Video game pre-production
pre-production is required on any project throughout the media and arts industries, it is the processes of preparation and planning for key elements of the project (e.g. Finance and personnel etc.) so that it meets certain expectations, requirements and standards of financiers and the target audience.
Type of media and arts industries that require pre-production:
Film
Television
Advertising
Games development
Internet
Radio
Press
Interactive media
Finance:
Sources of finance - If you are working for a company, they would fund your project based on estimated target audience, size of project and revenue. If you are an independent development crew, you will get funding from donations and kick starter events. Also, you may be sponsored by another company.
Budgets - a set amount of money allocated to the protect or certain parts of the product depending on their importance or relevance to the project or target audience. This budget would also be loosely based on how much revenue they expect to make. To ensure all aspects of the project have enough money to meet standards, the total funds must be split into budgets for the separate areas, showing clearly how much they can spend and on what. you would need to consider: staff wages, paying each team (development crew, artists, graphic designers); cost of materials (e.g. software and hard ware for games development, recording equipment for music); transport (to and from locations used in the project like settings or places of inspiration, also events like games-con and E3); facilities for producing the game and advertisement costs like running TV adds or hiring billboards.
If working for a bigger company,
your budget can be split into clearances. The funding company will split the
total funds into segments for progressions in the project, as the project meets
certain criteria with one segment it will be given another.
GTA5s budget was a total of about
£170 million, making it the most expensive development of a game as of 2014.
Competitors - to keep up with competition and other releases of other similar projects (like a similar genera of game or music)
Relevance - the project need to be relative to society happening around that time to meet a certain target audience. For example, if you were making a game based on a movie, you would need to release the game soon after the movie otherwise it would not be relevant and people would not show much interest in your release. Therefore you would not make as many sale and less profits.
Releasing at opportune times - to make better sales you can time your release date with holiday such as Christmas so people are more likely to but your game as a gift.
Release date - projects are usually set to a tight deadline at which point the game will be officially released. This helps with when to start advertisement and generate a lot more "hype" as you close on the official date. This is also important as any time spent making the game over the deadline will affect profit margins as you are spending more time and money on the game over the budget and set deadline or clearance.
Availability - you need the required equipment and
personnel to be available at the desired time during the progression of the
project.
Battle Field 4 was released on time and to its deadline, but many say it was not ready with massive amounts of lag and problems with the multilayer aspects of the game making it unplayable for some. After receiving criticism and complains about these issues, the development team put all other projects on hold and set about fixing the game functionality and servers.
Personnel:
Contributors - these can be funders of the project, personal with certain expertise or talents.
Expert personnel - On any project a team or teams of expert personnel are required to work on certain aspects, to make sure they meet a required standard. With designing a game, you will need personnel for aspects like research, story and character development, concept art, graphical design, programming, voice acting, advertisement etc. Celebrities are often used. For example, the actor Elijah Wood (Frodo in Lord Of The Rings ) voiced the iconic purple dragon in the legend of Spiro: a new beginning, the eternal night and dawn of the dragon..
Sound clips - http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/voice-compare/Spyro-the-Dragon/Spyro-the-Dragon/
Size - the size of the team will need to be relative to the difficulty of the set task and the time restraints on it. If too many are assigned to an easy task you could be wasting money on unneeded wages. On the other hand, if too little personnel are set to a task, it might not meet deadline or standard.
Skill level - assess the teams past work and current qualifications to check they are properly fitting to the assignment, as to keep level of standard consistent..
Facilities:
Equipment - some equipment required may be in specialised facilities or need certain facilities to meet the task at hand. For example if doing a photo-shoot or recording clips etc. A facility with the photo equipment at hand and with an editing studio close by would be appropriate.
Materials:
Sources - photo and audio library materials can be used for inspiration and reference or actually use clips or images from them in the final product. The internet can also be used to gather materials such as images or information.
Concepts, research and development - Questionnaires and studies on target audience to gather information on what the public want. Looking at past examples to see how well they were received thought statistics like revenue. Interviews with people to get concepts for plot or characters. Concept art and scenery of inspiration can go on to make animatics, an animated storyboard to get a better feel of atmosphere and character. Character and costume design/art work to furtherer develop characters and setting.
Hell blade is game currently in
development by ninja theory. They make a pre-vis trailer to put the concept art
and characters into motion and get a feel for the atmosphere, this
is usually used to pitch to publishers, but as they are the
publisher they opened it to the public. This trailer was designed purely by
the art team at ninja theory. Around the time of the start of the making of
this trailer that Sony offered a game announcement at
games-con. They used in house 3D capture software, they then animated the
trailer based on the data and footage they captured. They used
real life references when possible (brought in real furs and
leathers, skulls of animals and the wrinkles pours
and expressions of the female actors face). This is
what was then used to publicize the game at games-con.
Software/Hardware - with film, music or game production you will need editing software on capable equipment, to edit audio clips and visual clips like cut scenes and videos. Graphical and rendering software for game design, engines etc.
Locations:
Project setting - if you are making a project with a certain
theme/setting, then you will need to go to locations relevant to the genera or
theme of your game or music to get images to inspire concept art and scenery in
the game or a background for a music video. For this you would take into
account:
Limitations,
accessibility of the area/location and ease of transportation there.
Risk, if
the location is dangerous and put any of your personnel in danger.
Cost, the
cost of transport there and possibly accommodation for your film/camera crew
whilst you are there.
Weather
conditions, how the weather conditions effect all of the above and if they
affect the outcome of using that location (e.g. if the video or concept art
requires a clear sky's, but on the day its overcast, it would be a waste of
time and money going).
For example, in tomb raider a lot of the scenery and level design had some inspiration from the temples in Cambodia.
Codes of practice:
Legal -
Copyright:
To protect against plagiarism for a certain amount of time after the
creation/concept of an idea or material.
Health
and safety: regulations and procedures to
prevent accident or injury in workplaces.
Risk assessments:
A process of evaluating the potential risks
that might be involved in activity.
Regulatory
bodies -
Ofcom: The communications regulator in the UK. They regulate
the TV, radio, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services, plus wireless
devices.
Press Complaints Commission: A regulator for British newspapers and magazines, made of people form the major publishers. The PCC is funded by the annual fee it charges on newspapers and magazines.
Advertising Standards Authority: the UK's independent regulator of advertising for all media.
Pan European Game Information: A European video game content rating system to help European consumers make decisions on buying computer games.
Entertainment Software rating board: An organization that assigns age and content ratings, enforces advertising guidelines and online privacy for computer games.
Trade
associations -
Independent Games Developers Association: A trade association representing the business and commercial side of some video and computer game developers in the UK and Europe.
British
Interactive Media Association: Represents the digital
industry in the United Kingdom.
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