Year 3: Research report: The start of early access

The start of early access

What is early Assess and where did it come from? Well to find out we have to go back abit before Steam popularized the early access program early access at the very shaky beginning. one of the most successful of the first early access games to ever amount was actually Minecraft. coming out in alpha on "November 18 2011" Wikipedia: Minecraft (2011) being in development for two years and seven months from "10 May 2000" Wikipedia: Minecraft (2011).

Once out of the game exploded in popularity arguably becoming one of the most successful games ever created  not only being well known in the game community but in popular culture with many different forms of media knowing what Minecraft is. The way Minecraft funding worked is by a simple way of purchasing the game from their websites really use of PayPal or a credit card  are very simple payment method. The game now has been fully completed  bought back when the game was in its alpha state the game was a little bit cheaper but could be purchased by anyone. This may not be in the first earlier this game bought was one of the most successful of the earliest. The game was constantly updated through its clients and new features are added similar to any other early access game. It could be due to the fact that this game was so successful that paved the way's early access games to flourish in the games industry or could just be a massive coincidence.

The next major step forward in the early access game model was from the websites kickstart. This website allows the community to fund various different projects and allows the community to donate as little or as much as they want to fund the project. as time went on kickstart became a centralised hub for small companies to get funding for their game projects this in a sense created the unofficial early access program. kickstart was so successful in fact  that it managed the fund a new console to be constructive called the "OUYA" which was a android-based console.

So with many different game ideas being funded in this way it seemed like early access was on the rise but had not permeated the main game community. This is where valve enters the picture with their early access program on steam launched on "March 20 2013" Wikipedia: early access (2013). with early access releasing with heavyweight titles such as Arma 3 released on "March 20 2013" Wikipedia: list of steam early access games (2013), games like Don't starve and prison architect. But this is where problems start to emerge with a lot of the games that are released initially being cancelled and are still not even finish to this day. 

To this day's theme is had many successes with its early access program  with games such as killing floor 2, Arma 3  and Ark: survival evolved gaining funding and progressing  and an amazing rate. You have to be quick not to forget some of the faults early access has had with a lot of the games being put on there being cancelled or abandoned.an article from Gameindustry.Biz  says that only 25% of the games to ever get onto  the early access program ever finish and become full retail games this taken from statistics from one half years of sales. 

Gamesindustry.Biz: Early access popularity growing,but only 25% have released as full games (2015)

it's hard to know where early access will go from here it seems that over the last two years it had a very rocky start coming from the foundations of some really good games it seems to be bringing a lot of bad games into the mix and it may only be a matter of time before the community loses faith in the programme and stops purchasing these types of games altogether but this in turn will also depart gamers from very memorable games that have used the early access system on honourably it seems to be a very difficult subject to tackle as getting rid of the system would throw away a lot of good games but also would deal with many of the bad ones creeping in I suppose the only real way people will work out if the game is good or bad enough they will have to research into them and not  just take the game on its face value.

Bibliography

.Wikipedia (2011) Wikipedia: Minecraft available from: http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Version_history [Accessed from 8 November 2015]

.Wikipedia (2013) Wikipedia: early access available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_access [Accessed from 9 November 2015]

..Wikipedia (2013) list of steam early access games from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Steam_Early_Access_games [Accessed from 9 November 2015]

.Gamesindustry.Biz (2015)Gamesindustry.Biz: Early access popularity growing,but only 25% have released as full games available from: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-11-13-early-access-popularity-growing-but-only-25-percent-have-released-as-a-full-game [Accessed from 9 November 2015]

Year 3: Research report: Analysing industry report

In the document I will be analyzing a research reports done by another students. I will be analyzing this and taking some points on board and how they have sell their documents and how they have structured the then apply this to my own research reports. I have cut down the documents into segments of the different chapters just to get an example of each chapter and then analyse that.

The first page:
the first page is simply laid out with most of the text centered on the screen.  at the top of the page the title is the first thing shown followed by midway down the page that type of research focuses an industry report. Then it lists the the person's name student number and access to his blog as well as the course name and year.

The Abstract:

This is a quick summary of what will be in the document explaining quickly certain phrases that  the reader may not know as well as  listing will be at the start middle and end of the document. an example for my document would be me explaining what early access was and how it has been utilized through steam and also what the purpose of this process is.

Contents:

The content page lists all be pages and titles of some papers and  what page you can find them on a very simple list allowing the reader to know where the relevant information is.

Introduction:

The introduction is very straightforward listing in a page or two what will be in the  documents and explaining some base concepts to the reader than elaborating on how you will be discussing these concepts and what your end goal by the end of the document the introduction is meant to be brief and informative allowing readers to have a clear view of what the document will contain.

Chapter one: Independent game to that moment

This is the start of the meat of the document it starts off with the first chapter which is one of four in the whole document. It is apparent very quickly that there are many quotes and references to different sources of information I knew this would be a part of the documents now I know the every point must be backed up and it's some of the keep in mind when I'm writing my research report. The second and third page contains an image related to the document I didn't know that images will alarm the document sports is obvious that the images must be directly connected with the document.

Chapter 2: AAA Game Development:

Moving onto the second chapter it clearly flows from the first to the second and where the chapters meets tries to me over as smoothly as possible.  As well as the start of the second chapter of the writer of the documents is given examples straight away clearly and concise about what that chapters about in this case triple-A game development carrying facts and figures of multiple different games.

Summary of chapters: 

it is clear from looking at this industry reports that the amount of quotation and reference has to be substantial and has to reinforce every single point made by the author. This will definitely have to be a feature that I employ in my document in order explained to the reader my points clearly.

Conclusion:
In the conclusion the author goes through all the previous chapters and sums up what all three chapters mean and how they interact with each other as well as using select quotes in order to reinforce the writer's point. It is obvious that the conclusion is meant to summarise and reinforce the point the Rovers making the something I will have to implement in my document.

Appendix:

This is where the writer has gathered is relevant text from articles that they are referenced in their work and because of the nature of my article I will definitely have to  include this at my documents because of the month of articles and websites I've reference.

Bibliography:

a simple bibliography referencing books, articles or other sources something I'm very familiar with and will definitely use.

Webography:

more often than not I have usually summed up all my sources into one bibliography but because of the amount of information that I have obtained from websites I will definitely use a webography  in my documents this was a tip I do not know.

Ludography: 

This term I had not come across before and because of the nature of my documents it is necessary that I will have to use one of these as I reference a lot of games is a good way to compile them in a professional looking way.

Year 3: Research report: Killing floor 2

killing floor 2

With the first game in the series killing floor one being a massive success with glowing reviews and massive amount of sales is suing the developers use the early access program in order to launch their next game in the series. Killing floor 2 was released on "21st of April 2015" Steam store: Killing floor 2 (2015). The game is a co-op survival game in which you and players up to a maximum of six player  had to survive up to 10 rounds until you have completed that level.  Outside of the survival aspect there is a leveling off system in which you level up as of this moment for classes that are in the game's classes are medics, support, commando and berserker. As you level up you gain perks which you can use to gain different advantages in the game to many different effects affecting all classes.

Over the recent years co-op survival games have become increasingly popular on the PC platform with games like left four dead 1&2, Payday 1&2 and the original killing floor. with a lot of the community claiming that the original killing floor started off this strength having a very good reputation among the community the original killing floor was liked by many so does killing floor to live up to the legend of the original of inward to find out is to look at the financial and community stats of the game.

looking at the total sales for the game going to the website steam spy according to them the game has sold "780,000" copies.  the game sells an average of $30 quickly calculate myself equals to $23.4 million in revenue the game has brought in over a eight month period. The cost of the development of novel released by the company bought given that Ark: survival evolved had a budget of $2 million to develop its it's not hard to imagine that killing floor 2 had a similar budget may be more evil way shows that this game moved a howl of a lot of money in profits.

So was killing floor a success of the community is much that was a financial one? Well the only way to know is to look at the community's reaction as well as reviewers. On the steam store page from killing floor 2 the game has "17,000" Steam store: killing floor 2 (2015) user reviews from its community. With 15,000 of these reviews being positive and 2000 the review is being negative show an overall a mostly positive reception to the game.

it seems like this game could live up to  the original killing for overtime as it still is  in early access and the game's only been out for a month and still has plenty of content updates that are still to come with many of the DLC for the game being released free to the community  it shows that the developers have a good attitude with community by giving this away to people who've bought the game before it is fully completes.  If the developers keep this mentality of this game could surpass the old one and become even better but only time will tell whether game and the company go.

Bibliography

.Valve (2015) Steam store: killing floor 2 [online] available from: http://store.steampowered.com/app/232090/

.Gamesindustry.biz (2015) Steamspy: Killing floor 2 [online] available from: http://steamspy.com/app/232090

Year 3: Research report: Infestation: Survival stories

Infestation: Survival stories/War Z

This game has probably one of the worst early access history out of all  the games to come out of early access. With the developers lying, censoring and downright trying the scam players out of their money. Even the game having to change its name to avoid it bad reputation the game has accumulated over the years. Created originally from the aftermath of the Dayz popularity explosion infestation: survival stories/War Z try to quickly capitalize on the popular success the genre had received. it's fair to say that this game will definitely be remembered in the genre but not for being a good game for being a complete con to its audience.

So what is War Z it is a survival game in which the player is to use whatever they can to survive. Similar to other survival games you start off with very few items spawning randomly in the middle of a environments. the objective then is to gather up as many materials you can and fend off from zombies and all the players or team up with them.  it has a very traditional survival game premise going for a zombie apocalypse setting. The game was released on to Steam early access programme on "17th of December 2012" Steam Store: Infestation: survival stories (2015). 

The cracks were already starting to show in the game as only two days after the game's launch it was pulled from steam due to false advertising. These issues were surrounding the information that was put on to this theme page for the item. Listing features that went in the game and also putting up false screenshot of gameplay footage which where false due to non-fees images being actually taken from in game. The image shows the original steam page for the game with the red text the scripting what is actually not in the game.

Image: Top 10 gaming controversies 2013 (2013)
The problems only got worse as time went on players finding out that the terms of service of the scheme were copied word for word from the free game league of Legends more evidence that the developer cut corners in order to release the game. Adding to a list of warning signs but this game was rushed.

Image: Top 10 gaming controversies 2013 (2013)

Then the developers did something even worse and start to censor criticism that they got on all their forums. From steam to the original websites the developers often banned and kicked users who would call the game "scam"or spread the word that the game was broken and falsely advertise.

 

Image: Top 10 gaming controversies 2013 (2013)

Image: Top 10 gaming controversies 2013 (2013)

But probably the worst thing the developers did was people who bought the game and requested refunds the developers actually threatened these people would put them on a watch list where the developers would remember them and not offer them certain services.  Simply because people wanted a refund for a broken game this is downright disgusting and I blink and only tactic of a developer trying to save money by threatening its community

Image: Top 10 gaming controversies 2013 (2013)

The press the game received was so bad that the game the game had to change its name and, out of a early access because of how toxic the community fourth of the company and the game. the game was then renamed from Warz two infestation survival stories and was released on to Steam as a full game.


So how did the game fair financially how much did it sell when it was available well to do this we have to look the sales the game had in early access and  how much the game has sold in its full complete version when it  had a name change. It is estimated that the game is actually sold 2.8 million copies since its release "Titov revealed that the game has sold a total of 2.8 million copies to date, 700,000 of which came before the game even arrived on steam" Article: War z has sold 2.8 million copies to date (2015). On the websites Steam spy that has the game track at "1 million owners" Steam spy: infestation: survival stories (2015) but this is only for when the game was re released as infestations: Survival stories. even taken the Conservative number of 1 million units and calculating the amount of revenue the game brought in which the game sells at "$9,99" Steam store website: Infestation: survival stories (2015) This equals to around $10 million in revenue games brought in. Which even for a game that has received such broad press is not a bad  financial turn off and is properly covered the cost of the games production and maybe even brought in extra profit for the company

Well after all the controversy the game's gone through is not hard to think that the community does not have a very good view of this game. for the most case this is right on the steam store page for infestation the game has 20,000 reviews from the community with half of them being negative and half them being positive.

On the websites Metacritic the game has not received similar reputation with "13" Metacritic: Infestation: survival stories (2012) of the professional reviews all being negative. The user rating for this game is "1.7" Metacritic: Infestation: survival stories (2012) which for Metacritic is an amazingly low score. With 1600 reviews by the community with the majority of them being negative that only shows that this game  was supremely negative in the community eyes.

To summaries this game is without a doubt the most deceiving and worse thing to ever come out of the early access program. it is my hope that this game will be forgotten but the lesson that it taught the community was not  I hope that the community will remember this company and not give them a chance to scam them out of the money.  Personally I find it quite sad that the company would do this to people who just wanted to have a decent game that they would con them and also have a negative affect towards other early access games which are just trying to be the best they can be and not scam anyone it is only a good thing however that games like this are not a common clearance but it only takes one game to give a bad reputation to the early access program.

bibliography

.Valve(2015) Steam store website: Infestation: survival stories [online] available from: http://store.steampowered.com/app/226700/

.Angry Joe (2013) Video: Top 10 gaming controversies 2013 [online] available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54s_jyjMUxY

.gamesindustry.Biz (2015) Article: War z has sold 2.8 millioncopies to date [online] available from: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-01-15-war-z-has-sold-2-8-million-copies-to-date

.gamesindustry.Biz (2015) Steam spy: infestation: survival stories [online] available from: http://steamspy.com/app/226700

.Metacritic (2012) Metacritic: Infestation: survival stories [online] available from: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/infestation-survivor-stories

Year 3: Research report: DayZ

Dayz

Dayz started out as a mod for the game Arma 2 created by Dean Hall on 21 January 2012. The mod received great reception from the gaming community reaching 1 million members within four months after its release for a mod for a game this is a very impressive feat. Dayz is widely renowned as the first survival game that started to put survival games on the map for the wider gaming community spawning many different copies and clones can recreate the success of Dayz. Still to this day the Dayz still has a popular community of thousands of players as well as multiple mods packs that offering a large variety of different variations similar to Dayz.

Dayz traditionally starts as you the player spawning on a post Soviet state Chernarus the only goal the player is to survive for as long as they can. Weapons and supplies a rare to find as well as vehicles not only are the main enemy the zombies but other players which will hunt down each other to gain their weapons and supplies. With how hard it is to obtain supplies and to survive attacks from players and zombie a like this gives the player a reason to survive as the time they invested to obtain their current possessions could be hours to days and it is as simple as that.  With this simple premise Dayz has captured the gaming community and brought a whole new genre to life as well as making the genre very lucrative for companies.

With the popularity of Dayz reaching an unprecedented amounts plans were set in motion to create a standalone game of Dayz. Dena Paul partnered up with the developers of the original Arma series Bohemia interactive to create a standalone version of the Dayz mod. On The "16th December 2013" Steam store: Dayz (2015) the official Dayz early access game was released on valves marketplace steam. Currently at the time of writing this document the Dayz  early access game has "3.3 million owners" Steam spy: Dayz (2015) with a price tag of $35 per game quickly working this out equal is to a total of $115,500,000 in revenue.

Out of all the earlier excess schemes I reviewed so far Dayz  is one of the most financially successful games and might be one of the most financially successful early access game to come out so far. Has Dayz  received as good critical success as it has financial?  According to the steam store page for Dayz the game has over "130,000" Steam store: Dayz (2015) reviews from users which are overall the gods as "mostly positive" Steam store: Dayz (2015). "100,000" Steam store: Dayz (2015) of the reviews were positive with "30,000" Steam store: Dayz (2015) being negative most of the negative reviews were focused around certain issues like game breaking glitches, poor optimization and the developers not implementing content updates faster as well as some issues surrounding the games engine as people have claimed it is not up to the task of running the game.

On the popular review sites Metacritic Dayz has a user rating of "7.7" Metacritic: Dayz (2015) which is above average especially for an early access game. A review from the website game spot by "leif Johnson" Gamespot: Dayz: early access Review (2015) applauded the game for its realistic approach to zombie game set in the middle of the countryside "the low population lends an air of reality to Daisy;  many games feature zombie populations more suited to New York City" Gamespot: Dayz: early access Review (2015). The reviewer goes on to say that the game has much development still to go before it is finished but in its current state is still an unique and exciting experience.

Good points

Dayz does seem to have some good points  like the attention to realism in the game's design with limited amount of zombies around the game world and also the limited amount of resources and weapons scattered around. as well the atmosphere this builds the game as players are always on edge but they may be being hunted down by other players give the game a unique feel and because of the uniqueness of having ceremony players in a certain area it is not likely that hunting a player or being hunted can ever be the same experience meaning that  if you are into a survival game in the true sense of the words this game can be perfect for you.

Bad points

Dayz definitely has its bad points with its poor optimization in many areas and still glitchy gameplay with clunky controls and uncontrollable bugs that will emerge from time to time in the game. As well as questionable use of a game engine that currently may not be up to the task of running the game smoothly. Dayz still has a long way to go and given that the game has been offered two years nowI would say these problems are not going to be fixed and personally I would not recommend daily to be bought by anyone as a promotes and encourages developers to once they have the money leave the game in a state because they already have their profits from the game so they have no incentive to finish and improve the game.

Bibliography

.Valve (2015) Steam store website: Dayz [online] available from:http://store.steampowered.com/app/221100/

.Gamesindustry.biz (2015) Steam spy website: Dayz [online] available from: http://steamspy.com/app/221100

.Metacritic (2015) Metacritic: Dayz [online] available from: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/dayz

.Gamespot (2015) Gamespot: Dayz: early access Review [online] available from: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/dayz-early-access-review/1100-6417979/