D1

D1:

I have set the development company the time limit of 60 weeks to complete production and release the game at the end of that set timescale. The game is open world and will technically have endless playing time but the main storyline will consist of around 20 hours as the exploring of the world and side activities will make up the bulk of the game. In my Gantt chart which I have already discussed it will be directly followed by the development team and features all the tasks needed to complete the game. After researching online and looking at various sources I have came to the conclusion that the production should be scheduled to 60 weeks to make sure everything is complete in time which I believe is an adequate timescale for each individual task within production whether it be voice acting or marketing etc.

I decided to produce an open world survival game with zombies as this is the current trend in the video game market spread across all 3 dominating platforms. Some of the most popular games which are the same genre of mine are: DayZ, H1Z1, Zombie, Miscreated, Call Of Duty’s Zombies feature etc. All these games have been released within the last 3 years and many are still being released today which justifies my reasoning for a Zombie survival game. This current trend of zombies will still be popular in years to come in my opinion which means there will be a makret for this for some time.

Budget

I have researched many publishing games budgets and indie developer’s budgets and have settled mine at a good number. I have set it at £100,000 which is a high number for a first development by an indie company but I have ways of generating funds for the production. Firstly I will use websites like crowdfunding and GoFundMe where users will pledge money towards the production. It may seem like a long shot but many companies have created outstanding games via this method such as popular multiplayer survival game Escape From Tarkov which as fully funded via GoFundMe. Crowdfunding is a go to for many development companies in this current age as it is effective and is a current trend in the video game market for gamers to pledge funds towards a project they like. The timescales for my development are featured on the Gantt chart here for the developers to follow.

Through extensive research of developers and their game releases the most popular releasing dates of titles is between autumn and winter preferably end of September – start of December. Therefore my game will be released around the end of September so that by Christmas time it is still classed as a new game and will be bought during the Christmas period; maximising revenue. Call of Duty releases their games in November which gives my game a month window to un-competitively sell copies without the challenge of other companies. My game will also not have as much marketing as big franchises due to the budgets it has. Which is why I am releasing it just before all big companies release their games. I will mainly have to rely on social media to market my game to save money and prevent a large portion of the budget being spent on the marketing aspect. Trailers, screenshots and sneak peaks will be posted to the likes of Facebook twitter and YouTube so that an audience is able to be secured before release.                    

Gantt Chart