Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The downside is that some players feel nickel-and-dimed, so game makers
need to choose wisely about introducing micro-transactions into their games.
Otherwise, they may turn players away.
An excellent example of how this approach to marketing and making a profit
through micro-transactions works can be seen with the company Zynga, which
makes
FarmVille
. Yes, Zynga has ads associated with the game; however, the
company generates the majority of its revenue by selling virtual goods to players
(seeds, livestock, and so on). Players use those virtual goods as currency in the
game when they play with each other. Zynga has earned over a billion dollars
using this system.
property Rights issues
Another issue is the debate over intellectual freedom versus intellectual prop-
erty rights, especially where the Internet is concerned. Copyright, which was
designed to protect intellectual property, can sometimes interfere with free
speech. Game makers that post their games online can acquire a copyright.
Others may play a game and build one very similar to it, and that is legal.
Development for the home Computer market
It's worth noting that the speed at which faster computers come out has made
developers lazy. Twenty years ago, developers spent a lot of development time
optimizing the product's code and resources to make it run as efficiently as pos-
sible on the computers available at the time. That is hardly a concern anymore,
except for the most high-end games. Many developers would rather give up the
portion of the market that doesn't have the newest high-end computers than
spend additional development time optimizing their products.
Similar changes have happened with file sizes. The best resource-compression
routines were developed during the time of the floppy disk. Work of that type
slacked off following the advent of CDs. Eventually we started running out of
room on CDs, and online digital delivery became more popular, so compression
has become more interesting again; but part of the response has been to increase
bandwidth rather than improve compression routines.
Performance-wise, PC development depends on the minimum or recom-
mended system requirements needed to run the game. Or, another way to say
this is that PC development depends on the minimum system requirements you
feel will run the game without taking away from the gameplay experience. For
most indie developers, it's not an issue, because they aren't doing super-high-
end graphics; a basic machine these days will run their games fine. For bigger
