Objective: Reinforce the complexity of getting a video game out into the market across company boundaries.
Use material from Chapter 3: Putting the Dev in Game Development
Quest: Pick a game from each of the following decades: the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and the 2020s. Use sources like Wikipedia, MobyGames, game credits, and company websites to identify how many companies were involved in the creation of each of these games and what role each of these companies played.
For each game you select, answer the following questions:
Who developed this game?
Was it a single studio or multiple studios? Look for credits like engineering, art, and game design. Typically this is a single studio, but not always – the current Battlefield game at EA is being cross-developed across multiple studios.
Who published this game?
Was it a single studio or multiple studios? Look for credits like localization, quality assurance, publishing, and marketing. Are there different publishers for different countries, regions, or platforms?
On what platforms is this game available?
What companies would have had a say in how this game was made based on technical requirements and store policies? What hardware does this game support? In what gaming marketplaces is it offered? Who are the companies behind that hardware and those stores?
Bonus tool: Video Game List
Stalled for picking a game from each of those decades? Wikipedia has your back. This list covers video game releases from every year. Try picking a random year and seeing what you get! Or look back at the history of the E3 conference for the years it was operating, which will cover most of the 1990s – 2010s.
