How is the computer game industry structured?

The whole industry is split into four main areas; publishing, development, distribution and hardware manufacturers.

Publishing

This area is the backbone of the computer game industry.  Probably the most key thing they do is fund the rest of the process. However this isn’t the only thing they do by a long way. These are also the people who decide what kind of games should be in the market at certain times. An example of this is that all the games that are sequels or big sellers go on sale near Christmas time because whereas a person may buy one game for themselves, at Christmas their friends/ family will buy them the other games. They are also responsible for organizing the rest of the processes to create the game.

Developing

This area is how the game is made. There are many different areas to developing, including programmers, artists, designers, sound engineers, musicians, producers and writers. The programmers create how the game works and how the player uses the game. The artists create the looks of the game and what the player sees, they are like the skin on top of the programmers work. Designers are the people who come up with the concepts of how the characters and world look; they then give those to the artist. Sound engineers are the people who put sound effects into the game. The musicians are the people who create the music in the background and the main theme (if the game needs music). The producers are the ones who deal with the financial side. The writers are the people who create what the game is about and what happens in it. The developers are paid the money from the publishers when they have achieved a certain milestone in the making of the game.

Distribution

This area deals with getting the finished games from the publishers to the retailers. They handle the amount of games the shops get and the transport to them. The distributors actually buy all the games from the publishers and then sell them themselves. However, now the distribution field of work is becoming worse as more and more games consoles now allow one to buy games off of the internet to download straight to ones console so no distribution is needed.

Hardware Manufacturers

This area is more about the consoles that the games are played on. They are primarily split between PC/Mac and major brand consoles (Nintendo Microsoft Sony etc) the main difference is that anyone who had enough talent could create a game for PC/Mac whereas for the major brand consoles the company who owns the consoles have to have a say in who makes the games. They create the machine to play the games.