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Oct 12, 20203 min read

Research on the Games Industry

In the Creative Media Industry unit, the first task entails research into a specific field of work, the companies local to us, the economy and how its effected, the history of the selected industry, and new developments across the creative field.


I've decided to research into the Games Industry, which is the field I am most interested in. However, as I have previously found, all the creative industries are linked in some way, so my research also delved into VFX and animation.


Here is some brief research I conducted in preparation for the unit tasks:


Local companies


In Surrey, Guildford has the densest consistency of Games Companies, including Epic Games (the operators of Fortnite, a multi-platform games), Supermassive Games (the creators of Until Dawn, an interactive horror game), and Mediatonic (the creators of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout) amongst others.


Economy


The UK games sector is the largest out of any other country in Europe. In 2018, the Games Industry sent 1.8 billion GDP. The UK creative industry is also known to be a powerful one, with a large diversity of companies in each sector. The overall value of the games market in the UK is 5.4 billion GDP.


History and evolution


The first video game, Pong, was created in 1958 by William Hinginbotham, a physicist. It was an incredibly simple tennis game on a black screen with a ball and two movable platforms used to hit it. Although this could be easily made nowadays, it opened the door to an entire world of possibilities.


The 1970s was when the first home console was invented. Before this, video games had been played in arcades on giant machines. The Atari was introduced as a small system that could be used to play a single game that was built in. in 1977, the Atari 2600 was released. This was a computer system, with joysticks, multiple cartridges, and even games in colour.


1981 saw the first game in the Super Mario Series' release, the start of one of the most famous franchises of all time. Many other games successful and beloved games series were starting in this decade, such as Final Fantasy, Metroid, Mega Man and The Legend of Zelda.


Consoles also evolved along with all these game series. From arcade machines to the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989, the consoles used to game continued evolving from there. Whilst the Game Boy popularised handheld games, the 1995 Sony console, Playstation (along with the release of the Nintendo 64 the next year) popularised console gaming. In more recent decades, PC gaming has risen in the ranks to become popular thanks to services like Steam, which allow players to easily download and play games.


Industry developments


Recently, VFX and animation companies have been using game engines to render their sequences. Games are far faster at rendering files, and more and more companies are taking advantage of this fact. This doesn't just encompass digital animations, but also live-action VFX shots.


The most famous example of this is 'The Mandalorian,' which used Unreal Engine, a game engine, to produce their backgrounds. This meant that the characters could walk around in a green screen set, acting, and then be placed in a 3D rendered scene.


VFX can also be used in Games to create effects like magic spells or explosions. These can greatly improve the look of a game, and could also provide jobs for freelancing VFX artists who are interested in the games industry.


Sources:



https://www.statista.com/topics/1763/gaming-in-the-united-kingdom/ - Statistics on the gaming industry in the UK.




Further Reading:


https://www.statista.com/statistics/273511/consumer-spending-on-games-industry-products-in-the-uk-by-sector/ - The games industry market in the UK from 2011 to 2019, by sector (mobile gaming, console gaming, etc.).

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