Meeting Shane Smit

When Shane Smit came in to present to us he covered a few new topics as well as going into depth on a few previously introduced topics.
Firstly he discussed his experiences in industry. Most of the time people will get tossed around to various areas of the industry to help out in multiple parts of the game, especially in smaller companies or as indie developers. So one should always be prepared to learn new concepts and be willing to learn. The industry is also heavily driven by money. This should sound like common sense but people underestimate just how important it is that video games make a profit. Every time a company agrees to make a game they, usually, have to invest large sums of money. A quote from Shane touched on this topic: "Video games are a service." Now that means that we, as developers, must make sure our games fit as a service and give the users something they're looking for. That means we have to adapt to what is currently popular with our audiences.

Shane went on to discuss how we have to make a game successful based on popularity. As previously stated, we must adapt to the constant changes of the market to make sure our games are relevant to what the consumer wants. One way of doing this is by developing games after popular movies. The hard part about making movies into video games is that they both have to be released at the same time, to capitalize on the market's hype. If they aren't released at the same time the game might suffer because the movie will lose some of its hype and become less popular. So crunch time is very important for these types of games. If the game isn't released by its expected date then the company is already losing a large sum of money.

Finally he discussed how games have to come together as a whole. To make a game successful it must be solid and complete. Now that might sound like common sense too but there are many games that are 'complete' but not 'solid'. To have a solid game aspects of the game cannot be missing or lacking. If UI or sound is missing or terrible quality people won't play it because of the general unpleasantness of it. One big aspect of the game that draws people in is the menu. The menu has to be appealing and cool to make people want to play and proves that your game isn't just a crappy student project. So making the game is actually a very small part of the designing process, with a majority of it spent making tools and making those tools work with the game.