assasin's creed- trailers and marketing

David Hesmondhalgh: it is essential for media industries to minimise risk, and to maximise profit

Assasin's creed: valhalla

the next assasin's creed game to be released, the trailer has been released- but no proper gameplay ones as the game isn't finished yet.

Assassins creed Valhalla is a AAA game, to preorder you're looking at paying at least £57.99

Most people don't buy games when they first come out, but a lot of people do. one way companies encourage buyers to buy on release is an effective marketing campaign.

for this unit, we look at industry and audience, which means we can skip over man aspects of media language and representation.

for all three of these questions, you can use the trailer of assassins creed Valhalla.

-it attracts audiences

-it's part of production and promo

-the trailer is digitally distributed

How does this trailer target a specialised and generalised audience?

mass audience-

high production values- looks and sounds great. AAA big-budget video game. very well produced. fur and hair made extremely well- the trailer doesn't use gameplay footage it's made new cg for it.

paradigmatic features of film trailers, film conventions are another technique Ubisoft used to target a mass audience. the voiceover, range of scenes, hint of a wider compelling narrative and no hint of having to press any buttons etc, song probably not in the game, video games have done this for quite some time and it works.

a clear narrative, although basic there's a clear todorovian narrative structure. this isn't just pacman or space invaders its something exciting with story to it

intertextuality, references other assassins creed games- high production values, name, battles, stealth elements. references lord of the rings with the fight scenes, game of thrones with gritty dark setting, iconography and mise-en-scene- an extremely popular series with a pre-existing fanbase.

niche-

(people mad about games who have bought every other assassins creed game)

every assassins creed cover features a character with their face partially covered, on a misty background, holding some kind of weapon which functions as a proairetic code. all the backgrounds present their usp of being in different time periods. the game also uses sci-fi but that isn't in the trailer, because it's too confusing  

Theory, David Hesmondhalgh

-it's absolutely essential for industries to minimise risk and maximise profit.

the ign is the internet gaming network, a very mainstream online magazine.

the videogames industry as specialised

If you get asked to talk about videogames in the exam, there are two main types of question that can come up:

Industry questions

These focus on how the videogame industry is structured, and how it is a specialised industry and differs from other media industries. These kind of questions are asking for cold, hard facts, and in-depth knowledge and understanding of the industry. 

An example of an industry question is In what ways does the videogame industry use specialised forms of production? Make reference to the Assassin's Creed franchise [12]

Audience questions

These questions will either focus on how producers target and position audiences, or how audiences can respond to media products.

An example of an audience question is In what ways do the producers of videogames address the needs of both mass and specialised audiences? Make reference to the Assassin's Creed franchise [12]

In both instances, you will have an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of how the industry works, and this post/lesson will give you the means to include this.

What makes games a specialised industry?

Videogames, like any form of media are totally different from any other industry. They are a specialised industry, and they exist to make money in the most effective manner possible.

-interactivity 

they ask the audience to interact with the product, video games often start with this screen to completely break down the fourth wall from the start. when you watch a film you identify and observe the main character, when you discuss them you say 'what did you think when they...' 'i liked when they said this...' but in video games there's a very different approach 'i got to level three last night' 'i got lost and had to look at a walkthrough'

this offers audiences many uses and gratifications.

-huge expenditure of resources 

AAA games use huge amounts of money, workers and talent to be made, even finding and employing these takes casts expenditures of money, the biggest video games productions are huge business risks for companies.

-much higher RRP (recommended retail price)

as a direct consequence of the huge expenditure of resources video games have a much higher RRP. 

this game is pretty much more expensive than any other media product, and most other video games are. you're looking at paying approximately £50, but the pricing sinks down fairly quickly.

they're expensive because of the huge expenditures, hours of play you get and the fact it's always been expensive- you used to have to buy cartridges and hardware.

-significantly longer length

a series of the sopranos are in total 10 hours long, a film is anything between an hour and a half and two hours long. but you can hundreds of hours of a game. 

-a dedicated, 'core' target audience

there's a perception that video game players are hardcore and skilled, there's a huge stereotyped audience. with other forms of media much broader assumptions are made, everyone watches films, everyone watches tv. 

-games developed for specific hardware or released multiplatform

This makes video games different from pretty much any other industry. there's current generation consoles (PlayStation 4, Xbox one, Nintendo switch). You can't play a PlayStation game on an Xbox. you see this slightly in the film/tv industry- Netflix, prime, Hulu. a lot of games released particularly more recently are multiplatform but if you want to play gears of war you need an Xbox one, or if you want to play persona 5 you need a PlayStation 4.

E3 and the role of trade shows in the videogames industry

Videogame production

how videogames are typically produced and marketed by major studios.

in what ways do videogames represent a specialised industry? how do they differ from other media?

The production of every media product can be split into three basic sections; pre-production- before something is made, production- when it's actually made, post-production- final editing and tweaks.

With video games there's much less distinguishing between each phase but there is difference.

Pre-production

concept art

Often one of the very first things done in video game pre-production is concept art. the purpose is to sinpire the designers when they actually start making the game, it creates a shared vision within the studio. back in the 80's the concept art would look completely different from the final game, but these days it's actually closer.

design 

often studios will have a game development book or a development bible, it can be a few pages or hundreds pages worth of content. it will often include notes, complete descriptions of every location and character, the narrative from start to finish. this allows everyone working on the game to work from the same rulebook, so it's very important- it allows consistency.

Production

coding

coders put together various forms of computer language to add the mechanics of the game into the game. video games are made by people doing very long hours behind computers using complex maths 

testing

you need fresh eyes on the game, testers are employed by video game production companies in order to rake through video games and make sure there are no bugs. testers look for bugs and issues and go though the code to show what needs to be fixed.

Alpha and beta builds 

the alpha build is the rough cut of a video game, where there are issues and things don't always work. the alpha build is one that can be tested and played, and after the bugs have been eliminated they can move onto the beta build.

the beta build is the one before the final build, where everything has been fixed and it's pretty much polished, but there might just be a couple more issues. often the beta build is the one sent to journalists.

sometimes, if a game is particularly anticipated, the beta build is leaked which is a huge issue as it doesn't reflect the full quality of the final product.

there can be years of difference between the alpha build and the beta build.

Post-production

patching and maintenance

after a video game has been completed, it doesn't stop there. developers used to just release it and if there was an issue that was that- there's a couple of examples of very high profile games with huge issues.

but now, thanks to digitally convergent technology, it is possible to patch video games after their release, developers can make adjustments based on data and player feedback. they will adjust the game balance (difficultly level) and it can be released on a patch which people download and add. this leads to a situation called 'day one patches' where games are shipped basically unfinished and players will have to download a massive patch. patches often become a necessity with video games working to extremely tight deadlines.

Marketing and promotion

electronics entertainment expo (e3)

after the video game has been made it needs to be marketed and promoted, possibly the most famous form of marketing video games is the electronics entertainment expo, it's a major industry event and to go you have to be involved in the video games industry to go (ideally as a journalist), lots of trailers are shown and reviews are written by journalists attending. e3 is an extremely competitive environment, there are huge audiences, screens and props.

the videos released to e3 are assumed to be incredibly big news and people will stream the event etc to see them. Assassins creed trailers shown at e3 make or break the game. the whole purpose is to build hype around their games- links to fan theory.

a brief history of video games

-technological innovations
-relationship between major and indie producers
-controversies

Like all industries, the videogame industry is a specialized industry- it works in a completely different way to other specialised industries. This industry has it's own peculiarities and niche, it does things very differently.

The videogame industry extends much further back than people realise.

spacewar! (1962)

Often considered to be the first videogame, released before the arcade boom of the late 1970's. This game was made in an American computer laboratory. The idea of it being a commercial product was not at the forefront, instead it's a proof of concept- what can computers do?

It's a shoot em up, switches and paddles were used to control the game- so actually the first videogames were remarkably similar to what we can play today. But to play this you would have to be part of the institution that made it.

Drafts (Nimrod computer, 1952)

Predates Spacewar, the computer used by modern standards is extremely rudimentary but the nimrod computer was absolutely vast. Clearly, video games, although not necessarily the kind we play today, go back over half a century- although this game also wasn't commercial, the only people who could play were the technicians etc.

Computer space (1971)

Often considered to be the first game commercially released, the game has a lot of similarities to arcade cabinets.

You can see from the advertising that video games were marketed in a very similar way. If you look at the game the graphics are extremely rudimentary but there's also a lot of similarities to video games we play now. On the pad you can see it was controlled by various buttons but no joystick etc

Pong (home version, 1974)

Videogames didn't really take off until they became particularly widespread, and the first home video game is often cited as pong- although released in arcades first. It's an extremely basic video game- ping pong.

So one of the very first video games was actually a sports simulator game (which is still popular today)- not a shoot 'em up. Pong did capture the public's imagination.

The Japanese arcade boom

Of course, video games didn't really capture the public's imagination until they expanded to arcades- perhaps the largest catalyst of grabbing consumers attention, beyond things like pong which was pretty much a distraction, was space invaders.

Space invaders was a shoot em up, this game included many innovative factors which was included in many video games onwards.

-lives

-scores (highscores)

Being an arcade game you also had to pay- 100 yen in japan. The array of colour and noises on-screen were particularly exciting, the colour within the game, however, was merely achieved by putting plastic overlay on the screen.

What's really interesting about space invaders is that the imagination didn't need to be harnessed as much, consumers can actually see aliens on the screen etc rather than just dots and lines. It also used a soundtrack which at the time was very effective. 

The game massively took off in Japan, there were entire rooms/halls dedicated to people coming and playing space invaders- this was the 'genesis' of modern arcades.

There was a national shortage of 100 yen coins because of the game, there was also a rise of 'gangs' hanging around these halls, which invited moral panic over video games and the narrative that video games are a part of some form of deviancy is one that is still stuck to the medium today.

The American arcade boom

It wasn't just japan who got so involved in the idea of this arcade boom- just a few years later America joined in with games like centipede being released.

Centipede was released (not created) by atari, the same company as pong. Centipede was interesting because it was in colour and had a more varied soundtrack than space invaders. Players could also use a trackball (similar to an upturned mouse) to play.

From the advert, you can see how videogames were marketed, with loads and loads of colour. The graphics on the side and marquee were extremely important to attract attention, due to the non-impressive graphics (especially compared to film)- advertising was extremely important, the excitement, the colour, the aggression.

Bedroom coders and UK micros 

Why were people leaving the house to go to arcades to play games? Because video games were extremely expensive and no one could afford these cabinets at home. But there were computer games at home- the ZX spectrum was popular in Europe. 

                            

One thing that was very prominent about the ZX spectrum was that it allowed users to make their own games- their was a rise of bedroom coders, especially in the UK. Teenagers would make games in their bedroom and often sell them for a lucrative sum- check out Bandersnatch. 

In the arcades there was violence and colour but in the bedroom coders realm there was creativity- many games were being created (particularly in the UK) that are very interesting (although often boring to play). These games would take many many different forms- Skool daze, girty goose, telewise. There was a lot of experimentation and generic fluidity at this stage.

The 1980's videogame crash

One of the big issues with home video games was that their quality varied absolutely massively. A lot of games were utterly crap- there was no quality control that games have now, often games were rushed out very quickly to be sold. The game ET, developed and released by atari, is an example of this. The developer rushed it out incredibly quickly to cash in on the films hype- and although they were very respected the game was not respectable, it was so bad basically no one bought it and to save face atari buried a lot of the cartridges. Consumer confidence was at an all-time low because of this- the industry was destroyed and atari's fortunes completely went down.

Another reason why the video games industry went down was that without regulation utterly disgusting games were being released.

For example; Custer's revenge. In which you play an American coloniser, walking up to a tied up native American women whilst dodging arrows in order to rape her. This cultivated the idea that video games were gross and offensive as well as a waste of time. 

Japanese imports

Although the video game industry was saved,  whilst consoles crashed PC games soldiered on- imported from japan, 

Left- Wizadry, released in the mid 1980's, first person perspective which was pretty exciting at the time, but very poor graphics so everything had to happen in the mind of the player. It was based off of dungeons and dragon and did extremely well in Japan. 

Right- Dragonquest, ridiculously popular, released on the nintendo entertainment system, took the roleplay format of wizadry and simplified it for children. 

 Regional differences- Japan vs the rest of the world

So what we start to see during the 1980's was a split between Japanese and western games. 

Above are four adventure games, on the left are Japanese games and on the right are western.

This demonstrates how at this stage Japanese games were a lot more sophisticated than western. They were much more complicated, text heavy- pushing narratives and the system a lot more.

Top left- Snatcher, pc 88

Top right- Shadowgate, many different computers

Bottom left-

Bottom right- Fantastic dizzy, many different computers 

Japanese console boom

After the video game crash it was seen that video games were for nerds, geeks etc. For people who wanted to solve puzzles, read lots of texts or do coding themselves.

Videogames were in pursuit of enthusiasts.

However, in 1985, a game was released for the Nintendo entertainment system which completely changed everything- Mario bros. It is an example of what we call a platformer. It captured the imagination of the public completely, there were no barriers to entry.

It completely changed the 'nerd' stereotype, even today this first Mario game is extremely successful with soundtrack, bright colours, an identifiable character and the scrolling element- British platformers didn't scroll left and right at this point. Mario bros was a feat of technical engineering and an excellent example of game design.

Super Mario bros invited the audience to explore the world in which the game is set, it's not about playing once and putting the game down. The audience were encouraged to play over and over, find things in the game others hadn't and get good at it. This shifted the perspective on video games to something you can actually be skilled at and isn't just a throwaway pass time. 

Street fighter II (1991)

This idea that video games could be cool, fun and played with other people really came to fruition with the game Steet fighter II, released by capcom. No one remembered street fighter as it was so rudimentary, but street fighter II took the genre of the fighting game, the idea of a versus fighting game already existed in many other consoles but it was street II that captured the imagination of audiences. 

It was an arcade game, in japan the arcade cabinets were set out so you wouldn't see the other person fighting, but in places like the UK and America it was different. You would have to go into the arcade, find someone playing and fight them standing next to them- it was an intimidating and exciting experience. You weren't playing a machine anymore you were playing a person-it was extremely popular in both the arcade and home consoles.

It was arguably the first game that emphasised the idea of competitive gaming.

Arcades and consoles

There was an obvious difference between arcade and console playing, there was a very clear division between the two. 

Left- Alex kid in miracle world, released on the sega console which wasn't particularly popular in the UK. Platformer, rudimentary, cheap and cheerful

Right- outdone, released by topeplan for arcades, blows everything u

One big usp for arcades, was that it had games on a level that you couldn't do at home. Although you had to pay each time you wanted to play a game it can easily turn out cheaper- especially if you get good at the game. As you can see on the bottom right image they had these huge sprites and images that were interesting and extremely exciting, arcades also had far louder and more complicated soundtracks.

Essentially if you played a console game at home you were slumming it and it would be better in the arcade.

Mushihimesama (2004)

Arcade games continued, and to an extent still do today, one excellent example of a late period arcade game is the game mushihimesama- it demonstrates what arcades had to do to keep attention. 

Back then arcade games were aimed towards casual fans, pacman machine in pubs would target drunk casual player whilst nowadays they target the hardcore of the hardcore fans.

Sony enters the market 

In the mid 90's there was a situation where there were extremely technically wonderful arcade games and more basic but still exciting home console games.

Games that tended to do the best were sports simulation games and games like Mario which challenged players but were still straightforward and aimed at younger audiences. There was a perception that the video games industry was for children.

In 1994 there was a big rivalry between sega, megadrive and Nintendo.

Sega- arcade games, trying to take the arcade experience game home

Nintendo- More family-friendly, Zelda, Mario, Kirby, Yoshi. deep exciting, repeat playing

But then sony decided to make a video game console- they were an extremely well-regarded electronics company wanting to barge into the video games industry, which they did with the PlayStation which is still to this day an extremely important and popular brand.

They decided to take a different tact when marketing video games-

-they really emphasised the idea that most of their games would be in 3D, which was extremely exciting and stirred up the market completely 

-they marketed to older audiences with abnormal marketing campaigns, instead of setting up consoles in toy shops they put a console in the club ministry of sound to attract 18+ audiences, who perhaps used to play video games but ditched them for being childish. Their adverts were extremely weird and freaky- capturing the public imagination because it was something audiences were not used to seeing.

e.g- https://youtu.be/YWmbUMStlGI

-no game footage 

-weird

-targets older audiences 

it created this idea that video games were very exciting and could be for adults.

Nintendo also innovated and changed their perspective, pushing the technology they had

Super Mario 64- the first Mario in 3D, wasn't controlled using a digital dpad but with an analogue stick, now a convention of the industry. they weren't the first company to use analogue sticks but they were the first company to popularize it. A world you could completely get lost in- a glimpse into the future of video games.

Regional differences- Japan vs the rest of the world

Once more there was a huge gulf between Japanese and western game- but it wasn't a technology gulf it was about style and what consumers wanted.

Two rpgs but very different, both part of bigger series, both going now. they may both be in the same genre but they work in completely different ways reflecting how diverse the video game industry is.

left- final fantasy 7, a massive smash hit, PlayStation 7, story-heavy, does have stats and numbers but in general the emphasis is on the atmosphere, it's very linear in the sense that you run through rooms to progress the story, it's a long game with lots of plot twists

right-fallout, you pick your own camera and choose how you want to play the game- as a hero as a villain, there's a lot more stats and things to think about, much more complicated and in depth

Indies and majors

There's not just a divide between east and west producers there's also one between independent and major ones.  

left- undertale, PC, made by one person; Toby fox. Very straightforward with interesting concepts and contexts. does all kind of things major labels probably wouldn't do- although its a modern game it has straight forward graphics (but stylistically very nice), a major success for an indie game and you can download it for basically every modern console 

right- gears of war franchise, a huge budget video game with loads of explosions, guns and things to kill, used 100s and 100s of people to play. AAA game- meaning it has very very high production values, markets towards a mass audience, majority of the consumers in the video game industry are looking for something like this

 Indie video games have creative freedom in a restrictive industry that major label games don't have. There's only a certain amount of roots a major video game producer can take, to sell millions you need to shoot someone, kill or kick a ball.

visual novel- text-based game usually Japanese in origin.

Video games can manipulate audiences and cause audiences to commit violent acts, in extreme circumstances (doki doki literature club) can lead to the player taking their own life. 

The idea that video games make people violent is often reported on in newspapers, in such, you can still see this negative perception of video games that has been going for years. The two ideologies presented being; video games are trash and a waste of time, video games are extremely violent and make you violent.

The vast majority of video games do include violence and are able to kill people in, often with a gun.

Does the fact that video games include violence as a resolution to problems make players more violent? this is something we need to consider later on.

Controversies surrounding production

Video games often take 100s and 100s of people working very hard, ridiculously long hours for a long long period of time.

Games like LA noir and, more recently, red dead redemption take many years to make. These processes involve exploiting and overworking people. Working conditions can be absolutely horrible because of the competition and the massive financial implications of the video game industry.

Controversies surrounding representation

Female characters and their sexualisation is very prominent in both Japanese and western games. 

The game tomb raider can be taken as an example of this, it's subversive in the sense you play as a woman but she is extremely sexualised. Although in subsequent releases of the series it's been toned she is still very much a hegemonically sexually appealing character.

Digital distribution

In the early days of video games you had to be working in a university to gain access to a computer, then you had to take 25 cents down to an arcade and then you had to pay for a game console and buy video games from the shops.

Nowadays video games aren't bought physically but digitally. This is a fairly recent advancement and is more common in the western industry, in Japan it's still favoured to buy physical games.

steam is a PC based digital distribution website which is extremely successful and negates the need to go down to the shop and actually buy something- giving audiences an advantage.

In what ways do videogames represent a specialized industry? How do they differ from other media?

-interactivity 

-huge expenditure of resources

-much higher RRP (recommended retail price)

-significantly longer length

-a dedicated, 'core' target audience

-games developed for specific hardware or released multiplatform- you cant play an Xbox game on a playstation

introduction to the video games industry- researching video games

Select three videogames you have played, or have seen someone else playing. 

-assassin's creed

genre: action-adventure/stealth

release date: 13th November 2007

developer: Gameloft + Ubisoft Montreal + Griptonite Games + Blue Byte

publisher: Ubisoft

platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, windows

price when first sold: 

units sold/total revenue: 140 million + units sold, est. $4.091 billion (as of 2016)
average review score: (PS3) 81/100, (X360) 81/100, (PC) 79/100

age rating: PEGI 18+

Google [name of game] how long to beat and click on the first 'howlongtobeat.com' link. Note down how long the game takes to complete on average

15 hours average, 23 hours leisurely and 10 hours rushed.

Development facts (how was the game made? How long did it take to make? What issues did the team face?)

The video game series took inspiration from the novel Alamut by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol,^[1] while building upon concepts from the Prince of Persia series. There has been one major new Assassin’s Creed game every year since 2007, except for the two years they skipped and the one year when they made two. It’s never been a secret that Ubisoft rotates teams.

To trace the history of a game that has made its name largely by giving gamers its own unique twist on well-known historical events, there’s really only one place to start: The amazing Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast title, Donald Duck: Goin’ Quackers.

after delivering the B-list platformer in 2000, there were some at Ubisoft who were getting antsy to move up to the big time. In particular, one Patrice Desilets, who had served as lead designer on Quackers.

Another team at Ubisoft Montreal had just developed the wildly successful Splinter Cell franchise, and now the studio was looking to replicate the same magic with another franchise. Enter a video game character who is much more commonly cited as an early influence on AC‘s Assassin than Donald Duck will ever be: The Prince of Persia.

Desilets had the idea to reboot the Prince of Persia franchise and had some interesting concepts to boot. Prince creator Jordan Mechner was flown into Montreal in order to get his blessing. Desilets showed him a short clip of the Prince running parkour stunts along the walls of a city, leaping to his next objective with flair. It worked. Mechner wrote a new Prince of Persia story and Desilets was installed by Ubisoft as lead designer on the new title. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was a huge hit. Ubisoft immediately commissioned sequels for the franchise and most of the team, including producer (and eventual CEO) Yannis Mallat, got right back to work. But the company had other plans for its newfound star Desilets. He was given free reign to start work on the next-gen successor to Prince, a title that would eventually release on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Desilets was a fan of history and started researching the Middle East to try and find something he could use on the next-gen Prince of Persia. That’s when he found the Hashshashin, an order of assassins from the 12th century that would publicly execute their targets in over-the-top fashion in order to get their enemies to fall in line. Desilets essentially took the best of Prince of Persia and mixed in some of the stealth aspects from Splinter Cell to envision a new kind of game where the player would complete amazing acrobatic feats in an open-world environment while jumping in and out of the shadows.

It took some discussion, but Ubisoft trusted Desilets enough to green-light an entirely new franchise. They also teamed him up with Jade Raymond, a new hire who had experience with creating vast open worlds.

With the new team officially in place, Desilets and Raymond got to work. Going back to what Desilets had picked up in the history books, they tried to keep the story and setting as true as possible to the story of those 12th century killers. They recreated Masyaf, which was the home of the Hashshashin as well as the cities of Damascus and Jerusalem. The first Assassin, Altair, was tasked with killing nine prominent individuals based on real historical figures.

That might have been enough to get the franchise going, but Ubisoft wasn’t done. In a development that was likely designed to further remove the game from its Prince of Persia roots, a more modern twist was added. The game’s main plot would be set in modern day. Players would meet regular guy bartender Desmond Miles, who is a descendant of Altair. Desmond is kidnapped by the Knights Templar (now known as Abstergo Industries), long-time rival of the Assassins guild and is forced to relive his ancestor’s actions in the late 12th century through a machine called the Animus.

-tomb raider (definitive edition)

genre: action-adventure game

release date: 5th March 2013

developer: crystal dynamics

publisher: square enix

platform: Microsoft windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, OS X, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Linux, Shield tv stadia

units sold/total revenue: 40 million copies sold, 134 million dollars

price when first sold: £13.50

average review score: 85

age rating: PEGI 18, MA 15+

Google [name of game] how long to beat and click on the first 'howlongtobeat.com' link. Note down how long the game takes to complete on average

11 and a half hours

Development facts (how was the game made? How long did it take to make? What issues did the team face?)

-outlast 

genre: survival horror

release date: 4th September 2013

developer: red barrels 

publisher:red barrels

platform: Microsoft windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox one, Linux, OS x, Nintendo switch

units sold/total revenue: 15 million units, 64 million dollars

price when first sold: $19.99

average review score: 78

age rating: 18

Google [name of game] how long to beat and click on the first 'howlongtobeat.com' link. Note down how long the game takes to complete on average

5 hours

Development facts (how was the game made? How long did it take to make? What issues did the team face?)

Philippe Morin​ is co-founder of Outlast developer Red Barrels.

This is the origin story of Red Barrels and the road we took to create Outlast. It’s been an intense and bumpy ride, but we have no regrets, and while we are always open to the possibility of time travel, we would not want to go back and change a thing about the experience. 

I decided to leave Ubisoft again in 2009 and try something different. I joined EA Montreal to work on a new IP based on an original concept by Hugo Dallaire, formerly art director of Splinter Cell and Army of Two. I was attracted by the opportunity to start something new with a small team, and Hugo’s concept was too cool to pass up.

A few months later, David Chateauneuf joined the team.  David and I had worked together in 1998 on a Donald Duck game and later on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as well as the first Assassin’s Creed.

We were asked to join a team on another game already in production. I didn’t have much confidence in the success of that project and, with a new year ahead and perhaps too much frigid air in my brain, I decided to quit my job in January 2011. So did Hugo and David.

We eventually met and realized we shared the same ambitions; to start our own company. 

There may be a fine line between courage and naivety, and while I think success requires both, I believe I had more of the latter.

A good illustration of this, and an indication of things to come, would be in our estimation of the immediate work ahead. I figured it would take us a couple of months to work out a pitch and produce a trailer. Then another two months to get a publishing deal. In the end it took us 18 months.

And that was just the beginning.

The first thing we needed to agree on was the game genre. We made a list of ideas, and of course most of them sucked, for that is the nature of idea lists. In a short time though, making a horror game became the most attractive choice.

David is a real fan, even a connoisseur of horror. In 2008, he and I had tried to convince Ubisoft Montreal to let us make a horror game, but we were told that they didn’t feel that there was a large enough market for it.  We reasoned that since we were going to make Outlast with a small team and a small budget, we wouldn’t have to worry about making revenues like Assassin’s Creed in order to be profitable.

Hugo suggested we use Rubber Johnny as a reference for our game. We immediately agreed it would be a very good starting point for a horror game.

Just like that, it was settled. The first project of our new studio would be a horror game. Starting from scratch with our own studio would allow us to use the expertise we had gained on past projects and execute according to our own priorities. We were excited and eager to meet the challenge. 

Out first debate was about the core gameplay. We wavered between a Resident Evil-style approach to guns, but with very limited ammo, and a no-combat-at-all, Amnesia-style approach. We decided to go with no combat because it would allow us to build a more focused experience. We continued to consider having “weapon sections,” but feedback from players at PAX East would later prove to us that we didn’t need those sections. 

Having decided that we would use “night vision,” we needed a protagonist that required it. We considered a member of some kind of SWAT team with night vision gear, but we wanted to sell the “no combat” concept, so we dropped any kind of law enforcement characters. At the time, a lot of movies were using the found footage concept, so we thought, “why not games?” Camcorders also have night vision, so it fit nicely.

So, “who’s using the camcorder?” we asked ourselves. The answer came while we were brainstorming about the hero’s journey. 

We’d always liked the simplicity of the first part of Half Life. The shit just hits the fan and you immediately have to escape. 

We had to find one location from which the player would try to escape and as always, it needed to be doable by a small team. Creativity often comes from such constraints, and once more, we made a list and one option stood out… an asylum. Like camcorders, asylums have been used a lot in movies, but not that often in games, and certainly not in a realistic setting. We felt an asylum offered an opportunity to create really unique and compelling characters that the player would meet along his journey.

A camcorder with night vision, an asylum and no combat -- it was a good start. After more brainstorming, we hit on the idea of a reporter. A reporter doesn’t usually have combat skills, and has a good reason to be carrying a camcorder, particularly if he’s in the course of doing an investigation.

The reporter’s role of investigation was solid on its own, but we had a hard time finding how to mix it with the horror experience. The question was always the same: “How do we motivate the player to record events, when all he might want to do is escape?” We decided on a pure narrative approach that left it to the player himself to decide how much investigation he wants to do, without any game mechanics to re-enforce it. Since I’ve never read anything negative about this aspect of the game, I feel like it was the right choice.

The last thing we wanted to nail before work began on our trailer was the look of the patients; they needed to be frightening. What makes a character scary can be very subjective. For some, it’s the visuals, for others it’s their psychology, their actions, etc. We decided to make use of the profiles of the criminally insane patients you find in asylums. That meant focusing on personalities conveyed through dialogue, like meeting Hannibal Lecter in a closed environment. Still, we were concerned normal-looking humans wouldn’t scare some players. 

We did some research into the MKUltra program and other experiments conducted in prisons and asylums up until the 1970s.  You can find some examples here.

In this age of health care privatization, we figured it wouldn’t be a stretch to invent a corporation using a private asylum for the criminally insane to perform experiments on patients. In our story, those experiments would create mutations and horrible side effects. We felt, however, that viruses have been done to death, so we wanted to do something different. 

We worked on this with our scriptwriter, JT Petty, and came up with the idea that the experimentation would involve morphogenesis, dream therapy and biotechnologies to create nano-bots. We included the work of Alan Turing because he was one of the primary architects of the 20th century. Turing was also key in the theory of morphogenesis, which we only have a layman's understanding of, but is essentially a mathematical definition of how cells differentiate when dividing, and how the same cells can create all our different organs, species, etc.

A lot of the themes in Outlast concern the crimes of the 20th century, especially in the way technology outpaces our ability to grasp it, and our tendency to project monsters onto things we don't understand.

I believe a lot of the people we met weren’t sure what to think of our format, which I call a "AAA Garage Game." Outlast wasn’t a mobile game that could be done on a very low budget. We estimated that we needed roughly $1.5 million in order to hire the best developers available. 

A few private investors made us offers, but the details suggested that they would own us so we turned them all down. 

By September 2011, we still didn’t have a publishing deal, but we were not out of options. While working on our trailer, we learned of the existence of the Canada Media Fund (CMF). The program might give us up to $1 million as a recoupable investment. It meant a lot of paperwork, but for $1 million, we thought it was worth it. The CMF accepts submissions twice a year and the next round would be at the end of that September. There was one problem… one of the CMF’s requirements was to have a distribution deal. Without one we’d lose points and other projects with better scores would get the money. 

A couple of weeks before Christmas, we heard back from the CMF. The project had been rejected and we would have to wait until after the holidays to find out why. Soon after, we heard from Sony that the Pub Fund would be focusing on the Vita so that too was a dead end for us. 

That was definitely our lowest point. It had been a year since we quit our jobs. We took stock of our situation: Twelve months without a salary, no publishers, no money, nothing. It was a bleak moment.

At this point we started thinking seriously about giving up and going back to work for one of the big studios in town, but we decided to wait for the CMF’s feedback before making any decision.

It arrived the first week of January 2012. The project itself had been very highly rated, but we lost too many points due to our lack of a distribution deal and the incomplete financial structure. In short, we lost out on technical elements and not qualitative elements. 

The next submission round was in April 2012, in that time we would have to find a distribution deal AND at least $333,333 from sources other than publishers. It also meant going another 6 months without a salary before finding out if we had the money or not. We had to decide if we were prepared to do that.

Because of our meeting with Valve back in July 2011, we were confident we could get a distribution deal to put Outlast on Steam. We started counting how much money the 3 of us could put together. It meant using most of our savings, maxing out our credit, putting our homes on the line and asking our families if they wanted to invest in our company. We managed to find $360,000, which was enough to ask for $1,000,000 from the CMF.

So, in early May 2012, we submitted to the CMF for a second time and waited until the end of June to receive their decision. 

Before we heard back from the CMF, a new opportunity presented itself. A publisher approached us to pitch a concept for a contract. They were looking for a studio to make a game based on a license. Since we couldn’t be sure if we would get the money from the CMF, it made sense to do the pitch. The problem was that the license was also in the horror genre and every idea we would put in the pitch would be owned by the publisher, whether we made their game or not. We worried that this might have an impact on our game should it get a green light. We worked on it for a while, but ultimately our hearts weren’t into it. It felt like we were back at work in a big studio. We dropped it, crossed our fingers and hoped the CMF would give us the money. 

The verdict came at the end of June 2012.

The celebration didn’t last long. We really wanted to release the game on PC before the new consoles came out. We were afraid the game would get lost in all the noise about the consoles and their games. This meant we had 14 months to make the game, which was also when we projected we would run out of money. $1.4 million may sound like a lot of cash to some, but it goes fast when you’ve got 10 people and a bunch of contractors on your payroll. 

The upside of the 18-month delay that happened while we were looking for money was that it gave us a lot of time to think about the game and develop a blueprint. By the time people began to join us, we had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted to achieve. 

Halloween came and our trailer was made public. It was really well received, beyond our expectations, and it put us on the map. Watching the number of views on YouTube go up was really motivating for everyone. 

Not everything was hunky dory. Things were not working out with our animator. We needed somebody more technical and who showed more commitment. Being a small operation meant, among other things, that people needed to take on many responsibilities, be autonomous and proactive. 

We hired a new animator, Stefan Petryna, who had worked on Far Cry 3 and had experience with first-person games. We needed him to jump in headfirst and get started right away.

Other issues were the controls of the camcorder and the door mechanics. Both were not intuitive enough and needed to be streamlined.

On a positive note, the atmosphere of the game, set by the music and the visuals, was effective. Players felt the tension we were trying to create and were curious to explore the rest of the game. 

We took about two months to fix the issues. During that time, our needs in terms of resources became apparent. We couldn’t ship the game without one more environment artist and an additional animator to focus on scripted moments. Fortunately, it didn’t take too long to find the right people. Patrice Côté was an artist who knew Unreal 3 from working on Splinter Cell: Conviction and Thief. Jamie Helman had about 15 years of experience animating for games like Army of Two and Dead Space 2. Both were ready to kick ass from day one.  

By the end of February 2013, we were ready to show our demo to a reporter for an exclusive first look. We watched him play and it was satisfying to see him jump, scream and swear. He wrote a very positive article overall. Not everything was perfect, but we had our recipe. We were ready to move on to making the rest of the game.