Serious query - teach me about games!

bermia

Ok as title says. I am starting a research project on film finance and gaming finance in Ireland and elsewhere with the hope of getting funding for a phd out of it.

I am a qualified solicitor, tax consultant and have two film studies/screen studies masters (long story). I really enjoy researching the issues and the public policy stuff.

I don't play many games but am aware of a lot of them and the issues involved. I am not researching the content of games per se but obviously knowing more would really help me.

Can anyone point me in the direction of books, websites etc that can give me some info. Like a gaming for dummies thing. I would love to play some decent games but between research and 3 young kids time is thin on the ground.

Grumpypants

Gaming finance in Ireland is basically IDA, Enterprise, self funding, kickstarter, indieGoGo.

Very little big development that is publisher funded would happen here directly.
The government do see gaming as a real opportunity and give small studios a lot of support, office space and grants.

Bitsmith are prob the biggest Irish dev right now.
http://bitsmithgames.com/

Also check out.
http://getirishgames.ie/about-get-irish-games/,
http://www.irishgamedevrises.com/

bermia

Cheers thanks. Why do you say that very little big development that is publisher funded would happen here directly? Do you mean that there are few big players in the market making games and its only small developers?

So anyone got any suggestions for some games I can start on, I know the obvious ones that my kids play like skylanders, super mario etc ,anything more exciting or is that it?

stefanovich

Dark Souls

krudler

Where would you even start tbh, there's a few history of gaming videos on youtube and websites like IGN.com which go into the history of certain franchises. There's documentaries like King of Kong and Indie Game The Movie that go into the retro and independent side of things a bit.

Do you mean specifically Irish games or just gaming in general?

bermia

I know its a broad ask, and its a huge area, but I have to start somewhere. The youtube videos and website suggestion is very useful thanks. I have read a few academic books on gaming like Aphra Kerrs but for me thats the easy side.

I would like to know more about Irish games but I do want to get some grasp on the entire industry.

Is this like someone trying to learn to bake in a day by using an instant packet mix and thinking they have cracked it?

Thanks all for taking this query seriously. Its a great industry for Ireland and something that has rightly got the governments attention.

Grumpypants

bermia wrote: »

Cheers thanks. Why do you say that very little big development that is publisher funded would happen here directly? Do you mean that there are few big players in the market making games and its only small developers?

So anyone got any suggestions for some games I can start on, I know the obvious ones that my kids play like skylanders, super mario etc ,anything more exciting or is that it?

We simply do not have studios big enough to be making games that need that kind of investment.

We have big publishers here but not developing games, it is more to do with support. Activision, EA and Zenimax all have sites in Ireland.

For playing games, you have to play Mario, try and get your hands on Mario 3 on snes if you can, also try one of the newer mario's to see the advancement. You pretty much cant so anything on gaming without him

Irish games :
Open Emotion made Mad blocker Alpha very enjoyable match three game.
Bitsmith made Ku : Zelda style historical Irish/future steam punk mix also very good.

krudler

Gaming as a whole is such a broad and diverse industry that it'd take a while to go into everything. Everything from games people play on phones for a few minutes entertainment to online multiplayer games which people sink hundreds if not thousands of hours into.

As an industry, it definitely has matured over the years (well not always, misogyny is still rife in the games themselves and attitudes towards female gamers but that's a whole other topic) and what were one simple simple run left to right platform games now equal Hollywood blockbusters in both their scale and budgets. Take something like The Walking Dead, where moral choices need to be made, or The Last Of Us, where the story is compelling the entire way through, you invest yourself in these characters and stories as much as any movie or tv show, probably even moreso due to the interactive nature of them.

Charlie Brooker did a doc called How Video Games Changed The World, not sure if it's on youtube but it might be on 4OD, that has some interesting choices on it and delves into why gaming became the massive industry it is.

bermia

This allegory with hollywood blockbusters is a really interesting point. Tax wise in Ireland at least the two industries, film and gaming, are completely separate with different incentives and grants etc. I think there could be more interaction between the two from an industry pov. For example in canada there is the Canada Media Fund which doesn't distinguish between tv, film and games. Looks very interesting.

I have heard of the Charlie Brooker doc, must watch it. Thanks for the reminder.

And thanks to the OP who suggested Dead Souls. Will also look that up.

COYVB

Check out Telltale Games' The Walking Dead

Everyone raves about it's narrative. I've only played bits and bobs of it out of sequence, but it'd be a fantastic game for a beginner to try to learn about the less arcadey side of the industry

stefanovich

bermia wrote: »

And thanks to the OP who suggested Dead Souls. Will also look that up.

I'm not OP you are And it's Dark Souls. It's a great game but it's also got a reputation for being quite difficult. It was a semi-serious / semi -joke response. At least I didn't say flappy bird.

One question which is important is what hardware do you have? I would say, for an adult, anything by nintendo is not really going to cut it. I am assuming you would go the console route as getting a PC together with enough muscle to play modern games takes a little effort.

PS3 or XBone?

I would personally recommend PS3 and "The Last of Us" as a great introduction to gaming for an adult. It has a compelling story line and is just a great game overall.

bermia

Ha! At least I have heard of Flappy Bird!! Ok Dark Souls, Dead Souls does sound a bit too much for me. I have a Wii but will be looking at getting a PS3 for minecraft at least.

krudler

If you're looking for an example of how games are becoming more like interactive movies, this is the opening sequence of The Last Of Us, it was absolutely compelling to play. It also has some of the best voice acting you'll ever hear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecpQ_WUqKUM

nesf

bermia wrote: »

Ha! At least I have heard of Flappy Bird!! Ok Dark Souls, Dead Souls does sound a bit too much for me. I have a Wii but will be looking at getting a PS3 for minecraft at least.

Minecraft will probably run on whatever PC you have in the house. It has very low requirements.

As regards history, there's a brief overview here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games

As a genre it's fractured into many pieces, e.g. I wouldn't even consider The Walking Dead recommended above to be a game really but others would absolutely consider it to be such (the line between interactive fiction and game is blurred). At the other extreme you have things like flight simulators where the same software someone plays with at home is being used as part of a pilot's training. This is an absolutely enormous topic and very divisive in terms of opinion (even PC vs Console alone could fill 50 pages of a thread without even going back 5 years in history).

Retr0gamer

Honestly you'd need about 4 years of research to get a good grasp of gaming. I've been engrossed in it my whole life and I'm still learning new things about it. You're not going to know a whole lot about gaming from a self taught crash course.

If you want to know about the industry side of videogames then read up on gameindustry.biz and gamasutra which has some excellent articles. If you wan t to know about the indie industry in Ireland then get in touch with the guys from bitsmith, they've been through it all and are still going through it. There's a regular indie games meet up as well which would be well work your while going to as well.

If you want to know about games my advice is don't bother. It's just too broad a subject and if you haven't been playing them for the last 20+ years and actively trying to discover different videogame cultures or obscure games you are never really going to understand it more than a tiny portion of it. Stick with the business side of it.

Doodee

If you have any questions about games financing in Ireland give me a shout, have had to find funding for our own studio and can tell you the different options available.

I can also give you a background on PopCap who were the largest developer in Ireland before they closed in 2012.

bermia

krudler wrote: »

If you're looking for an example of how games are becoming more like interactive movies, this is the opening sequence of The Last Of Us, it was absolutely compelling to play. It also has some of the best voice acting you'll ever hear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecpQ_WUqKUM

Thanks very much for this link. I watched it this morning. The voices are great as you say and I also really like the use of shadows in it. Very film like. Is it good to play?

bermia

Doodee wrote: »

If you have any questions about games financing in Ireland give me a shout, have had to find funding for our own studio and can tell you the different options available.

I can also give you a background on PopCap who were the largest developer in Ireland before they closed in 2012.

Wow cheers, an 'insider's view would be brilliant thanks. I will get in touch.

bermia

COYVB wrote: »

Check out Telltale Games' The Walking Dead

Everyone raves about it's narrative. I've only played bits and bobs of it out of sequence, but it'd be a fantastic game for a beginner to try to learn about the less arcadey side of the industry

Is this playable on PC? It sounds good as an intro.

bermia

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Honestly you'd need about 4 years of research to get a good grasp of gaming. I've been engrossed in it my whole life and I'm still learning new things about it. You're not going to know a whole lot about gaming from a self taught crash course.

If you want to know about the industry side of videogames then read up on gameindustry.biz and gamasutra which has some excellent articles. If you wan t to know about the indie industry in Ireland then get in touch with the guys from bitsmith, they've been through it all and are still going through it. There's a regular indie games meet up as well which would be well work your while going to as well.

If you want to know about games my advice is don't bother. It's just too broad a subject and if you haven't been playing them for the last 20+ years and actively trying to discover different videogame cultures or obscure games you are never really going to understand it more than a tiny portion of it. Stick with the business side of it.

Thanks for the industry references, I have looked at gameindustry.biz and will definitely look up some articleson gamasutra. I know I am not going to be able to cover a full lifetimes worth of games knowledge in a crash course and I am not going to try. However I think it rude of me to attempt any research on the industry without attempting to learn something about the 'source material' as in the games themselves. I would like to get a few games to play, especially since the last game I played seriously was Tomb Raider, pre Angelina Jolie!

I am not going to try and pretend that I can learn everything in a few weeks/months/even years, but I can certainly improve my knowledge base without sounding like a complete tool when I talk to people in the industry.

Thanks a mill to everyone for their help so far, I already know more than I did this time yesterday. I am feeling the Valentine's day love!!!

Tipsy McSwagger

Pong - Oculus Rift

The dash is the history of video games.

krudler

bermia wrote: »

Thanks very much for this link. I watched it this morning. The voices are great as you say and I also really like the use of shadows in it. Very film like. Is it good to play?

Yeah it is, the gameplay is pretty familiar but it's the story that pushes you along.

Games can either be all consuming life devouring experiences or something you play for a few minutes here and there for fun, depends on the game tbh. Mobile gaming might be something you could look into too, most phone users have some sort of game be it Candy Crush or Angry Birds and it's a huge part of the industry now.

deathrider

bermia wrote: »

I would like to get a few games to play, especially since the last game I played seriously was Tomb Raider, pre Angelina Jolie!

I think replaying the original Tomb Raider (to separate how you remember it, to how it actually plays, followed by playing through her latest adventure (also simply titled Tomb Raider) could be very interesting for you. It could show you some of the ways in which gaming has changed in the last 20(ish) years.

macker33

stefanovich wrote: »

Dark Souls

Dark souls is a terrible game, why not rec something like mario kart or street fighter, something with a bit of colour

COYVB

macker33 wrote: »

Dark souls is a terrible game, why not rec something like mario kart or street fighter, something with a bit of colour

Not sure if serious...

macker33

COYVB wrote: »

Not sure if serious...

I'm very serious, dark souls imo isnt actual fun

Retr0gamer

macker33 wrote: »

I'm very serious, dark souls imo isnt actual fun

There's has never been so much wrong ever written in one sentence. Only some noob with no patience that ran down the wrong road straight into skeleton hell could say that, and if they did they should be shunned, ignored and ridiculed.

macker33

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's has never been so much wrong ever written in one sentence. Only some noob with no patience that ran down the wrong road straight into skeleton hell could say that, and if they did they should be shunned, ignored and ridiculed.

I have zero patience so that might be it,
Just if you are going to rec a game to someone who knows nothing about games then dark souls isnt really a good starting point, the guy will be put off games for life.

yawhat!

Snes - Legend of Zelda, Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart
PSX - Metal Gear Solid
PS2 - Grand theft auto 3
Ps3 - Assasins Creed, Bioshock Infinite
Ps4 - Meh
PC - Half life 1 and Any new games just to show how much better the graphics are than the PS4 :P

Temptamperu

Retr0gamer wrote: »

There's has never been so much wrong ever written in one sentence. Only some noob with no patience that ran down the wrong road straight into skeleton hell could say that, and if they did they should be shunned, ignored and ridiculed.

Its a great game but the dude has a point its not a lot of fun.

macker33

game the should be red'd if red dead redemption, its as good as it gets, original bioshock.