Business Plan Task 1
An executive summary is the most important thing in your business plan, and is sometimes the only thing someone will read. It should generally provide an overview of your business, and explain all the basics, allowing someone to get a base level understanding of your business in very little time.
A business description provides a more detailed insight into
your business, including the nature of your business, your studio location and
legal structure, company culture, products/services, plans for the future, and
more. This is meant to give the reader a more detailed understanding of what your
business will be, and how you plan to move forward with it.
Market analysis involves looking outwards and judging the
state of the industry as a whole, potentially looking for gaps in the market
you can fill, opportunities for business, and potential threats to your
business plan. This may include growth or shrinking of the industry, info on
demographics, looking at competitors, SWOT analysis, and the regulatory system
surrounding the market. This section demonstrates that you understand the
market you’re trying to enter, and what would make you stand out from the
crowd.
Organization and management is the section in which you
demonstrate that you understand elements like keeping stock, supply chains, and
management of employees. This section should show readers how your business
will be structured, how you will manage your employees/staff, and how you will
keep on top of your business.
Products and services are what your business sells/provides
for customers. This section should detail what you plan to sell/provide, as
well as how you plan to do so (production).
Marketing and sales strategy is how you plan to promote your
business and get people to buy your product/service. This could include online
advertising, social media accounts, billboards, etc.
Financial projections detail your projected startup fees,
costs, and revenue over a span of a few years. This should include when you
expect to have made a profit, how much money you will need for startup costs,
and what your cost/revenue ratio should be.
Game Concept and Development: This embodies
the entire creative process of game design, including selection of platform,
initial concept and design decisions along the way. One great example of a new
and innovative game concept is no man’s sky. At the time it was conceptualised,
there had never been a game that was quite like it, which made the pitch of a
procedurally generated, open world online space game all the more appealing. source
Technology and platforms: a game made for pc
would have room to require a lot more processing power than one made for the
switch. Controls and such would also have to be accounted for between
platforms. For example, Baldur’s Gate 3 had a delayed release on Xbox because
Larian studios couldn’t get the game working on the Series S, the weaker of the
2 Xbox consoles. Ultimately, they had to cut 2-player Co-op from the Series S
version of the game so they could release the game on the Xbox. source
Monetization Strategy: different monetization
strategies can be received differently by different audiences. Fans of
single-purchase games such as Mario Odyssey and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
might be displeased with receiving a live service battle royale game. For
example, in 2018, Valve studios released Artifact, a fantasy card game set in
the Dota universe. Overall, the game was a travesty at launch, costing 20
dollars just to play, and then costing additional money to buy more cards, at a
time when most card games were free to play. This strategy was lambasted by
players, who had, by and large, abandoned the game by 2 months after release. Source
Market Trends and Audience Analysis:
Understanding what’s popular at the moment is very important to the success of
a game. For example, with the success of Baldur’s Gate 3, Elden Ring and Tears
of the Kingdom, it has become clear that Single purchase, open world games that
provide a full single player experience at base. With this in mind, releasing
an incomplete, microtransaction-ridden live service game would likely be a very
bad idea, and may be very poorly received. This was demonstrated very clearly
with the release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, as it was
incredibly poorly received for being a live service game, being unplayable on
release, and generally having boring gameplay. source
Competitive Analysis: Knowing what your
competitors are doing is very important in game design, as being too similar to
a competitor, or released too close to another release, it may cause your game
to be overshadowed. For example, in 2016, when EA released Titanfall 2 (an
undoubtably phenomenal game) on October 28, it was vastly overshadowed, as it
was released within a week of both Call of Duty and Battlefield, all of which
were full-price games, leading most consumers to overlook Titanfall in favour
of the other 2. source
Intellectual Property Considerations: When
making a game, you have to consider the identity of the franchise you’re
creating a game for. For example, suicide squad was widely criticised because
it was set in the Arkham universe, and thus retcons or changes a lot of
pre-existing story elements, such as the Deadshot from the Arkham games being a
fake, because the real Deadshot features in suicide squad, and batman’s
dramatic death being faked, then proceeding to be replaced by him being
unceremoniously killed by characters nobody really cares about. source
Community and Social Engagement: A lot of hype
and interest in a new game comes from the studio having a strong social media presence.
Conversely, having a weak social media and advertising presence, and not
communicating with your community can cause a game to be overlooked or
forgotten, as the community doesn’t know what’s going on. For example, Raid:
Shadow Legends is a game that has millions of players, and almost every person
has heard of at some point. This is because Raid has a plethora of sponsorships
with any tangentially related youtubers and influencers, causing a wide array
of potential players to be made aware of the game.
User Acquisition and Retention: The ability to
draw in new players and the ability to retain current players are 2 pillars of
game production and design that should always be kept in balance for a game to
succeed. A game with only player acquisition can boom in popularity, but will
likely die out quickly as nobody wants to keep playing. On the other hand, a
game with only player retention can survive on just an existing fanbase, but
will start to stagnate without new blood to freshen up the game. An example of
the latter is Yu-Gi-Oh. The game’s constant release of new products and
consistent legacy support is great for player retention, however the
complicated mechanics of the game, like chain-blocking, if/when,
colons/semicolons present a sheer cliff of necessary knowledge to players
trying to enter, leading to very few new players joining the hobby. source
Game Lifecycle and Updates: Understanding the potential
life cycle of your game, and boosting it with updates is an important aspect of
the longevity of a game. A game that receives regular updates will both retain
players better, and give the message to potential players that the game is
still alive and healthy, increasing player acquisition. However, a lack of
updates indicates a dead game, and will cause players to slowly stop playing.
An example of this is Team Fortress 2, a game that has gone without major
updates for over 6 years, and has been kept alive almost exclusively by
community support. However, valve has been willing to coast along on
community-generated cosmetic updates, which seems to be working for them,
considering that just last year, tf2 beat its own top user count during the
summer cosmetic update. source
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