106413 - COMPANIES: CASE STUDIES

Subject type: Mandatory

Coordinator: Adso Fernández Baena

Trimester: First term

Credits: 4

The materials can be provided in Catalan as well as in Spanish or English. 

The subject "Companies: Case Study" belongs to the Degree in Video Game Design and Production and is part of the subjects related to the business area. The course contributes to students developing analytical skills to help make economic and management decisions in a video game project, especially considering the fit of production in the market in social and cultural terms. The video game market is worked on both from the perspective of producers (video game industry) and the perspective of customers (video game sector), always from the perspective of a competitive product or service business and analyzing discourse, participation and reception. It is desired that the student be able to understand the product or service as a project on which it is necessary to make not only technical decisions but also business decisions (strategy, distribution channel, investment and return on investment, competition and positioning, activities launch marketing, etc.), as well as being able to place industry productions within a social and cultural framework.

At the end of the course the student must be able to:

E12.3. Describe benchmarks of independent video game studies.
E13.1. Demonstrate knowledge about the structure and organization of a company.
E13.3. Describe the basics of marketing and market research.
E13.5. Describe business models related to the video game industry
E14.3. Contribute to generating a culture of learning, error management, feedback and criticism management.

The course uses the following working methodologies: lectures, presentations, video capsules, case studies, research and critical reading of articles.

Subject 0. Introduction to the cultural studies and the cultural industries

Subject 1. Work planning

Topic 2 Content controversy

Subject 3. Legal controversy

Loot Boxes

E-Sports

NFTs

Item 4. Cultural Controversy

Japanese games in the West

Sell ​​to China

Outsourcing

Topic 5. Fan communities

With the aim of collecting evidence of the achievement of the expected learning outcomes, the following activities of an evaluative nature will be carried out (related to all the common competences):

A1. Individual work: Case report (Evidence of learning outcomes E12.3) 

The students will have to make and present a written or video report with all the cases they have worked on in the different subjects of the subject.

A2. Group work: Reading and commenting on research articles (Evidence of E13.5 and E14.3 learning outcomes) 

The students will have to present a chapter of the book Game Production Studies, with critical analysis. Alternative readings may be suggested with teacher approval.

A3. Partial exam 1: Student continuous assessment exam (Evidence of E13.1 and E13.3 learning outcomes)

A4. Partial exam 2: Student continuous assessment exam (Evidence of E13.1 and E13.3 learning outcomes)

A5. Final exam: Final evaluation exam of the subject (Evidence of E13.1 and E13.3 learning outcomes)

Passing the exam is mandatory to pass the course. Otherwise, the student will have a No Presented.

General criteria of the activities:

• The teacher will present a statement for each activity and the evaluation and / or rubric criteria.
• The teacher will inform of the dates and format of the delivery of the activity

The grade of each student will be calculated following the following percentages:

A1. Individual work: Case report 30%

A2. Group work: Reading and commenting on research articles 20%

A4. Partial exam 1: Student continuous assessment exam 15%

A4. Partial exam 2: Student continuous assessment exam 15 %

A5. Final exam: Final evaluation exam of the subject 20%

Final grade = A1 x 0,3 + A2 x 0,2 + A3 x 0,15 + A4 x 0,15 + A5 x 02

Considerations:
- It is necessary to obtain a mark superior to 5 in the final exam to pass the asignatura.
- An activity not delivered or delivered late and without justification (court summons or medical matter) counts as a 0.
- It is the student's responsibility to avoid plagiarism in all its forms. In the case of detecting plagiarism, regardless of its extent, in some activity it will correspond to having a grade of 0. In addition, the professor will communicate the situation to the Head of Studies so that applicable measures can be taken in terms of disciplinary regime . According to article 6A of the UPF regulations, serious plagiarism may lead to temporary expulsion from the University, and according to article 6B, less serious plagiarism may involve the loss of the right to be evaluated in the ordinary tests of one or more subjects.
- Three of the five activities with NP imply that the course has not been followed and result in a NP.

Recovery:

• It is necessary to obtain a mark superior to 5 in the final exam of recovery to pass the asignatura.
• The mark of the resit exam will be equivalent to the final mark.

Olli Sotamaa, Jan Svelch (eds) (2021) Game Production Studies. Amsterdam University Press

Navarro Remesal, Víctor. "Thinking about the game. 25 paths for game studies." Shangrila, 2020.

Schreier, Jason. "Blood, sweat and pixels." Paper Heroes, 2020.

Lee, Seungcheol Austin, Pulos, Alexis (Eds.). "Transnational Contexts of Development History, Sociality, and Society of Play. Video Games in East Asia". Palgrave, 2016.

Webster, James G. "The marketplace of attention. How audiences take shape in a digital age." MIT Press, 2014.

Watson, Jeff (2021). Infrastructures of Play: Labor, Materiality, and Videogame Education http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/article/view/120

Werning, Stefan (2021) Making Games. The Politics and Poetics of Game Creation Tools. MIT Press

Lemarchand, Richard (2021) A Playful Production Process: For Game Designers (and Everyone). MIT Press