The Report by the written by Amanda Wong funded by the July 4, 2017 2 Acknowledgement Funding for this project was provided by the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC). The Hand Eye Society would like to thank and acknowledge the financial support received by the OMDC. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ontario Media Development Corporation of the Government of Ontario. The Government of Ontario and its agencies are in no way bound by the recommendations contained in this document. Over the past year, we have recruited many hard-working volunteers who have given up their time, work, and knowledge to help us meet our goal of 1000 entries. A majority of our volunteers are either Hand Eye members or have heard of our organization. We have had students, academics, game-makers, game-enthusiasts, and game-organizers contribute to our database. Many volunteers are quite experienced and familiar with the local gaming community, while others have joined to learn more about what Toronto has to offer. We would like to thank these volunteers for their exhaustive support and we hope that they can see their hard work come to fruition. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 4 Introduction 5 Creators 6 Yearly Game Releases 8 Number of Players 9 Types of Play 10 Game Engines 11 Distribution Channels and Methods 12 Platforms 13 Pay Model 14 Tagging System 15 Genres 16 Styles 17 Communities 18 Themes 19 Conclusions, Reflections, and the Future 20 Appendix A - Lists of Criterion 21 4 Abstract The objective of the Toronto Videogame Database (TOVGDB) is to include the diverse videogame projects created by game makers across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). We have gathered information from 1000+ games that have been made over the past 20 years. Our definition of a videogame is an electronic interactive work produced to encourage a player’s active participation through a physical interface. They can include interactive walkthroughs, interactive fiction, console videogames, mobile applications, alternative controls, and other alternative interactive media. In addition to this definition, we also look to the creator’s expression and definition, as well as completeness and playability of their videogame as inclusive factors for our data collection. After gathering and analyzing the data from the database, a few interesting trends can be made with the my popular forms of gaming platforms to the most used pay models offered. However, it is important to highlight that the conclusions we’ve made are only representative of the collected data. Further, our data only reflects the criterion that we have chosen to highlight as important videogame attributes. We understand that these results are not representative of all the games that exist in the Greater Toronto Area, as the database is a work-in- progress, however we believe that 1000+ games is a good starting point in mapping its growing games community. The Hand Eye Society is a Toronto not-for-profit dedicated to supporting and showcasing videogames made primarily as a form of creative expression. We aim to provide exhibition opportunities, education, creative support, mentorship, knowledge sharing, and inspiration to artists, enthusiasts, and the game-curious in Toronto. Founded in 2009, it is one of the first videogame arts organizations of its kind in the world. Its mandate is: to help people make games, to connect independent game makers with each other and with an audience, to foster diversity in game creation, and improve public perception of games as a creative medium. 5 Introduction This project was managed by 6 individuals. Sagan Yee is the project manager and recruited Sean Lerner (database developer), Chris White (design) and Chris J. Young (editor) to develop the database. Amanda Wong and Kai Winter are volunteer coordinators and additional editors who assisted with data entry. Amanda also performed the research and produced the final report. Michael del Grosso worked as an intern to help with supplementary work. This group, along with our volunteers, entered a total of 1021 games into the TOVGDB. A guide was created to outline how to fill in each game entry as a resource to refer to. We also created a Slack channel where we post gatherings, discuss suggestions, and report any bugs. Our main resources are derived from the Toronto Game Devs blog by Stephen Crane, a list of Toronto game companies from gamejobhunter.com, the lists of successful OMDC (Ontario Media Development Corporation) Interactive Digital Media Fund recipients, and the archive of the Toronto Game Jam website. This report will largely be expressed with quantitative data. As a preliminary report, we think that it is important to outline initial numbers produced from our first round of data entries. Additionally, we think that it is best to assess the current data with quantitative figures to see if there are any growth trends in criteria that may have been missed during this round. It is also easy to visualize the validity of the data when we identify what is missing in each category so that we are able to assess why this has happened. Under these considerations, we will identify how many criterion are unaccounted for to demonstrate the need for further investigation in identifying both existing games in the database and games that have yet to be added. Lastly, this report will briefly touch on final conclusions and future considerations to further the progress of this project. Each game is linked to multiple criteria under several different categories. Our main entry points include: developers, publishers, series, engines, initial release date, minimum and maximum number of players, types of play, pay models, platforms, types of distribution, distribution channels, and tags (see Tagging System, p.12). Additionally, we have short descriptions, long descriptions, images, videos, links, and sources as main points of entry. This report cannot comment on this secondary list of items as the database does not readily provide any quantitative information for them. This report also does not comment on game series as an entry point due to a very low number of games that actually have a series in the database. Not all fields are required to be filled out as not all information is immediately available to us. However, each entry needs the name of the game and whether or not it is local player or online play where applicable as the bare minimum. 6 Creators Total: Average: Max: Min: 236 creators 3.43 games 28 games 0 games Developers of a Game: Publishers of a Game: Both: Missing: 812 427 123 creators 9 creators The database holds a total of 236 creators which includes companies, publishers, developers, artists, and people of all backgrounds who are included in the game making process. On average, a creator has produced 3.43 games, with the highest number of games being 28 and the lowest being 0. There are 9 creators that do not have games attached to their names and are therefore not represented in the following data. We have narrowed down our definition of a creator to whether or not they are a developer, a publisher, or both. A developer is one who makes the games whereas a publisher is the one who advertises the games; sometimes people can be both. There are two times as many creators who are more likely to be developers rather than publishers, however a little more than half the creators are both developers and publishers of their own games. Figure 1 are bar graphs of the top 8 developers and publishers. With this data, we can identify an overlap between the two. There are 4 studios (Magitech, Zynga, Stegersaurus Software Inc., netgrind games) that appear as the top developers and publishers of (most of) their own games. Out of both lists, there are 4 solo creators who have made the top 8, and joining them are 8 studios. Top 8 Developers with Most Games Top 8 Publishers with Most Games Created in the TOVGDB Created in TOVGDB 28 28 27 25 30 24 20 25 21 19 20 19 20 16 15 20 17 13 15 12 11 11 15 10 10 5 5 Numberof Games Numberof Games 0 0 Creators Publishers Fig. 1. Bar graphs of the top 8 developers and publishers with the most number of games created in the TOVGDB. 7 When looking at the number of creators who created less than 5 games, it is possible to predict the rate of game development growth in the GTA by looking at potential growth between the number of games creators have made since their first. Figure 2 represents the growth of how many creators continued to make games with a stacked bar graph and line graph. From looking at how many developers have made only one through five games, we can see a 19% increase of creators who have decided to create more games. Approximately 30% of first time game makers continued to make their second game. The growth decreases to 20% after their second game, 10% after their third game, and 5% after their fourth game. After five games, the rate of growth plateaus. Growth of Games Created by New Developers 200 180 160 140 One Game 92 120 92 Two Games 92 100 Three Games 80 92 34 Four Games 60 34 Five Games Numberof Developers 92 40 34 27 27 20 34 16 27 16 0 10 1 Game 2 Games 3 Games 4 Games 5 Games Number of Games Made Rate of Growth of Games Created by New Developers 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 Numberof Developers 40 20 0 1 2 3 4 5 Number of Games Fig.