Task 4 - Contracts, Legal and Ethical Obligations

Legal

Within the gaming industry, many legal issues arise, some of these are:

Copyright

Copyrighting is a secure way of making sure that your creation is under protection from outside sources however if you fail to copyright your work correctly, you run the risk of getting your creations stolen from you and used by another individual or company, thus wasting your time and money since they can then claim it to be theirs before you have a say in the matter.

Trademark

A Trademark is a recognisable sign for your company. If something is 'trademarked', it will usually be more popular, for example if a t-shirt was trademarked with the Nike logo, it would have an increased price and increased sales as it is a known company. An issues with trademarking is if an individual or company uses that trademark without the company's authority, this can lead customers on, thinking that it is a known brand when it is not.

Patent 

A patent is when you claim an idea, or an invention of some kind. These are used to make sure that you have the rights reserved for that idea, so that if someone else has a very similar idea you can perform actions to prevent them in creating your ideas.

Registered Designs

A Registered Design is when you claim a design you have created, much like a patent, to prevent people from copying your design. To register a design you have to go onto the UK government website and describe your design or provide information regarding your design and it will be protected from outside sources.

Ethical

Within the gaming industry, many ethical issues arise, some of these are:

Violence

Violence is very present within many popular video games, and is a real issue if small children see such violence as they could be influenced by it. This is why age ratings in place for many games, however an adult game can still fall into the hands of a young person. An example of a violent game is GTA 5, which allows you to shoot random people, run them over and other such violent activities.

Rating

The Age rating of a video game is determined by what content is in the game. For example if there is any sexual content within the game, then it will be rated an 18 by law. If there is a lot of violence it will most likely also be rated 18 depending on the gore factor/ how much blood is visible if any.

Education

Education can be taken over by games, which is one of the current issues. Games can affect a person's education in a bad way by decreasing their scores on tests as they put too much time into their video games instead of revising, this leads onto the addiction of video games.

Stereotyping

Stereotypes in video games often include police being arrogant men, like in GTA 5, that want to kill you if you do so much as look at them funny. GTA 5 is a great example in showing what stereotypes are present within video games as it has lots of different types of areas within its game world. For example in the country-side zones of GTA 5 people are scruffy rednecks whereas city-folk often wear smart clothes like suits.

Addiction

Addiction is a big problem within the video game industry as some video games can entice people to keep playing for hours, neglecting things in the real world. If you get addicted to video games you might suffer from it as it can cause some negative medical effects on your body.

Also you may get so addicted that you also want to have game development as your full-time job, aswell as playing games at home. heh

Contractual

Within the gaming industry, many contractual issues arise, some of these are:

Employment

Employment issues may arise if you cannot find the right people to join your team if you are in charge of a development group. On the other hand, if you are trying to get employed, you may struggle to find a job that is in need of your specialisations.

Development

The Development of a game may bring problems such as financial problems if you go over your budget or if you fail in someway that causes backlash onto your budget. You may also need to go over your allotted time when you are developing a video game, this will cost you extra money.

License

A license will be given to your employees so that they can have access to your restricted information and data. These licenses could be abused and something could get leaked by one of your employees.

NDA

A Non-disclosure agreement has some issues since a person can easily break it and leak your game, or leak the concept which can then be stolen by some other company. Your entire team has access to a lot of information about the game which can then be leaked anonymously, making it difficult to find the culprit.

Collaboration

Collaboration with other companies or other individuals could cause disputes as you wont have the same views on every aspect of the game developing process. This could cause some serious problems such as one company trying to sabotage the other company.

Task 5 - Professional Bodies Supporting the Industry

Professional Bodies 


UKIE

UK Interactive Entertainment is the only trade body for the UK's games and interactive entertainment industry. It represents businesses of all sizes from small start-ups to large multinational developers, publishers and service companies, working across online, mobile apps, consoles, PC, E-Sports, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

UKIE aims to support, develop and promote businesses who are members of their company, and the wider UK games industry by 'optimising the economy, cultural, political and social environment needed for businesses to thrive'





IGDA

The International Game Developers Association is the largest non-profit membership organisation in the world, serving all individuals who create games.
The IGDA is a U.S. based professional association that exists as a global network of collaborative projects and communities comprised of individuals from all fields of game development - from programmers and producers to writers, artists and QA testers.

IGDA's aims are to advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers by making connections with members and their peers to promote game development and improve the developer community overall.



Women in Games

Women in Games international is made up of both male and female professionals. They work to promote the advancements of women in the games industry as a whole.
WIGI wants more diversity within video game development, publishing, media, education and workplaces. They believe that the inclusion of more female members within the game industry could make global impacts with superior products being produced.




BAFTA

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is an independent charity supporting many art forms such as film, television and games industries within the United Kingdom.As well as having annual awards ceremonies, BAFTA has an international, annual programme of learning events and initiatives offering access to talent through workshops, masterclasses, scholarships, lectures and mentoring schemes in the UK and  U.S.



MEF

The Metro Ethernet Forum was founded in 2001 and is a nonprofit international industry association which is dedicated in the adoption of Carrier Ethernet networks and services. Carrier Ethernet is a marketing term meaning an extension to an Ethernet cable to enable telecommunications network providers to provide Ethernet services to customers.
Metro Ethernet Forum is the driving force enabling agile, assured, and orchestrated Third Network services for the digital economy and the hyper-connected world.

Task 3 - Financial, Industry and Market trends

Produce an account of why financial planning is so important within the games industry and what thecurrent issues facing the industry are.Produce an account of the current industry and market trends that are within the games industry.
You are aiming to comprehensively explain financial issues in the games industry along with MarketTrends and current industry developments with reference to elucidated examples. You should beusing subject terminology consistently and correctly.

Financial planning is important within the games industry as it will ensure that you can hire the correct amount of people with the right specialities to produce your game, and also makes sure that you won't end up wasting money in the long run as you will plan everything out carefully to ensure this. Planning will make your money spending more efficient, overall making the game creating process cheaper and easier. It is always a good thing to plan before you do anything, and financial planning is one of the more important topics you should plan for.

The gaming industry as a whole face many financial issues. To prevent yourself from facing these financial issues, you will need to prepare by creating a Financial plan and by identifying the many issues that you could come across.

Game design is a very expensive process overall. For example, it cost Bethesda around $100 million to develop The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. Skyrim is a big open world game which is one of the reasons why it costs so much. You will need a lot of time to create all of the world and to design the game. This affects the overall cost of the game because time is money and the longer you work on a game, the more money it will cost to create. Thus the gaming industry has a high cost if something goes wrong with the process.

Market Trends

As shown by the pie chart above, mobile games are a huge part of the video game industry and are increasing in popularity much more than other platforms. PC and Console percentages are very similar. The casual web games section of the pie-chart is decreasing, probably because the mobile industry has similar and more accessible casual games.

Sources:

https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/700740/Reports/Newzoo_Free_2016_Global_Games_Market_Report.pdf

Task 2 - Job Roles

Creative Development

Game Designer
A game designer plans what a game will turn out to be. They work out what a game will contain and how it will be played, then they plan each element of the game, for example, the game's setting and environment, the structures found within the environment, any characters, the overall story of the game, what kind of objects will be present and which ones will be intractable by the player, for example designing a car that can be entered upon pressing a certain button, would be planned by the game designer.

A game designers are employed by development studios and are usually formed into groups of game designers with one lead designer.
A game designer will need good communication skills and have the ability to work as a team. They will have to communicate with everyone working within that development team. They will need to have good written skills, be able to draw basic visual designs, be able to use 2D and 3D graphical software at a reasonable level and will need understanding of all the other processes of game design.
Game Designers are generalists, meaning not specified in any certain role, and are instead reasonably knowledgeable about all aspects of game design.

An example of a game designer Satoshi Tajiri, one of the game designers of Game Freak. Satoshi is known for working on the Pokemon games, and has been since the start, he was the Executive Director and the Executive Producer for many of the Pokemon games. He is one of the many faces of the series and appears frequently in Nintendo reveals about the game.

Level Editor
Level editors will create the interactive architecture for a game, this ranges from things like objects, to whole environments and buildings. When creating assets for the game, they will need to hold true to the design specification given to them. They will need to create assets to fit a certain criteria such as a 'Sci-Fi setting' for example, anything that doesn't fit the theme cannot be used.
Level Editors will first design the layout of their segment of the game by using 2D drawing software or drawing it on paper.

A Level Editor will need good layout design skills and have the ability to visualise their ideas into conceivable layouts for the game. 
They will need knowledge of 3D modelling software and knowledge of the game design process.
They will also need understanding of programming and scripting language to work closely with the programmers aswell as the artists.
As usual they will need to have good communication and teamwork, aswell as being creative and have overall knowledge of the game design process.

Lead Artist
The Lead Artist is responsible for the overall visuals of the game. The Lead Artist will work closely with the Lead Programmer and the Lead Game Designer. They produce lots of the initial designs and artwork for the game setting standards and guidelines for the Artists to follow.
Lead Artists work closely with the Producer to manage a team of Artists and Animators whom produce the art assets for the game under their directions.
They will need to make sure that the Artists complete the work within the designated schedule and also within the budget they have to work with.

Lead Artists will need to have good communication skills, including being able to talk with the senior staff and having the ability to take on the leader role by being inspiration and have the ability to motive a large team in creating the artwork for the game.
They will have to have a clear understanding of all the roles involved within the art department and be able to oversee all of this to make sure that the team is on track in the direction they think the artists should be working towards depending on what game they are making.


Artist
Under the supervision of the Lead Artist, Artists will need to create 2D and 3D assets for their game. An artist will have a portfolio of creations that they have previously designed and created. With this they can have a specialisation such as being a 3D modeller who specialises in character creation.
There are different aspects of being an artist that you can specialise in. 
One of these aspects is a concept artist, whos job it is to sketch ideas that will be created into 2D or 3D assets later on.
Another is a 3D modeller, whos job it is to create a 3D model based off of an idea or piece of concept art using 3D modelling software such as Maya and 3DS Max.
A 2D artist is also one of the specialisations in game art. a 2D artist will work on creating 2D textures to be mapped onto 3D objects, or sprites and environments for 2D games.

An artist will have to have their own art portfolio with demonstrations of their previous work and their own unique visible style.
They will need knowledge on the anatomy of characters and be able to convey facial expressions through art, aswell as having knowledge and understanding of architecture and how buildings are created in order to create their own realistic buildings.
Most of all they will need to be imaginative, paired with the ability to work on a specific style to create assets for a game within the allotted time frame, (for this they will also need to manage time well and have an understanding of the limitations of the process).
Artists will also need good communication skills as they will be working closely with other people in their team.

Animator
Animators are responsible in bringing the 2D art and 3D models to live be creating the movements and behaviours of the models. Animations or usually used with characters and anything that has a visible movement such as scenery like grass swaying. Animators create these animations using 3D animating software such as Maya. Animators work within the art department team of a company and work closely with the other artists.
Animators are also responsible for the technical processes of rigging and skinning their characters and models. They will need to create the character's bone structure underneath the model then attaching the appropriate body parts to each bone, making it easier to animate the model.

A good animator will be able to portray the movement of a character or object in an effective and smooth way which creates nice realistic looking movement.
Animators will need to have a good understanding and have lots of knowledge on different 3D and 2D animating techniques.
They will need to have a good imagination and creativity.
As they work closely within a group, they will need good communication and teamwork.
They will need to have knowledge of full motion video.



Audio Engineer
An Audio Engineer will create the soundtrack for the game. A soundtrack includes music, sound effects, ambient sounds, character voices and other various sounds for the game. They can use a method called Foley Artistry, which involves the use of real life objects and sounds in creating their own sounds from that by editing the sound waves using sound editing software.
Audio engineers can consist of one or two people, but also be a large group depending on the company and the type of game in creation. The creation of a game's soundtrack is a complex process as there are lots of different experiences the player will come across and the Audio Engineer will need to bring those experiences to life by making sure every detail of the game has the correct sound to go with it.

An Audio Engineer, will have t be able to compose and perform music, have sound engineering skills and to have knowledge of any tools and technology that might be used in the process. 
They will need creativity to create sound effects that will fit the theme, setting, the type of environment and what type of game it is.
They will need communication skills to work with the programming and art departments and be able to pay close attention to detail to really bring a game to life with the use of sound.


Technical Development

Game Programmer
A game programmer are in charge of creating the code for a game. The code is the core of a video game and without it the video game would just be assets. The code brings everyone else's creations together to form a working game. Programmers will use their coding knowledge to write new code and adapting already written code to work with their project. They will perform tests on the code and fix any bugs they find. Developing customised tools for other members of the development team could also be one of the jobs of a programmer. The various types of coding programmers will have to create can be Artificial Intelligence(like making AI enemies move around and attack you), adding physics to the world (such as the gravity strength or having the ability to move objects around).

A Game Programmer will need knowledge in C++,C and various other programming languages depending on who the employer is and what their needs are. 
Programmers will need to be organised and have the ability to create efficient code.
They will be working as a part of a team, thus also needing good communication and teamwork.
Most of all, programmers will need good problem solving skills and have the right attitude or they could struggle with the workload.



Lead Game Programmer

A Lead Programmer is responsible in creating all of the code used within the game by overseeing the Programming group and guiding them in the right direction. They are in charge and manage the overall coding process and will need to make sure that the Programming team get enough work done within the allotted time and with the allotted budget.
They will usually make a compilation of all the code created by the different Programmers to make sure that they are the correct quality and work together.
Lead Programmers will also manage the different builds of a game, to ensure that there are no bugs present and if there are find solutions to fix all of the bugs. 

To be a Lead Programmer, you will need to be a good leader and have the inspiration needed to motivate the team to success. As well as this you will need to be aproachable, have good listening skills to make sure that everyone in the group gets a say in what they are doing, and have the ability to answer any questions that the team may have regarding their work.
You will need to have advanced programming skills and have knowledge of many coding languages (or specifically the one that the team is using).

Project Implementation

Project Manager/Producer
A Project Manager is responsible in making sure that the game is created and produced successfully within the time frame and within the budget given. They will control all the finances needed within the game development process aswell as any other resources needed by the team. They keep an overview of the entire process.

To be a Project manager you will need to be able to lead, inspire and motive the various teams working on the game.
You will need good leader skills to provide a strong leadership.
You will need excellent communication skills and presentation skills to show your team what needs to be done.


Assistant Producer
The Assistant Producer works with a game's production staff to ensure the timely delivery of the highest quality product possible. 
Typically, they will focus on specific areas of the development process. This could involve handling the communications between the publisher and developer, or coordinating work on some of the project's key processes such as managing the outsourcing of art assets.

To be able to work as an Assistant Producer you will need to be able to work well as a team.
You will need to have strong communication skills, have a great understanding and knowledge of project management.

External Producer
The External Producer is responsible for ensuring the successful delivery of a game, while working externally from the development team.
External Producers are almost always employed by a game publisher. Working out of the publisher's head office, they liaise between the publisher's sales and marketing departments and the game developer, which may be located hundreds of miles away.

External Producers need a clear understanding of the role, and the requirements the create of a game needs.
You will need a large passion for games themselves.
Like everything, you will need excellent communication skills.


Creative Director
The Creative Director is the key person during the game development process, overseeing any high-level decisions that affect how the game plays, looks or sounds.
Not all game companies employ Creative Directors. Some companies prefer to continue to split the duties between a game's Lead Artists, Lead Programmers, Designer and Producers.
Where the position is used, each game development team has its own Creative Director. Some highly experienced and talented Creative Directors oversee multiple projects.

You will need to be able to inspire artists, programmers, producers and marketing staff to make the highest quality product possible.
Also have a passion for games.
Have excellent communication skills so that you can talk to anyone you may need to.


Quality Assurance

QA Tester
Quality Assurance Technicians or Testers will be in charge of testing the game throughout it's development process to point out any bugs then debug the game and make suggestions to the team to help improve the quality of the game. They will report back on the playability and enjoy factor of the game then try to suggest ways to improve. QA Testers will work in teams, sometimes playing together if it is a multiplayer game and will have to test the game over and over to make sure it is fully refined.

A QA tester will have to have a very methodical and analytical mindset when approaching the tests.
Have a wide knowledge on other similar games and other games currently being produced to try and beat the competition their company will be up against. They will need a broad understanding of all the elements that make up a video game so that they can find flaws easier and suggest ways of improvements.
They will need to be able to play games for long periods of time, be patient and pay close attention to the details of the game.
Like all other roles, they will need good communication, however a QA tester needs excellent communication skills as you will be dealing with other members and possibly arguing over certain aspects of a game.

Business Development

Public Relations Manager

Public Relations managers plan and direct the creation of material that will maintain or enhance the public image of their employer or client. Fundraising managers coordinate campaigns that bring in donations for their organisation. Public relations managers help to clarify their organisation's point of view to its main audience through media releases and interviews. They observe social, economic, and political trends that might ultimately affect their organisation, and they recommend ways to enhance the firm's image based on those trends.

Product Manager

The Product Manager's role is to help create and implement marketing campaigns to maximise the sales of the games they are working on. 
Working in the marketing team, they support the senior marketing managers who organise international or global campaigns. 

Product Managers will need to have good communication skills.
Have strong negotiation skills in dealing with external partners
Have a good working knowledge of the games market.
Be able to manage a budget.



Marketing Executive

Marketing Executives undertake a wide range of activities to market the game to existing and potential listeners and clients. The aim is to increase brand awareness and loyalty, grow the audience and attract advertisers. This involves a range of analytical and creative marketing activities.

Marketing Manager

The Marketing and Publicity Managers' main responsibility is to convince the public that this is a 'must-play' game. Once Distributors have identified the target audiences and potential revenue, the marketing campaign should reach target audiences before and during game release.  When the game releases, audiences’ interest should be at its peak. After release, the Marketing and Publicity Manager needs to increase interest in the game with more promotion and troubleshoot any problems.





http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games

Task 6

Define what documents are used within the industry




GDD
A GDD is short for Game Design Document which is used to document the different sections of a game.
For example a GDD could include information on the story if the game has a story, or concept art of the characters and the environment in the game. The GDD is used in the pre production stage of game development to help the team organise all the information about the game they are developing which will help guide the development team.


Advantages / disadvantages

Advantages of a GDD:
-  The development team will be more organised
-  The team can communicate ideas using the GDD

Disadvantages of a GDD:
- People in the dev team might not look at the GDD or only look at the section they are involved in
- It will have to be continuously updated and would require more effort from the dev team
- The dev team might not update the GDD and if anyone were to read it, it would be outdated




Recce Report
A recce report is a report that shows an overview of the workplace that the development team are situated. It contains information such as any health and safety issues with the workplace, where equipment used by the dev team will be, where power outlets are placed and what the overall atmosphere of the place is like.


Advantages / disadvantages

Advantages of a Recce Report:
- It is helpful to determine whether you would want to work there because of possible health and safety issues
- It gives you an overview of the workplace so that you know a bit about it before you go there

Disadvantages of a Recce Report:
- The Recce Report might have false information
- The Recce Report could be outdated and the workplace could be different to what the Recce Report states




Risk Assessment
A risk assessment is an assessment of any concerns to do with health and safety issues of a workplace. It is used to document any risks so that people are aware of them. It can also be used as a checklist to make sure all of the issues are solved.


Advantages / disadvantages

Advantages of a Risk Assessment:
- It can give you an idea of how safe the workplace is.
- It can help you make sure the workplace is safe

Disadvantages of a Risk Assessment:
- The development teams might lie about any risks involving the work space instead of sorting the risks out.

Task 7 - Career development materials

How to get a job

CV

A CV is a description of yourself, used to sell yourself to your employer. A CV will include your previous grades from high school and college, any achievements you have done, or any activities you have participated in which makes you stand out above everyone else. You will also need to provide your employer with personal details such as your address, name, date of birth and any contact details that they might need. A good, professional CV will make an employer want to hire you, so when you create your own CV, you should put a lot of effort into making it presentable.

This is an example of a good CV. It includes all of the required details and information about the person.


Dream Job/ Aspirations

My dream job is to work for a well-known gaming company such as, Blizzard, Bethesda or Nintendo. I would want to work on games such as Overwatch with Blizzard or Elder Scrolls 6 with Bethesda. To achieve this goal i will need to work hard at college and obtain distinctions in my work since getting into a big company will take a lot of effort. I will also need to work in my own time to increase my skills even further to prepare myself for getting one of these jobs.


Portfolio

An Online Portfolio is a personal showcase of your achievements in your line of work. It is used to create an online overview of your achievements which can be used to make yourself visible to the online community and help you gain reputation.


Advantages of a Portfolio
It is a good way of getting known as it has a compilation of all of your work and achievements visible by everyone.
You can show an employer all of your previous work easily.


Disadvantages of a Portfolio
I don't think there are any disadvantages in having an online portfolio as it helps you greatly. However you could have some issues with an online portfolio if not done correctly, such as having your work stolen.

This is an example of an online portfolio. Molly Jameson has a brief description of herself with a link to her full resume, containing lots of confirmation about herself.
It clearly shows different pieces of work that she has created using the slideshow at the top right, which cycles through some of her work.

Business Card
A business card shows the information about a company or an individual. These cards are made for you to hand out to people to give them your contact information so that they can contact you for your expertise in your are of work. A business card is a small cheap card that can easily and cheaply be reproduced. The card will have your name and any contact information required for them to get in touch with you.

This is a business card i have created as an example of a good business card. I think it is a good business card as it is plain and the text is easily readable. It also includes the information required for people to get in touch with me.

Career Development Spreadsheet

Game Designer
A game designer plans what a game will turn out to be. They work out what a game will contain and how it will be played, then they plan each element of the game, for example, the game's setting and environment, the structures found within the environment, any characters, the overall story of the game, what kind of objects will be present and which ones will be intractable by the player, for example designing a car that can be entered upon pressing a certain button, would be planned by the game designer.

Animator
Animators are responsible in bringing the 2D art and 3D models to live be creating the movements and behaviours of the models. Animations or usually used with characters and anything that has a visible movement such as scenery like grass swaying. Animators create these animations using 3D animating software such as Maya. Animators work within the art department team of a company and work closely with the other artists.
Animators are also responsible for the technical processes of rigging and skinning their characters and models. They will need to create the character's bone structure underneath the model then attaching the appropriate body parts to each bone, making it easier to animate the model.

Programmer
A game programmer are in charge of creating the code for a game. The code is the core of a video game and without it the video game would just be assets. The code brings everyone else's creations together to form a working game. Programmers will use their coding knowledge to write new code and adapting already written code to work with their project. They will perform tests on the code and fix any bugs they find. Developing customised tools for other members of the development team could also be one of the jobs of a programmer. The various types of coding programmers will have to create can be Artificial Intelligence(like making AI enemies move around and attack you), adding physics to the world (such as the gravity strength or having the ability to move objects around).


QA Tester
Quality Assurance Technicians or Testers will be in charge of testing the game throughout it's development process to point out any bugs then debug the game and make suggestions to the team to help improve the quality of the game. They will report back on the playability and enjoy factor of the game then try to suggest ways to improve. QA Testers will work in teams, sometimes playing together if it is a multiplayer game and will have to test the game over and over to make sure it is fully refined.



http://www.mollyjameson.com/
https://www.dayjob.com/content/it-cv-template-355.htm

Task 1 - The Value Chain

Task 1 - Structure - The Value Chain




Developers

A video game developer is a type of software developer that specialises in the video game industry. A game development team can consist of large teams or even a single person. A large development team include specialists in specific areas of game development. These specialists form sections of a development team and work under a leaders to perform certain tasks to help create the game. These specialisations can include: programming, artwork, design, QA testing and many more.

There are four types of game developers, first-party developers, second-party developers, third-part developers and independent developers.
A first-party developer is a development team which manufactures video game consoles then develops games exclusively for their consoles. Examples of first party companies are: Nintendo, who use the name Nintendo for both the console and game development. However Sony use a specific section as their name called "Sony's Polyphony Digital" aswell as a completely different name "Rare" as separate companies which they own to develop games for their consoles.

A second-party developer can be one of two things: An independently owned studio who take contracts from the console manufacturers and release exclusives for their platform or studios that are partially or wholly owned by the console manufacturers. An example

Third-party developers have a contract between the developer and publisher of the game, specifying the milestones of the game developing process.

Independent developers are developers who aren't owned by anyone but themselves. This type of developer would either need to create their own game then try and get it visible to the public using the internet, or they could have an agreement with the console manufacturers.


Publishers

Video game publishers are companies which publish video games that are either developed internally or externally by a video game development team. Video game publishers are responsible for the marking and manufacturing of their products aswell as researching market trends and all aspects of advertising.

Publishers often finance the development the development of the game, sometimes by paying a video game developer or paying a studio. Large video game publishers also have the task of distributing the games that they publish, however most smaller companies will hire distribution companies to do it for them.#

An example of a publishing company is Valve who have probably published the most games out of all companies using their program, Steam, which is the most popular gaming program for PC.



Console Manufacturers/First Party Publishers

Console Manufacturers and First Party Publishers are the companies involve in marketing and selling their consoles aswell as either hiring others or creating video games themselves exclusively for their console. Console manufacturers and First Party Publishers are in charge of creating the hardware needed to have a functioning console to run the current generation of games and rival the other big companies.
These companies are the 'gatekeepers' of the industry, as they decide whether or not to approve each game targeted for development on their respective console platforms. They have an immense amount of power and influence over what gets released and which titles get priority marketing.
Distribution and Retail

In the video game industry, digital distribution is the process of delivering video game content as digital information, without the exchange or purchase of new physical media. This process has existed since the early 1980s, but it was only with network advancements in bandwidth capabilities in the early 2000s that digital distribution became more prominent as a method of selling games. Currently, the process is dominated by online distribution over broadband internet.

To facilitate the sale of games, various game companies have created their own platforms for digital distribution. These platforms, such as Steam, Origin, and Xbox Live Marketplace, provide centralised services to purchase and download digital content for either specific video game consoles or PCs. Some platforms may also serve as digital rights management systems, limiting the use of purchased items to one account.

Retail markets and shops have a very ancient history, dating back to antiquity. Retailing involves the process of selling consumer goods or services to customers through multiple channels of distribution to earn a profit. Retailers satisfy demand identified through a supply chain. 

Outsourcing Companies

Outsourcing companies provide services to the developers and publishers of other companies, the services they provide includes having to do the art, animation and design; rendering, graphics and physics engines and programming; audio and sound design; and localisation. This method is now getting more common to use because it is a great method that allows other companies to reduce the cost of their production rather than doing all the work internally or by themselves. An example of a manufacturing company outsourcing would be Dell buying some of its computer components from another manufacturer in order to save on production costs. Alternatively, businesses may decide to outsource book-keeping duties to independent accounting firms, as it may be cheaper than retaining an in-house accountant.



Press and Media

The Press and Media are involved in making new video games more known by having them view able on certain websites or within magazines.
Video game developers will use many things to their advantage to help sell their games. Developers can promote their games by gathering info on other rivalling companies and try to create a more unique/ better game than them by looking at past reviews found on online Media. The media is also useful for the public to see whether or not they would like to purchase a game, for example, on steam everyone can view ratings of a game to see if the majority of the people who played it thought it was worth buying.