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 Pac-Man is one of the most recognizable video games ever created. The computer and video game industry (formally referred to as interactive entertainment and generally as the games industry) is the economic sector involved with the development, marketing and sale of video and computer games. It encompasses dozens of job disciplines and employs thousands of people worldwide. Image File history File links Circle-question-red. ...
Image File history File links Pac-man. ...
Image File history File links Pac-man. ...
Pac-Man is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution by Midway Games in 1979. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates computer or video games. ...
Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Marketing is a social and managerial function that attempts to create, expand and maintain a collection of customers. ...
Namcos Pac-Man was a hit, and became a cultural phenomenon. ...
A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ...
Overview
Once a niche market and considered by some as a curiosity in the mid-1970s, the computer and video game industry took in about USD$7 billion in the US in 2005 (ESA annual report). However, contrary to popular belief, the video game industry is not "bigger than Hollywood"; while video game sales have exceeded the film industry's annual box office[1], Hollywood generated $31 billion in total 1999 revenue.[2] The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...
ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory[1], the British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ...
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is the trade association of the computer and video game industry in the United States. ...
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The term box office can refer to either: A place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to a venue The amount of business a particular production, such as a movie or theatre show, does. ...
The modern computing world owes many modern computing innovations to the game industry. The following computing elements owe their lineage and development to the game industry: Apple Macintoshes like the iMac Core Duo are personal computers. ...
- Sound cards: developed for addition of digital-quality sound to games. Later improved for music and audiophiles.
- Graphics cards and 3D graphic accelerators: were developed for graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and games. GUIs drove the need for high resolution, games drove 3D acceleration. They also gave one the opportunity to use SLI or CrossFire graphics cards, or two graphics cards in one computer.
- CD ROM drives: were developed for mass distribution of media in general, however games use is probably instrumental in driving their ever higher speeds.
- Joysticks were developed mainly for playing games.
- Unix: developed, in part, so that the programmers could play a space traveling game.[3][4]
In addition, many of the higher powered personal computers are purchased by gamers who want the fastest equipment to power the latest cutting-edge games. Modern games are some of the most demanding on PC resources, so the latest hardware is often targeted at this sector likely to purchase and make use of the latest features. Thus, the inertia of CPU development is due in part to this industry whose applications demand faster processors than traditional applications. A sound card is a computer expansion card that can input and output sound under control of computer programs. ...
A graphics/video/display card/board/adapter is a computer component designed to convert the logical representation of visual information into a signal that can be used as input for a display medium. ...
A GeForce 4 4200-based graphics card A graphics card or video card is a component of a computer which is designed to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for a display medium, most often a monitor...
A graphical user interface (or GUI, often pronounced gooey), is a particular case of user interface for interacting with a computer which employs graphical images and widgets in addition to text to represent the information and actions available to the user. ...
Scalable Link Interface (SLI) is a method for linking two (or possibly more) video cards together to produce a single output. ...
CrossFire is a brand name for ATI Technologies multi-GPU solution, which competes with its rival nVidias Scalable Link Interface (SLI). ...
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Joystick elements: 1. ...
Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ...
3 programmers. ...
Gamer is a term used to describe a person who plays games. ...
Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12×6. ...
Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ...
Disciplines The game industry employs those experienced in other traditional businesses, but some have experience tailored to the game industry. For example, many recruiters target just game industry professionals. Some of the disciplines specific to the game industry include: A recruiter is someone engaging in recruitment which is the solicitation of individuals to fill jobs or positions within any group such as a sports team or corporation. ...
Most of these professionals are employed by video game developers or video game publishers. However, many hobbyists also produce computer games and sell them commercially. A game programmer is a software engineer who primarily develops computer or video games or related software (such as game development tools). ...
A game designer is a person who designs games. ...
A level designer is a person who creates levels, challenges or missions for computer and/or video games using a specific set of programs. ...
A game producer is the person in charge of overseeing development of a video or computer game. ...
A game artist is responsible for all of the aspects of game development that calls for visual art. ...
The role of the game tester in game development primarily involves analyzing video and/or computer games to document software defects as part of a quality control process. ...
A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates computer or video games. ...
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A hobby is a spare-time recreational pursuit. ...
History The first recorded video game was created by William Higinbotham, a scientist, in 1958. The game was called "Tennis For Two". It was never commercially released because it wasn't an actual video game. It was meant to be an electrical experiment. Many speculate that his idea was stolen by the creators of Pong in 1971.[citation needed] Considering Higinbotham's invention wasn't well known, the creation of Pong amazed people. William (Willy) A. Higginbotham (October 25, 1910 - November 10, 1994), a physicist, is credited with creating one of the first video games, Tennis for Two, which is similar to PONG. He created it on an oscilloscope in 1958, while the Head of the Instrumentation Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory, to...
Tennis for Two was a game developed in 1958 on an oscilloscope which simulated a game of tennis or ping pong. ...
PONG helped bring computerized video games into everyday life PONG is a video game released originally as an arcade coin-op by Atari Inc. ...
From this point, the video and computer game industry formed into a hobby culture in the late 1970s when personal computers just began to become widely available. The industry grew along with the advancement of computing technology, and often drove that advancement. Today, the video game industry is a juggernaut of development; profit still drives technological advancement which is then used by other industry sectors. Though maturing, the video game industry is still very volatile, with third-party video game developers quickly cropping up and, just as quickly, going out of business. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...
In Asian countries, notably Japan and Hong Kong, the video game medium did not reach major popularity on a mass scale until the arrival of the manga series Game Center Arashi in the late 70s.[citation needed] The series helped the public understand the possibility of the product and the entertainment value at the cultural level. Manga ) is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons. ...
Game Center Arashi (Japanese: ゲームセンターã‚らã—, Cantonese: é›»å神童) was a popular anime series aired in 1982 in Japan and Hong Kong. ...
Economics The video game industry is currently facing financial strains[citation needed] as it attempts to fairly compensate its talent, while continuing to turn a profit. The result is that the game developer—the traditional source of new games—is essentially dying out or is being incorporated into large publishers.[citation needed] The game industry is currently experiencing a phase of consolidation and vertical integration as a reaction to spiraling costs.[citation needed]This climate has also given birth to vibrant indie game developers comprising tiny companies trying to use the internet rather than traditional retail channels to reach an audience. This is a list of independent game developers, video game developers that are not supported by a publisher. ...
Early on, development costs were minimal, and video games could be quite profitable. Games developed by a single programmer, or by a small team of programmers and artists, could sell hundreds of thousands of copies each. Many of these games only took a few months to create, so developers could release several titles each year. Thus, publishers could often be generous with benefits, such as royalties on the games sold. Many early game publishers started from this economic climate, such as Origin Systems, Sierra Entertainment, Activision and Electronic Arts. A royalty is a sum paid to the creator of performance art for the use of that art. ...
Origin Systems, Inc. ...
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Activision, Inc. ...
EA redirects here. ...
As computing and graphics power increased, so too did the size of development teams, as larger staffs were needed to address the ever increasing graphical and programming complexities. Now budgets can easily reach millions of dollars, even if middleware and pre-built game engines are used. Most professional games require one to three years to develop, further increasing the strain on budgets. A game engine is the core software component of a computer or video game or other interactive application with real-time graphics. ...
A game engine is the core software component of a computer or video game or other interactive application with real-time graphics. ...
Some developers are turning to alternative production and distribution methods, such as online distribution, to reduce costs.
Practices Video game industry practices are similar to those of other entertainment industries (e.g. the music recording industry), but the video game industry in particular has been accused of treating its development talent poorly. This promotes independent development, as developers leave to form new companies and projects. In some notable cases, these new companies grow large and impersonal, having adopted the business practices of their forebearers, and ultimately perpetuate the cycle. The record industry (or recording industry) is the industry that manufactures and distributes mechanical recordings of music. ...
However, unlike the music industry, where modern technology has allowed a fully professional product to be created extremely inexpensively by an independent musician, modern games require increasing amounts of manpower and equipment. This dynamic makes publishers, who fund the developers, much more important than in the music industry. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates computer or video games. ...
Breakaways A particularly famous case is the "original" independent developer Activision, founded by former Atari developers. Activision grew to become the world's second largest game publisher.[citation needed] In the mean time, many of the original developers left to work on other projects. For example, founder Alan Miller left Activision to start another video game development company, Accolade (now Atari née Infogrames). Activision, Inc. ...
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Alan Miller was an influential figure in the video game industry. ...
Accolade was a video game developer and publisher of the 1980s and 1990s. ...
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Infogrames Entertainment SA (IESA) is an international holding company headquartered in Lyon, France. ...
Activision was popular among developers for giving them credit in the packaging and title screens for their games, while Atari disallowed this practice. As the video game industry took off in the mid-80s, many developers faced the more distressing problem of working with fly-by-night or unscrupulous publishers that would either fold unexpectedly or run off with the game profits. The 1980s refers to the years of 1980 to 1989. ...
Economics Economic problems remain today with regard to publisher-developer contracts (see copyright: transfer of rights). Typically, developers receive around 20% of royalties, and the rest goes to the publisher.[citation needed] Rather than dividing royalties, many publishers buy the development studio outright. Some developers begrudge the tendency for the studio's original management to leave in the wake of a buyout, while the remaining employees try to finish the project only to be shut down after a few years. These buyouts often result in a big push to finish video game projects in time for the holiday purchasing season, and transfer of creative control to the publisher. Copyright symbol Copyright is a set of exclusive rights regulating the use of a particular expression of an idea or information. ...
Creative control Some people disapprove of publishers having creative control since they are more apt to follow short-term market trends rather than invest in risky but potentially lucrative ideas. On the other hand, publishers may know better than developers what consumers want. The relationship between video game developers and publishers parallels the relationship between recording artists and record labels in many ways. But unlike the music industry, which has seen flat or declining sales in the early 2000s, the video game industry continues to grow while producing both low-quality, unoriginal games, and innovative and popular titles such as the Grand Theft Auto series and The Sims series. Also, personal computers have made the independent development of music almost effortless, while the gap between an independent game developer and the product of a fully financed one grows larger. The Recording Artists Coalition (RAC) is an American music industry organization that represents recording artists, and attempts to defend their rights and interests. ...
The RIAA Logo. ...
The music industry is the industry that creates, performs, promotes, and preserves music. ...
This article is becoming very long. ...
The current design of the Grand Theft Auto logo. ...
For games beginning with Sim, see List of Sim games. ...
In the computer games industry, it is easier to create a startup, resulting in many successful companies. The console games industry is a more closed one, and a game developer must have up to three licenses from the console manufacturer: A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ...
video game consoles A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer. ...
- A license to develop games for the console
- The publisher must have a license to publish games for the console
- A separate license for each game
In addition, the developer must usually buy development systems from the console manufacturer in order to even develop a game for consideration, as well as obtain concept approval for the game from the console developer. Therefore, the developer normally has to have a publishing deal in place before starting development on a game project, but in order to secure a publishing deal, the developer must have a track record of console development, something which few startups will have.
Alternatives An alternative method for publishing video games is to self-publish using the shareware or open source model over the Internet. However, it remains to be seen whether freely made and distributed games can survive in the era of multi-million dollar productions. Look up shareware in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ...
Japanese video game industry practices The Japanese video game industry is markedly different from the industry in the US and Europe. Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic - President George Walker Bush (R) - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from...
World map exhibiting the location of Europe. ...
Generally, games occupy greater cultural attention in Japan than the U.S., and its market share of total entertainment in Japan is higher than the U.S. Voice acting was implemented in Japanese games several years before American games.[citation needed] Japan has created some of the largest and most expensive titles ever made, such as Final Fantasy X and the Metal Gear Solid series of games. Market share, in strategic management and marketing, is the percentage or proportion of the total available market or market segment that is being serviced by a company. ...
Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters (including those in feature films, television series, animated shorts), doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides. ...
Final Fantasy X ) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square Enix. ...
This article is about the original Metal Gear Solid released for the PlayStation. ...
Arcades Video game arcades are still relatively popular in Japan; for every arcade game released in the US, nine are released in Japan.[citation needed] The history of the Japanese arcade is very significant in the story of the decline of the American arcade, and in the shape of game design in general. In particular, the arcade scene in Japan has caused them to lag behind in the field of sound effects and sound design, because this is less important in an arcade. For example, a modern game like Tekken 4 still uses 16 kHz samples like the original arcade release. A video arcade (known as an amusement arcade in the United Kingdom) is a place where people play arcade video games. ...
Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ...
Game design is the process of designing the content and rules of a game. ...
Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of movies, video games, music, or other media. ...
Sound design is a technical/conceptually creative field. ...
Tekken 4 is the fifth installment in the Tekken video game franchise, and was the second in the Tekken series for the PlayStation 2. ...
Media Consoles and arcade games are the main media for Japanese game design; PC games are nowhere near as popular. This necessarily dictates that there are fewer independently developed games coming from Japan, as it is far harder to develop independently for a console than it is for a PC. video game consoles A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer. ...
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Development environment The structure and culture of a Japanese game developer is far different from a western one. Throughout the history of Japanese game design, many developers have seen fit to remain mostly anonymous, even using pseudonyms to a large degree in video game credits.
Also, the division in labor for video game development is far different. For example, Japanese game design teams had a dedicated designer, (which they called a "director") far earlier than American design teams adopted the practice. Yet it was clear that even with this centralized design process level designers and character designers were given a lot of leeway to work within their boundaries as much as possible. For example, almost every level in Super Mario Bros. 3 has new gameplay concepts within it. A game designer is a person who designs games. ...
A level designer is a person who creates levels, challenges or missions for computer and/or video games using a specific set of programs. ...
Super Mario Bros. ...
Secondly Japanese game designers throughout history generally had far more people working on a particular game then a comparable western design team. For example, Mortal Kombat, an American title, was developed by four people: a programmer, an artist, a musician, and a background artist. Street Fighter 2, a comparable Japanese title, had almost one artist working on every character in the game, plus two programmers, plus a musician with the result being a team of twenty or more people. Mortal Kombat has multiple meanings. ...
A game programmer is a software engineer who primarily develops computer or video games or related software (such as game development tools). ...
Look up artist in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
A musician is a person who plays or composes music. ...
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1991) was a highly popular and immensely successful arcade game created by the Japan-based company Capcom. ...
See also This is a hierarchical list linking to all articles related to computer and video games. ...
Game Developer magazine is a monthly periodical for the video game industry. ...
References InformationWeek is a weekly technology magazine published by CMP Media. ...
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