Degree Objective 3

Analyze and critique the trends in game design and game technology

and how they affect game projects.

My education in both game design and game production has given me a very strong basis with which to approach this requirement. Both in and out of class, I have drawn on this knowledge to produce informed witing and projects that offer analysis, critique, or reactions to these trends.

Hands Off: Nintendo's New, Feel-Good Approach to Teaching the Player

This 2018 essay was the capstone of my work in my Critical Game Studies II class, the graduate-level version of the course. With both Super Mario Odyssey being published as the class was running I couldn't pass up the opportunity to examine why this game was so different from many of Nintendo's prior releases, specifically in regards to the tutorial of the game. I drew parallels with 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as well, focusing on how Nintendo chose to differentiate itself from their past games that were criticized as being patronizing in their tutorials and holding the player's hand far too much.

I believe my work on Hands Off fulfills degree requirements because of the level of analysis involved with this work. I identified a trend that had changed over the last decade (Nintendo's different approach to tutorials) and wrote an intelligent, thoughtful critique of it. This critique referenced scholarly sources such as James Paul Gee's Unified Discourse Analysis and also Steve Swink's Game Feel. It also examined sources such as video essays to create a well-rounded and well-informed conclusion about my chosen topic.

Hands Off is about 6000 words long. You can read the essay and view the sources referenced at this link to my blog.

Play.io

Play.io is a fictional startup company that I created and developed across several of my classes, mainly MS528 Founding and Operating a Startup and MS683 Industry Immersion. This game company was developed in response to the needs and demands of the classes I wrote it in, but I believe that the level of thought and analysis put into the games industry and the current climate it finds itself fulfills a part of this objective.

Play.io focuses specifically on the topic of the future within the games industry: game streaming services. The company plan envisions a streaming service focused on indie games, giving them room to shine together since there is a strong chance they will be left behind in the years to come. Additionally, I include a section on Corporate Social Responsibility. This section was informed specifically by recent trends in the industry, and I consider it a rebuttal to the way that AAA companies treat their workers and community at large.

I believe that this project fulfills this degree objective because while it is not a piece of writing specifically examining a trend in games development, it is a company plan that remains conscious of trends and the future of the game industry. I do not believe I would have been asked to create such a project if it were not applicable to my degree objectives, and I believe that the internal analysis and critique of trends in the industry that I performed while doing research and creating this plan are sufficient to satisfy requirements.

You can look at my business plan at this link.

Gangs of Graffiti

Gangs of Graffiti was a game developed by Infinitive Studios through the UAT Game Studio. The game is a competitive multiplayer arena and tank shooter game where players tag and mark territory and one another in a bid to take over the map. For my MS503 Game Marketing and Advertising course in the spring of 2019, I was tasked with working alongside the team. I would assist with production-related tasks and their marketing efforts in return for the information and access I needed to develop a comprehensive marketing report.

I also developed a full financing and marketing report for the Gangs of Graffiti team and as my final project in MS503. This report utilized data provided by the team, including their ideal price point if they were to release their game. It created a "Big Ask" for them if they were to actually pitch this product and try to receive funding for it.

You can read my full report here.

You can view the Gangs of Graffiti project page here.

I believe my work on this project fulfills degree requirements because of the analysis within my marketing report of the conditions within the game industry. This plan offers a grounded, real look at the expectations involved in paying developers, the saturated state of the industry, and how many copies, realistically, the developers would have to sell in order to make back money invested and pay everybody involved, as well as look into equipment costs. I created a detailed plan for advertising that included sample ads, examined specific channels of advertisement, and also settled on a specific brand identity for the team to orient themselves to. This is the same sort of work that would be required if the team actually intended to publish their game. This work looking at the trends and current realities of game publishing is exactly the type of work that would need to be done if the team was intending to produce their project outside of the UAT game studio.