The Developers are responsible for the overall creation of a game and can range from under 5 people to an entire team of 100 or more.They are the people that actually create a game and a team of developers have many roles, from researcher up to creative director and they all have an important roles to play in making a game.
Examples of game developers would be CD Projekt Red, Treyarch, Activision, Ubisoft etc. Developers can be of three different types. First, Second and Third party Developers.They can also be put into two types, independent, or owned by a publisher. First party are the actual console manufacturers themselves, and they are responsible for making video game exclusives.
Second Party Developers are partially or sometimes completely owned by a platform holder. This technically makes the games these developers produced exclusives, and as such, first party. Third Party Developers are not owned by platform holders, but the publishers who work with these studios, generally have the final say to design choices within the game the developers are making. Third party developers are completely independent, opposed to 1st and 2nd party Developers who are owned by publishers.
CD Projekt Red:
CD Projekt Red was established in 1994 by Martin Iwinski and Michal Kicinski. The company was formed and is located in Poland. They are mainly known for the seminal Witcher Franchise. They started by making the polish version of Baldurs Gate. In order to gain sales in Poland, they hired famous polish actors, and due to this, the localization was a success with 18,000 copies sold on day one, which was great for the time.
They started to get popular when The Witcher was released in 2007 to considerable success. The began work on a console port of The Witcher (called The Witcher: White Wolf) which was cancelled due to differences with the studio Wide Screen games who claimed they were not being paid.
They began to work on The Witcher 2 and it was released in May 2011 to critical acclaim and sales success with a impressive 1.7 million copies sold. With success, respect and a new fans, CD Projekt Red began to work on The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
It took the Developers 3 and a half year to complete and was released for PC and the Eighth generation of consoles in order for the best graphics possible. It was released in may 2015 and was released to great success. It was given incredible reviews across the board from the gaming community and it holds a 92% rating for the PS4 version on metacritic.
It sold 6 million copies within the first week alone and is now regarded as one of the best video games of all time. They released 16 free DLCs for the game which was praised by the gaming press as generous due to the industry's nature for releasing minimal content in a full game and the majority of the games content released in paid DLC.
Publishers:
Publishers own the rights to the games and are the financial benefactors towards the project. They finance the projects and can sometimes hire outside studios which is generally referred to as 'External Development'.
If the publisher is large enough and influential enough, they distribute the game once it has been completed. They are also responsible for the business aspect of game development and are responsible for tasks like distribution deals, advertising campaigns and licencing issues.
The jobs the publishers are responsible include Developer Liason, Financial Management, Marketing, Product Strategy etc.
Activision:
Activision is one of the most well known publishers in the games industry. They were formed in October 1979 and where the first independent developer in the industry. They initially started working with the Atari 2600 all the way up to the eight generation of video game consoles and modern PC's.
From this, they have become perhaps the biggest third party developer in the world and have had published many games both new and old. They based the name 'Activision' after active and televison combined.
There most famous subsidiary company, is arguably Treyarch, who are responsible for some titles in the Call of Duty franchise. Such titles include Black Ops 1, 2,3 and World at War. They also own Infinity Ward who are also well known for Call of Duty. Some of their most well known games within the Call of Duty franchise include Ghosts, 2 and the Modern Warfare series.
Console Manufacturers/ First Party Publishers:
Console Manufacturers and First Party Publishers are responsible for manufacturing and distributing consoles and their exclusives to the market. They also are responsible for authorizing Third Party Developers to create games for their platform, in return for licencing fees. Due to these abilities, they have a massive influence over what games get released or not, and also what is within these games.
The three major console developers at the moment are Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. They are responsible for the manufacturing and game support for their main consoles, The Xbox One, The PlayStation 4, and the Wii U respectively.
They all have notable exclusives, that are directly developed and distributed by the console manufacturers. Microsoft exclusives include Halo, Gears of War, Fable, Forza etc. Sony's exclusives include Uncharted, Resistance, Kill Zone etc. Finally, Nintendo's exclusives include Mario, Zelda, Kirby etc.
Microsoft:
They have since developed multiple versions of the Xbox which are the Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. They have multiple first party titles, including Halo, Gears of War, Fable, Forza etc.
Distribution and Retail:
The Distribution and Retail aspect of the games industry is responsible for the Distribution and Retail of a game. Distributors sell the game to retailers and they deliver the games directly from their warehouse. The retailers allocate shelf space especially for the titles, and through negotiation through the publisher and the distributor. This is the process of physical distribution.
A common method of distribution now, is digital distribution. Through sites such as Steam and Console services such as Xbox Live and Play Station, gamers can purchase games digitally and directly download them to their platform of choice. This method is effective, due to the money saving nature of cutting out Transport, Packaging, Duplication etc.
Other formats such as the increasing number of mobile games, are pushing digital sales further due to mobile gaming nature as being digitally purchased and downloaded opposed to a physical copy of the games. Social networking sites such as Facebook are becoming increasingly popular gaming platforms, especially with games such as Candy Crush and Farmville.
GAME:
GAME is one of the primary video game retailers in Britain. They started in 1990 as a group called Rhino and was merged into GAME in 1999.They initially started with 86 stores and from that, expanded exponentially to 609 stores in the UK. They continued with success for many years, and in 2007, acquired their main rival Game Station for 74 million pounds. They continued unhindered until 2012, when after several disputes with Capcom, Nintendo, Microsoft, EA and Activision, which prevented them from selling their products in store. They then went into administration and had to removed from the London Stock Exchange. Due to this, they now only have 328 stores in the UK.
Outsourcing:
Outsourcing in the games industry is when a game developer contracts another studio in order to help with their game. Outsourcing gives a game development company a variety of services which will help not only the quality of a game project but lightens the work load for the core development team allowing for greater morale overall and as such, a smoother and more refined product at the end of the project.
An example of outsourcing would be a development team which is relatively unskilled in regards to the art aspect of games design, hiring an artist from outside the core development team in order to sort out the art side of the project. This would benefit both core and outside developers. The core developers have a specialist working on the part of the game they don't have much knowledge in, and the outside developers are being paid to do something they are good at and may even enjoy.
McKinsey and Company:
McKinsey and Company are a private American Outsourcing company, that specializes in management. They were founded in 1926 and continue to this day. They are on of the largest outsourcing companies, with over 8000 people working within the company.
Press and Media:
The press and the media are an overall large part of the games industry. They consist of websites, magazines, youtube channels, podcasts etc. They provide services such as interviews, reviews, game previews etc, which if are positive about the game, can provide beneficial results upon a games release such as increased sales and larger profits.
Despite the large nature of this aspect of the industry, they are regarded as the lowest part, due to information regarding a game getting to the media last and the fact the media regularly publishes altered stories of real event regarding gaming and constantly publish leaks on unfinished games, which can affect the nature of the unfinished game and the development team making it.
Also large game institutions such as IGN are accused of corruption, with reviewers for IGN being rumored to be paid for good reviews from developers for mainstream games such as Call Of Duty, due to the fact the games are given glowing reviews with score's being around 9 each time, when the gaming community as a whole, generally pan the game and regard the franchise as an embarrassment to the industry.
IGN
IGN, otherwise known as Imagine Gaming Network, is a media company, primarily focused on games, that are based in San Francisco. It was initially created in September 1996, and originally consisted of 5 different websites. They were acquired by New Corporation for a sum of 650 million dollars.
They are most well known for their reviews, and they are continuously accused of accepting payout from devs in exchange for a good review. This is especially common in Call of duty reviews, where they are continuously given good scores by the website. Such is the backlash of their scores, a meme '10 out of 10 IGN' was created making fun of their reviews and scoring.
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