Department of Media and Communication James Rhys Davies

Analysis of target audience

Jimmy Jimerson:

Age: 31

Gender: Male

Occupation:  Junior Games Designer

Income: £25,000 per year

Education: Graduated University, been working in the games industry for 3 years.

Attitude: He is very ambitious and he would like to advance his career by finding out as much about different areas and different technology as he can.

Interests: He has an interest in retro games some of his favourite games are Pacman, Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers.

Likes: Retro gaming, games design, programming

Dislikes: not full understanding what he’s working on

Bob White:

Age: 45

Ethnicity: White

Occupation:  Senior Games Producer

Income: £45,000 per year

Education: Been in the games industry for 20 years.

Attitude: He is very knowledgeable about and has a lot of experience in the games industry and has worked on numerous generations of consoles. But he is as knowledgeable about some of the more modern techniques and processes.

Interests: He is interested in more modern technology as it is a necessity to have knowledge of the most up to date technology and the techniques and processes.

Likes: retro gaming, producing games,

Dislikes: working with out of date technology when producing a game.

Conclusion

Bibliography

editors, A. (2016, 03). Games developer. Retrieved 04 27, 2017, from https://www.prospects.ac.uk: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/games-developer

Glassdoor. (Unkown, Unkown Unkown). Game Producer Salaries. Retrieved 04 27, 2017, from https://www.glassdoor.co.uk: https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/game-producer-salary-SRCH_KO0,13.htm

Gourdin, A. (2005, 10). Game Developer Demographics: An Exploration of Workforce Diversity. Retrieved 04 27, 2017, from http://c.ymcdn.com: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.igda.org/resource/collection/9215B88F-2AA3-4471-B44D-B5D58FF25DC7/IGDA_DeveloperDemographics_Oct05.pdf

Schreier, J. (2016, 04 22). What A Video Game Producer Actually Does. Retrieved 04 27, 2017, from http://kotaku.com: http://kotaku.com/what-a-video-game-producer-actually-does-1772519753

Sigman, T. (2007, 01 24). Statistically Speaking, It's Probably a Good Game, Part 2: Statistics for Game Designers. Retrieved 04 27, 2017, from http://www.gamasutra.com: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130149/statistically_speaking_its_.php

Legal and safety requirements for my project

Health and Safety/risk assessment:

My project would primarily take place in an office or at a desk a some of the potential hazards are: exposed cables lying on the ground somebody could trip over the wires injuring themselves. This can be avoided by taking the cables and keeping them out of sight by tucking them underneath the desk so that they are not in anybody way and nobody can trip over them. Another potential hazard to glare from the computer screens. My project is going to be completed on a computer so staring at computer screen for extended periods of time can damage your eyes. This can be avoided by taking regular breaks to rest your eyes and you can turn down the brightness to help reduce the glare from the computer screen.  Another potential hazard is sitting in the in same chair/position for extended periods of time without taking a break or standing up to stretch. Another hazard is not having your chair set up in the correct position, at the correct height. This can be avoided by setting up your chair in the correct position before you start your work. Another potential hazard is having blocked fire exits in the building. This is one of the biggest safety hazards that there could be. This can be avoided by making sure that the fire exits are not blocked and clearly labelled, and having regular fire and safety drills to ensure that you are being as safe as possible. Another potential hazard is some of the common chemicals and solutions that can be found in an office area, the most common being printer ink. Printer ink can be hazardous if you get it in your mouth of if it spilled onto plug sockets, exposed wires or onto the computer as it can easily damage or brake them. This can be avoided by making sure that the printer ink is only ever handled near the printer and is not near any plug sockets or near the computers to ensure maximum safety when handling it.

Legal Requirements:

The copyright law is relevant to my work because anything that I create is my intellectual property and if somebody else tries to claim that as their own I could sue them for copyright infringement.  This is relevant to my work as part of my outcome is an essay and it if I were to publish my essay it would be very easy for anybody to copy and paste parts of my essay and pass it off as their own without correctly referencing where they had found my work. Another part of my project is creating a presentation showing the development of the technology in video games. I will need to get permission to use images of other people, videos that I will use as a part of my presentation, I will have to reference different articles, the author of the article and the website that I found the article on if I was going to use their information in my presentation. And I will be using a lot of different videos as references in my project and I might show videos as part of the presentation. I will be looking at a lot of different articles to for my research. If I were to include these in my project heavily without referencing or giving credit to the original creator, because I was using their intellectual property without their permission and without referencing or if I was trying to pass it off as my own work the original creator could sue me for using their copyrighted property without their permission. I would either have to take down the presentation or remove the material that I used without the original creator's permission. If I was to include images or videos that I had to create to make sure that was not used without my permission I could add a watermark to my images and videos to prevent them from being used.  I also have to make sure that the design of my presentation/website is not copying an existing design from another website. If I was using the same layout, colour scheme and fonts I could be sued for copying there designs. I can avoid this by looking at other websites and avoid using the same layout, colour schemes and typography. All of these reasons are why the copyright law is relevant to my extended project.

Conclusion

Bibliography

UK Copyright Service. (2017, 02 6). Fact sheet P-01: UK Copyright Law. Retrieved 05 01, 2017, from https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk: https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

UNSW Safety and Sustainability. (2017, 03 27). Office hazards and risks. Retrieved 04 30, 2017, from http://safety.unsw.edu.au: http://safety.unsw.edu.au/office-safety-toolkit/office-hazards-and-risks

Weekes, J. (2014, 09 16). 10 common office hazards – and how to reduce the risk. Retrieved 05 01, 2017, from http://www.healthandsafetyhandbook.com.au: http://www.healthandsafetyhandbook.com.au/10-common-office-hazards-and-how-to-reduce-the-risk/

Detailed job analysis

One of my outcomes for my project is an online presentation of the development of technology in video games and I’m going to be the researcher for the project.

The media researcher is responsible for making sure that all of the content that is being used is legally and making sure that the content is copyrighted. They do all of the research for the project and making sure that is one hundred percent accurate. They identify relevant data, contributors, locations or archive material, collating and assessing information from various sources, and ensuring that legal, compliance and copyright requirements are met. They can also proof read the final product to make sure that it is as accurate as possible with no errors. They are also required to ensure that your product can be used in multiple formats if the product can be consumed on multiple formats. They must also have a good understand of the pre-production and production processes. To be a good media researcher you must have good organisational and administrative skills a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail, creativity and initiative, multi-tasking ability, a flexible approach to work and the ability to work under pressure and meet strict deadlines. There are no specific requirements or qualifications needed to be a media researcher but having prior experience working in the media industry can help you get more work. Ella Wells, 24, is a senior researcher currently working on a television program. One of the aspects of her job is to look at the ratings and reviews on the show and researches the audience of show and see what aspects of the show they like and what aspects that they don’t like and she researches to find ways for the show to reach a wider demographic.

My project would need a user experience designer to design the presentation. It is being created on WebFlow and WebFlow is an online web designer which allows you to manipulate the web page in many different ways. The user experience designer would create the layout for the website so that it is easy to use and visually stimulating to look at and to interact with. The user experience designer is responsible for considering existing applications and evaluating their user experience effectiveness, considering how people would interact with the product, using online tools, such as screen readers, work on cross-platform applications to develop user experiences covering mobile phones, tablets and computers and re-design websites to make them more responsive, for example, you could be involved with those aimed at the general public from both government and commercial service industries. To aid their research, running user testing of applications, software and websites, working with creative directors and visual designers to incorporate a visual or brand identity into the finished product and developing and maintaining design wireframes (basic mock-ups of applications) and specifications. Some of the key skills the user experience designers usually have are: Excellent organisational, time and project management skills, Accuracy and attention to detail, Professional approach to time, costs and deadlines, a great understanding of what their client need are, an open, flexible and adaptable mind-set to cope with a rapidly changing set of tasks in an area of emerging, new technologies and be able to work well and contribute to a team. A UX designer (user experience) typically has a qualification in one or more of these areas: computer science, digital design /media, digital marketing, graphic design and media technology. If you have a good qualifications in one these areas then you are a lot more likely to get employed. Sam who is a UX designer said that a big part of this job is working with a team and working very closely with his client to make sure that they are meeting their requirements. He also said that one of the hard parts about his job is that he is always have to learn new programs to meet his clients need and he has very little oversight which can be a bit challenging.

My project would need a web designer to design the website for my presentation while the UX designer would design the layout and how the user interacts with the presentation, the web designer would design the core fundamentals for the web site that would allow the UX designer to create the layout/interface. The web designer is responsible for meeting clients to identify their needs and liaising regularly with them, drawing up detailed website specifications, designing sample page layouts including text size and colours, designing graphics, animations and manipulating digital photographs, registering web domain names and organising the hosting of the website, presenting initial design ideas to clients, coding using a variety of software, editing content, debugging code and re-designing web pages, working with other web specialists including web developers and graphic designers. Some of the skills that web designers usually have are having a good attention to detail, good communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, delivering presentations, the ability to teach yourself new technical skills and programs, being able to use different types of code like HTML, Javascript, JQuery and Dreamweaver just to name a few. They should also have experience in using different design and graphics programs like: Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop just to name a few. Most web designers usually have a qualification or degree one or more of these areas: computer science, digital media production, art, graphic design, information technology, multimedia web design, software engineering and web design. Jordan Webster who is a web designer said that most of his day to day work consists of updating and maintaining websites that he has worked on and to make sure that they are running smoothly. He also said that it is “It's vital that you keep up-to-date with the latest technologies and development techniques” And he also said “you should ensure that you set up your own portfolio website to showcase your skills to potential employers.”

Conclusion

Bibliography

Fubra Limited. (Unknown, Unknown Unknown). Media Researcher jobs. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from https://myjobsearch.com: https://myjobsearch.com/careers/media-researcher.html

National Career Service. (2016, 12 21). Media researcher. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk: https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/job-profiles/media-researcher

Prospects. (Unknown, Unknown Unknown). UI/UX designer — Sam. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from https://www.prospects.ac.uk: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/case-studies/uiux-designer-sam

Prospects. (Unknown, Unknown Unknown). UX designer. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from https://www.prospects.ac.uk: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/ux-designer

Prospects. (Unknown, Unknown Unknown). Web designer. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from https://www.prospects.ac.uk: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/web-designer

Prospects. (Unknown, Unknown Unknown). Web designer — Jordan Webster. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from https://www.prospects.ac.uk: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/case-studies/web-designer-jordan-webster

TARGETJobs. (Unknown, Unknown Unknown). UX designer: job description. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from https://targetjobs.co.uk: https://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/job-descriptions/454279-ux-designer-job-description

The equipment relevant to my project.

Some of the basic equipment that I would need is notepad and a pen. I would need both of these to take some important notes from the research that I will be doing the price for both the notepad and a pack of 50 ball point pens add up to £4.00.

Some of the technology that I will need for my projects include a PC that has the system requirements to run Microsoft office. This is because my project is going to be entirely created on a computer as I am writing my essay In Microsoft word. This pc will also need to have access to the internet as I am going to be using the internet as one my major research tool for my project. I will also need a laptop with the system requirements for Microsoft office and access to the internet. The reason I need a laptop is because I do not have access to a PC at home, but I do have a laptop which I can continue to work from once finish working on a PC at college.

Some of the software that I will need to complete my project is Microsoft office. I will need access to Microsoft office because I am going to be using Microsoft word to not only create my essay for my project but I will also be using it to collect my references for all of my research and create my bibliography.  These are the system requirements for Microsoft office 2016:

1 GHz processor

2GB RAM

Screen resolution of a minimum 1280 x 800

Windows 7 SP1 or above operating system; Works best on latest operating system according to Microsoft

The browsers used should be the latest versions or the versions immediately preceding the latest versions

At least .Net 3.5; preferred 4.5 LCR

A Microsoft account (that naturally has an OneDrive account attached to it)

I will also be using website wix.com to create my timeline of the development of the technology in video games and I will be using timeline as a reference throughout my essay as they coincide with each other. I could not find any system requirements for Wix.

Operating system            Windows 10 (64-bit)

SPECIFICATION

Processor            - Intel Core i3-6006U Processor

- Dual-core

- 2 GHz

Memory (RAM) 4 GB DDR4 (12 GB maximum installable RAM)

Storage 1 TB HDD, 5400 rpm

The price of the pc that has the required specifications is £499.98 here are the specifications for the pc: All-in-one

Operating system            Windows 10 (64-bit)

SPECIFICATION

Processor            - Intel Pentium 4405U Processor

- Dual-core

- 2.1 GHz

- 2 MB cache

Memory (RAM) 8 GB DDR4

Storage 1 TB HDD, 7200 rpm

Motherboard    Intel Skylake U

The total price for the hardware that I need to complete my project is £849.97

Some the services that I will need to complete my project are the internet. I will need the internet for the bulk of my project as I need it for creating my timeline of WebFlow and for most of my research into the development of technology in video games. I will need it for writing my essay as I will be referring to my timeline and all of my other research.  Another service that I need to help me complete my project is Google Drive. I will need Google drive to backup all of my work if I lose my work or my flash drive gets damaged or if my work gets corrupted.

Conclusion

Bibliography

PC World. (Unknown, Unknown Unknown). LENOVO IdeaCentre 300 23" Touchscreen All-in-One PC. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from http://www.pcworld.co.uk: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/desktop-pcs/desktop-pcs/lenovo-ideacentre-300-23-touchscreen-all-in-one-pc-10150471-pdt.html

PC World. (Unknown, Unknown Unknown). LENOVO IdeaPad 310 15.6" Laptop - Silver. Retrieved 04 28, 2017, from http://www.pcworld.co.uk: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-310-15-6-laptop-silver-10157947-pdt.html

Unknown. (2016, 01 11). SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. Retrieved 04 27, 2017, from https://support.webproof.com: https://support.webproof.com/hc/en-us/articles/205271559-System-Requirements

Deconstruction of similar media products

I am going to be analysing similar media products I looking at this: http://www.museumofplay.org/about/icheg/video-game-history/timeline

I will be analysing the content, the layout, the colour scheme, the typography, the images used and I will be thinking about what their target audience might be based on this information.

The timeline starts off in 1940 and the first thing they talk about is Edward U. Condon designing a computer that plays a game called Nim where the player has to avoid picking up the last stick. They said that about 90% of the time the computer won. It also shows a black and white image of a sketch of the computer, there is also an option to look at the full patient of the document below the image. The background of the timeline is a grey background with lighter grey circles in a symmetrical pattern. The title of the timeline is yellow that has two blue horizontal line above and below the title acting as a border for the title. There is also a blue horizontal line at the end of the page that separates the current page and the timeline itself.

The next part of the timeline is 1947 where Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann file a patent for a game that uses a cathode ray tube hooked to an oscilloscope display. It challenges the player to fire a gun at a target. The also show a black and white sketch of the device from their patent for it. There is also an option on this to look at the full patent document.  The next part of the timeline is in 1950 where Claude Shannon lays out guidelines for programming a computer than can play chess. Some of the slides after this has the same layout and they cover the creation of noughts and crosses designed on a Cambridge Computer in 1952, the first blackjack program on a IMB-701 computer in 1954, in 1955 the military designs ‘Huspiel’ in which red and blue players fight against each other, then in 1956 Arthur Samuel demonstrates his checkers skills against a computer on national television, in 1957 Alex Bernstein writes a chess computer program that can evaluate four half moves ahead, in 1958 Willy Hignibotham creates a tennis game on a oscilloscope and analog computer It was dismantled two years later and forgotten it was the basis for games such as ‘Pong’, In 1960 a computer programmer John Burgeson began developing a computer baseball simulation a month a later in January 1961 he ran his first known baseball computer program on a IBM 1620, In 1962 MIT student Steve Russell invents ‘Spacewar!’ the first computer based video game over the next ten years the game spread across America, In 1964 John Kemeny creates a time share system and the BASIC programming language to make it easy for students to create computer games.

You can either scroll through the timeline by clicking on the arrows on the left and right of the slide so that you can go forwards or backwards. Or you scroll through the entire timeline with the scroller at the bottom of the page underneath the thumbnail images from the timeline.

One of the issues that I had found was when I was quickly selecting different slides, they would overlap each other and the images and text from a previous slide would appear on top of the current slide. That was the only major technical issue with the timeline itself.  One of the aesthetic choices that I personally didn’t like was the choice of colour scheme, the title text was yellow, the borders were blue, the body text was a beige/whitish colour, and the background is a grey background with a lighter grey symmetrical pattern as the backgrounds for the slides. I don’t think that they grey background complimented the yellow and the blue all that well. But they are very consistent with their use of blue and yellow as the title colour matches the colour of the arrows on the slides and the colour of the dates on the timeline and they use the same blue colour for all of their borders.

In conclusion, this timeline is quite detailed and has a lot of useful information and I can tell that they had spent time researching for this timeline and they have referenced all of the images that they have used that is not their own. They have a good layout that is easy to use and simple to follow. It does have a slide for almost every year from 1940 to 2014 and it really does show just how far games have come in 74 years in this timeline. But I do think the choice of background seems a little out of place. But the colour scheme is very consistent throughout and the typography is very clear and easy to read. Based off of all of this I estimate that the target audience for this timeline is 12 and upwards. This is because it does have a simple layout that is not too complex and it does not have a lot of body text it has about a paragraph at most and it also have images to go along with each slide.

The timeline starts off with an introduction talking about taking a nostalgia trip and to look through the history of console gaming. It has 9 different icons of different types of games controllers they are all multi coloured and eye catching.

They have separated the different consoles into eight different generations and each generation has been colour coded to help you to differentiate them from each other. Each generation has a preview of what consoles are in that specific generation and at the bottom, it also shows the years when those consoles were released. The timeline also goes past 2017 so if they wanted the creators could add more to this timeline when new consoles are released.

On each slide for a console, they have an image of the console what generation it is when it was released then underneath that it shows when the console was released in Japan, North America and Europe. Then underneath that, it has a description of the console and has some facts about the console like how many of them were sold. To the right of that, they have a YouTube video showing gameplay from that console. Above the video, they have a pole asking a question either about the console specifically or about the gaming industry in general. The layout has three distinct sections: The console and information about it, a poll and a YouTube video with gameplay. It is a very good layout as it doesn’t have too much text to read and all of the sections are too cramped and all of them have the right about of space on the page.  They also use the colour of each generation for all the consoles into that generation for example in the 2^nd generation the colour is blue and they have the colour for the title as blue as well.

As you can see they have the same colour which is very brilliant design choice as it allows the reader to associate that console generation with that colour and since they use the same colour the console slide it conditions them to associate that console with that console generation.

They talk about a total of 41 different consoles in detail talking about when they were made how successful they were, what made that console a success or a failure and it also has YouTube videos showing gameplay from that console all they cover all the different generation very well and detailed way that is not too in-depth that a reader who is doesn’t know too much about the specifics of the video game industry won’t be confused or lost.

In conclusion, this timeline is more focused on the console generations that the first timeline. It is a lot more modern and advanced layout and design. It uses colours to differentiate between the different console generations and it does not give you too much information at once. It has a lot more interactive elements like YouTube videos showing you gameplay from that console. It also has questions that you can answer about the console or the gaming industry in general and it shows you the percentage of people who gave the same answer as you. It is a lot more eye-catching and interactive and it is something that I am going to keep in mind when I am creating my timeline and how they use colours to connect things to together and how they also use to differentiate them from the other console generations. I also going to keep in mind the layout of the timeline as I think that was a great design choice as it allows you to visualise the timeline of the different console generations and how they have changed and developed over time.

Bibliography

IEEE,2015. Historic Gaming Timeline. [Online]

National Museum Of Play, 2014 . VIDEO GAME HISTORY TIMELINE. [Online]

CONCLUSION - Who/what was my inspiration? /Contextualisation of my study