Week 9: Exactly

This week we continued to gather facts about finances and marketing information. I requested that people from marking make a draft of all the little thing that they can think of that they may need to get our company name out. I asked that they could get it posted by Friday. I figured four days would be a good amount of time to do some research.
I looked over the documents that several of the team members posted.

I learned a lot from looking over these documents, and I post my personal   One of the biggest things I learned was trying to weigh cost and efficiency. For instance, in the software options document, there are free software options. I made a point that questioned if the free cost is worth it if team members would have to learn how to use them. In the back of my mind, I was think of the old saying: time is money. While not paying for a program is nice, would it be better to just eat the cost if it meant that people could work immediately and be more comfortable. Another point was related to the marketing options. There was merchandise items that I was wondering if we as a team would plan to sell in the immediate future or once our name is out there.  I realized that for now in terms of finding a budget, we should only look at immediate expenses; all of the merchandise items were for future plans. Another big point I learned was the necessity for precise numbers. Some of the merchandise had a price, but I felt as if there could be more pieces of information. For instance, there was a possible idea of selling balloons. The helium tank was listed between $45-$60. Also there was a package of 15 balloons for $44. This looked fine at first, but then I realized there are possible problems that could occur.  An example I gave was for the helium tank. Was the price range for a certain size tank but different distributor costs, or was the price range for different size tanks? Also, how many balloons can a single tank fill? If we want to sell 30 balloons and a single tank fills 10 balloons then we would need to purchase two more tanks. These may seem really specific, but as a member who is working with money I need exact numbers or near exact. These are just some of the things that came to mind while reviewing possible purchases for the company.

Week 8b

The team had part of a review, and let's just say that we didn't do so well. I think the biggest thing that I learned from the review is our game lacks any real "wow" factor.  I know what the team wants for the game, but we can't be making a game for ourselves. Another thing I learned is that we need facts and data. We also need public opinions, which we didn't have.

Another big thing that stuck with me from the review is the aspect of participation. Our team doesn't progress that well. Like I stated in the previous post, I try to contribute what's on my mind or a counter argument to ideas; however, most of the time I feel like most of team, myself included, tend to recycle our ideas. This leads to our stagnant progression.

I've tried to search for more concrete data for the finance portion of the team. Specifically, I'm to research revenue facts on Steam Greenlight, and how much revenue is shared. Also, I'm looking at other methods to load our game that may be free for us. I'm probably searching the wrong way, and that's most likely the reason why I'm not getting very far on this. Hopefully, I can find something during this week,  I don't want to be kicked, just like everyone else, but I understand only the best will continue.

Week 8a: Thoughts So Far

We're entering the 8th week in the course and I just wanted to share some thoughts so far. The main thing that comes to mind is about the company. I think that sixteen people for a start up company is too much.  I used good 'ole Google and looked up indie game companies. I looked at a wikipedia article that listed indie game companies, and I looked at a decent amount of the companies.  I would say that the majority of these companies were founded with I'd say around three people on average.

However, our company is working with five times that many people. I understand that this is a course, so things would most likely not be the same with an actual start up. One thing I've learned with working with this big of group is not everyone will get heard. I try to have input in discussion, but I know there are people that don't participate a lot. Sometimes it's probably due to shyness, but other times I think it's because most of the time they may not know when to join in. In addition, there naturally is a bit of a hierarchy where certain people participate more not only that but also some of the ideas/thoughts from people who don't participate much are disregarded a little. Basically, your idea may be heard but it will not always be accepted and/or looked further into.

Overall, the course is very interesting and has made me think about the game industry in a way I never thought of. I do like working with other people. Also, the idea that our game that we're creating could actually happen, if we get chosen to make it, is really cool. I think it would be pretty awesome to create the game and I'm looking forward in the semester.

Week 7: Game Coming Together

This week we came up with more details on our game. First of all the name of the game will be Daydream High. The centers around creating a character that the user will control and the character will go through the school and face his/her daydream characters. I think a lot of people can relate to being in school, and dazing off during a class period; this is what we are trying to capture in this game.

As for more specific details, we originally had the selling price at around $15; however a point was brought up that if we are a new company how many people would want to pay that much for game they don't know much about and from a no-name company? Not a lot of people would buy that, so we decided that we should lower the price to $5. We figured this way costumers who are interested won't pay a lot for a new game. In addition, the company can still get something out of the costumers.