Different types of hardware

UNIT 1: PRE-PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES FOR THE CREATIVE MEDIA INDUSTRIES-FINANCE - TASK 1

-Hardware (computers, Peripherals, Dev kits)

Using a Development Kit along with one of the Single Board Computers is the easiest way to get started developing systems and applications with embedded ARM based single board computers from Technologic Systems.

Hardware

 

Most hardware for computers will be in the hundreds depending on how good your hardware works. most business hardware will be the highest in cost as businesses, for example Gaming needs websites available to them so that video games can be created. Hardware that is old or is low in cost will have less available software that they can use. In designing a game or playing a game you will need a decent hardware to be able to be ran.

Peripherals

 A Peripherals device is generally defined as any auxiliary device such as a computer mouse or keyboard that connects to and works with the computer in some way. Other examples of Peripherals are image scanners, tape drives, microphones, loudspeakers, webcams, and digital cameras.

These are all things that you may need or for something extra that you would like. The prices are all different as its not aiming at one type of device and so the price is also ranged in the hundreds depending on how much you buy and the quality. 

Dev Kits

 

A software Development kits (SDK or "devkit") is typically a set of software development tools that allows the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar development platform.

The prices of the Dev kits are on an average on £200

Depending on the quality. 

-Software(UDK, Unity, Game Maker, Maya)

Software

Software is very important in computers as it allows you to use things like search engines to protection on your computer. These types of software are increasingly improving for example Windows 7 to Windows 10 is a big difference in what's available, to better protection, to faster internet speed.

These are examples of software:

UDK

(UNREAL DEVELOPMENT KIT)

UDK is a great software which allows gamers/companies to work on to make fast and simple games. its a great engine for beginners and has steps and guides to making a game.

https://udn.epicgames.com/Three/UE3Basics.html

The engine guides through all the steps you need to take to be able to design a good game. It also is a very know software so it gets plenty of updates which is good for designers.

Unity

Is a game design software which is used for those games that are not looking to be to serious or to have good graphics. Games like: How to build a bridge, Kerbal space program are very simple cel shaded games  which is one of the main art types for the use of Unity.

https://unity3d.com/showcase/gallery/games

Main website.

Game Maker

Game Maker Studio caters to entry-level novices and seasoned game development professionals equally, allowing them to create cross-platform games in record time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional tools!

In addition to making game development 80 percent faster than coding for native languages, developers can create fully functional prototypes in just a few hours, and a full game in just a matter of weeks.

 

Game Maker is usually used for platform games. This is a very easy and simple game design software, which doesn't need that much experience to produce a good design of a game.

  

 Maya

Maya is used for most cel shading games yet some of the most popular photorealism games are produced on this, for example call of duty.

For the comic games an example would be borderlands etc.
http://www.autodesk.co.uk/products/maya-lt/features/all/gallery-view

Maya is a 3D modeling and animation tool built for a professional indie game makers. Its designed to help indies bring their creations to life, and it provides a powerful set of creative tools and workflows at a affordable price.
Maya LT is designed to make the 3D creative process faster for experienced indie game makers and easier to learn for new users. A diverse set of tools helps you to create 3D content and export it to your game engine faster.

Publishing

Steam
(A digital game store)
Steam is a website that you can download video game content and it allows you to run games on it as well. Steam is a good website that has a range of games on offer for you to buy or get for free. By allowing games to run on its server its bring in more money for steam. The website is available to those that have a pc, mac, IOS, Android etc. Which shows that steam is a popular digital game store and server.

UNIT 1: PRE-PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES FOR THE CREATIVE MEDIA INDUSTRIES-FINANCE - TASK 2

Self financing

Financing a business without borrowing or issuing shares. In this situation startup capital is required to run the business until profits can underpin the outgoings of the business.
The advantages are that the control is not given to share holders, and their opinion does therefore not have to be taken into account in relation to business decisions 

And the business would gain more money because other companies are not involved
A disadvantage are that sufficient capital may not be available to reach desired economics of scale, and because of the large capital often required to start a business, few totally self-financing
 Some business that self-finance are independent and if done correctly could be a good profit for the worker/designer.  

Indie Funding

Indie funding is provides funds that helps developers create their games, however Indie funding does not do anything else, no QA, or Signature required and no help if people have bought a game and want a refund. The point of this is to help developers produce games.
Some good examples of why is good

(1) have a simple, open, time-limited contract that doesn’t require negotiation and lawyers to sign;
(2) have a rapid turnaround so you can be funded much quicker than most other ways games get funded;
(3) have a well rounded group of advisors that you can ask for advice when you inevitably run into some tricky problems; and
(4) allow game creators to create with as few burdens or impediments as possible.

Crowd funding

 Crowd Funding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the internet.
Crowd funding is a way of raising finance by asking a large number of people each for a small amount of money. Until recently, financing a business, project or venture involved asking a few people for large sums of money. Crowd funding switches this idea around, using the internet to talk to thousands – if not millions – of potential funders.
People will create their own websites online and ask people that can fund and maybe offer prizes for those that donate/fund.

Grants
(Un-Real Dev Grants)
Grants is when someone will give or allow someone to earn money for free by designing a good game.
Epic Games announces the first round of academic and educational recipients of Unreal Dev Grants, a "$5 million program" Epic launched earlier this year to provide no-strings-attached funding to developers of promising early-stage projects. Today 10 contributors are being awarded more than "$75,000" for their exemplary work on Unreal Engine learning resources.
Most educators that are known will have the first Un-Real Dev Grants to help out the education.

Publisher
(Activision, EA, Rockstar etc.)
A Video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer
Each of these video game publishers are competing against each other, more than others depending on the type of genre and audience.
Each of these publishers want the best response in profit, and so they hire people that are able to code and design. Some Publishers ask other companies to help out in the making of the game, maybe for the coding or even just for an overall opinion.

 

Each publisher is known for some type of game for example Activision is known for Call of Duty and War craft etc. Which makes the type of publisher focus more on those game types because they have created a audience.