order to get into the games industry. Thereafter testers move on to become part of a Q&A management team or delve into a designer role.

Although this relates very little to my background, it is still a very good information to take into account. Ideally how a mobile game is produced is what made the content of the session very useful in the end.

As a rap up, Thomas has provided a new in site into mobile gaming itself. Although it is in obvious terms that games available for phone are incomparable to console/PC/Hand Hand, mobile gaming industry has it’s own section which it can be very successful at and it’s mostly dominated by casual gamers. Gamers like me.

If you know already and smart to figure out what I’m trying to say, then well done, but I will explain anyways.

Recently found this interview of lead creator of GoW: Cliffy B while he was at DICE gaming summit. The article can be found here: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/02/13/gears-of-war-creator-update/ .
First half of the article meantions some personal aspects of his life, but what caught my attention was the second half of the content.

Cliffy pretty much stated that their primary focus now is in console gaming, pointing out that the PC market was in “Disarray”. Point to that he gave was that Gears of War sold almost 4 times as much as PC the version, so we’ll probably end up seeing less Epic games in the PC.

Although, console market right now is huge, I just thought that his point of view at that moment was partly irrational. Initially PC gaming market was hard to get into, but monster games like World of Warcraft are what Cliffy B stated is partly to blame for the overall drop in PC gaming. He has a point, but Cliffy also forgot that Gears of War was pretty much “the” next-gen game for the Xbox 360 and it was made initially exclusive. With EPIC changing over to console, we’ll probably see more of this occurring during the year. I don’t know about you my thought are that VALVE are also showing signs…maybe.

The artcle got me also thinking about PC gaming market prospect. The future is slighlty bleak. I mean as last year stated that 14% of total games sold was for the PC: http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/01/pc-games-hit-ma.html. Initially my thought, in general was, that big games like the Sims and World of Warcraft made it difficult for other genres to get it’s spotlight in the scene, but what these are also doing a good job of keeping the PC gaming market intact.

I think what this effects are mostly the hardcore PC players. There will still be gaming in the PC but more as casual Bejeweled players rather than your PC overclockers nerds, like me I admit, trying to squeeze extra processing power for a few extra framerates, and I think that’s why it has it’s effects on me.

My tuppence worth.

So please buy some PC games. *smiles*