BTEC Nationals Information Technology Student Book + Activebook
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Unit 8 - Computer Games Development
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Unit 8 Computer Games
Development
Assignment 1 - Investigate technologies used in computer
gaming
Intraduction……………………………………………………...…………………….…………………….………….……….…………..2
Social trends in computer gaming………...…………………….…………………….…………………………....……………..3
Strengths / weaknesses of social media platform………..………………..……………….…………….…….…………..9
Player demographics, who are the games made for?
Different types of games developers
Players demographic – age, range, gender, casual and immersive gamers, themes..
Game production, e.g. mainstream publisher, indie, free-to-play
Artificial intelligence
Augmented reality
Drones in gaming
Security of integrated services and multiplayer environments
Technologies used in computer gaming.……..…………………….…………………………....……………………………..10
Personal computers, e.g. Windows®, Mac® - positives and negatives
Consoles, e.g. PlayStation®, XboxTM, Nintendo®
Mobile devices, e.g. smartphones, tablets, notebooks
Web based, e.g. Flash®, HTML5
Central processing unit (CPU) and Graphics processing unit (GPU)
Memory, e.g. random-access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM)
Output, e.g. display, sound
Input, e.g. keyboard/mouse, touch, gamepad, joystick, kinetic, voice
Storage, e.g. hard disk drive, cloud
Connections, e.g. internet, local area network, mobile network
New technologies.……….…………………………………… ….……………………………………….………………………...…….16
Software options and their effect on the development of computer games………………….…….……..…..17
Operating system, e.g. Windows, Mac OS, Linux®
Programming language, e.g. C++, Java®
Device drivers, e.g. input/output devices:
Graphic options, e.g. DirectX®, OpenGL
Audio options, e.g. music, ambiance, file format.
Uses of game engines, their capabilities and how they aid computer game developers
Green screen monitor vs 4k components to help
Processors: Old vs New CPU tech
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Graphics: First Consoles - vs Current Smartphones
Discuss stock and affordability
How does improvement in technology combined with emerging tech affect the world of game
development and gaming?…………….…..…………….………..………………..……………….…………….…….…………..24
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Introduction
As a junior programmer working for a software company that develops a variety of software
including games I am given the task to write an article for the company web site explaining
and evaluating the impact that current and emerging technologies have on the design and
development of computer games now and in the near future.
To begin with, video games did not have any graphical interface as the computers they were
running on didn’t have any graphics cards or graphics allocated memory, those computers
could only handle basic calculations and display them.
Only after the late 1960 games gradually started receiving a GUI featuring basic low-res 8 bit
graphics such as the one in this picture (scr of Space War 1962):
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As graphics chips advanced the graphics in
computer games became increasingly better
and also began offering colours into what
now as known as pixel art (scr of Donkey
Kong 1981):
Since the graphics chips at that time were only capable of
processing only a tiny amount of data and the maximum
screen resolutions were up to 256×240 or 320×200. Games
were only outputting 8 bit graphics pixel art with only 25–
32 colours on screen, from a palette of 53–256 colours.
Featuring mono audio for game effects usually playing
basic melodies with limited amount of tones. Devices at
that time supported a tiny amount of storage and as such
only small games with simple graphics and tones could be
stored. Usually games at that time would be heaving then a
couple hundreds of kb.
During the early 1990s the first 3d games started being developed during the 2000 fully
developed 3d games became popular.
Social trends in computer gaming
Social trends relevant to computer games, including:
Popular genres:
Role-Playing Game (RPG’s) – such as League of Legends, Zelda, mass effect.
Sandt-Perbox – games such as grand theft auto, assassin creed.
Firsson Shooter (FPS) – such as Counter Strike, modern combat.
Open World – Minecraft, grand theft auto
Platformer –platformer games are those such as the ones played on Atari
Fighting - Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter
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Player demographics, who are the games made for?
Every game maker makes games for specific type of people, specific demographic; what is
the age of the targeted user, where is they located, what is their gender?
These are questions every game maker answers before they start developing a product.
This is because they need to know what type of game it will be:
For instance it could be a game for teenage girls so the theme of the game will most likely
feature cheerful colours such as pink, white and green. And be something of the lines of
having a pet friend, etc…
As such a game targeted at 30+ male adults the game will be tailored completely differently
to match the target audiences’ interest (maybe feature sexy female characters and
adrenaline inducing action.)
Different types of games developers: 1st Party, 2nd Party, 3rd Party developers
1st party are the ones who own the publisher and the game development studios…
2nd party are independent game development studios who become contractors to the
publishing company to produce their desired product…
3rd party developers are game development studios who publish their own products and
also contract other publishers to create products for them too.
Players demographic, e.g. age range, gender, casual gamers, immersive gamers, themes:
The most popular type of gamer is the casual one which has become the norm. As most
people nowadays own smartphones everyone occasionally plays games while waiting at the
bus top or while being served at a café. The casual gamers wouldn’t really go on a computer
and take the time to run a game there, they would rather “kill” some time by quickly loading
up a game on their smartphone. The predominant gender of the casual player in not clearly
defined, however since smartphone gaming became a thing more and more females are
enjoying short and hustle free games on the go such as the super popular “Candy Crush”,
Casual gamers gender statistics show that now the ganders of the players are nearly 50/50
male-female, with the biggest groupd being of age between 16-24.
The games that become most popular with casual gamers are the ones that are designed to
be easily played in short period of time, but also the ones that don’t get boring in long
sessions. This is something the mobile game developers keep in mind: short but interesting.
Game production, e.g. mainstream publisher, indie, free-to-play
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