Exam 1 Flashcards
What are the rules of Morris? (9-man’s Morris)
- start with a blank board
- first phase - take turns adding pieces on line intersections until all have been placed
- second phase - take turns moving pieces along the line segments to empty points
- in either phase, when a player forms a windmill, she may remove one of her opponent’s pices
- no jumps
- the game is over when a player is down to two pieces, or can’t move
How old is Morris?
Over 8000 years old
How were games purchased in 2002?
CD-R
Where were games available at 2002?
Big box stores: Target, Walmart
How many games available per year in 2002?
30 to 50 games per year
How much did the game industry make per year on average in 2002?
$5B a year!
There is $5B to be made from the 40 slots – if a slot doesn’t make $125M, it took the place of something that could have and thus makes it a failure.
How were games purchased in 2010?
Internet deliveries for all consoles
Room in the market for many more games
No physical merchandize > faster product cycles
Smaller games, smaller budgest
lower breakeven point for sales
freedom to experiment
more companies
more kinds of games
What happened to the game industry in 2012?
The money showed up because EA and a few others are established in the online stores.
They have marketing budgets and the game section of the App store now looks like the game section of Toys-R-Us.
People buy what they know: Monopoly, Scrabble.
People want to play with friends; they buy games their friends know.
A Different Kind of Statis
The “Top 25” or 40 or so games have been the same for 2-3 years.
Those companies have the money, so they can generate new content continuously, so they are popular.
New games are occasionally “discovered” out of the thousands available.
BUT FOR A MOMENT anyone who could make a game had a chance to get rich.
What is the primary demographic for facebook games?
mid 40’s women
What is a postmortem?
essay about a project
What is a feature creep?
things added to the program after the design is finalized
this is a ton more work
What are content updates?
new levels, monsters, downloaded after initial purchase
How long are most apps kept on devices?
3 weeks
Content updates
are good!
keep the game being played and on the device
if you deleted it, friends won’t see you play it
continuing employment for everyone
gives you plans for post-release bug fixes
are bad!
content update = feature creep