Software and Hardware

• Software

Unreal Engine-

Unreal engine is a games engine made by a company called epic games, you can use this software to design your games with one of the top engines out there, but this does come with a royalty cost. The royalty cost is 5% of every sell you make after you reach the £3000. Unreal engine 4 actually has a fixed price per month which is $19.

Unity-
Unity is a game engine that is used for multiple cross platform games, and is used a ton by Nintendo. Nintendo actually include a free version of this for every licensed Wii U developer. The Unity pro version would cost $75 per month, or one fixed price of $1,500 each year which is unlike unreal.

Cryengine-
Cryengine is a German developed engine, and was firstly used in the original far cry game and has since been used in multiple other games. The software has been updated since and has actually featured in many third party games due to the licensing contract. Cryengine is actually one of the cheaper software systems you can use in being only $45 per month which is a huge difference compared to the other software, but with this price they do not take any money from what you make so no royalties are included.

Games Maker-
Game maker was originally designed for the novice game maker as it is very simple to use with the drag and drop format it comes with, this isnt really used for more advanced games like i said it is more of a starter platform. Since releasing game maker they have updated and re-written the entire programme and calling it "Game maker 2" this is just an updated and overall better version of of the original. However the original is completely free the upgraded version cost $99.99 which is a one off price that you will only need to pay once.

Construct-
Construct is a very simple games engine where it is a drag and drop method like game engine, but uses the C++ coding language. Like game maker it is mainly aimed at novice designers that are just starting out and know the very basics.  There are actually three versions of the software which have different prices, one is for free, the next is $65 and then the most expensive version of it is a whopping $255.

Maya-
Maya is an engine that primarily is known for its 3D capabilities and how good it is at making the 3D characters and world. Maya is used for multiple things from games to films, due to how good it is at making 3D objects. Maya has multiple ways you can decide to pay for it, as well as a free trial option. The first option when purchasing maya is a monthly price which is £170, a yearly price which is £1,370, a price for two years which is £2,605 and then a three year subscription which is a total of £3,700.

3D Studio Max-
3D studio max is primarily known for making 3D animations, models, games and images. This was developed/produced bu Auto desk Media and Entertainment. It was initially released in 1990 and is written in C++. . This software is also primarily used on Windows.The cost for a month would be £228, then onto a year it would cost £1818, 2 years would be £3456 and finally 3 years would be £4908.

Hardware-


Peripherals-

Peripherals are pretty much accessories to the main system, for exam you could have a PS4 controller that would be classed as a peripheral because its not the main system instead it is something included with and you can buy it separate. You would also class that a mouse is a peripheral due to it being an accessory to the PC system and again you can buy them seperate.

Dev Kits-

this is a set of software development tools that allows the creation of applications for a specific software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system or video games console.


Publishing-

Steam- this is a system which uses the community's help in picking new games to be released on Steam. The developers would post a certain amount of information, screenshots and videos of their games and try and find the community's support for the game in order to get selected for distribution. 

You can also post to the apple store if you have created a small game that is suitable for the app store, you need to make sure that you do not exceed the amount of memory the phone can store at once due to the large files of your games so it has to be a smallish file.

IP property and Copyright law-

The copyright law means that no other company or solo developer can steal your idea's, thjis also means that they are not permitted to use any of your content or idea's without your permission else they will face prosecution and can be sued.

Patent law is similar to the copyright law, but this applies to inventions and has the same implications in the fact that you can be taken to court and fined if you do not have permission to do so. The patent can actually be sold to another person which would mean you would not be able to use it.

a trademark is the main symbol your game or company would be recognisable by, for example all of the well known companies or games all have their own unique symbol you would recognise if you seen. A trademark allows your company or game to have its own unique logo or symbol showing that it is made or own by a specific group, if somebody or another company steal or use the logo without permission then legal action can be taken against them. Paying for a trademark can be costly and all depends on what application it would be used it but it will be costly never the less, but definitely worth doing so due to the fact that if you don't pay for it somebody may steal and pay for it so you cannot use it no longer.

Age Rating-

No matter what country you are living in there will be some sort of age rating for every form of video game and movie, but I'm just focusing on the gaming side of the ratings board rather than the film industry. Whatever game you buy from the shop in any country there will be a age rating somewhere on it which would indicate the how old you have to be in order to buy the game. In the UK the company that does all of the age ratings is known as Pegi, this is a very highly used system and actually helps a lot since younger children should not be allowed to be more graphic games. The ratings given by PEGI are 3, 7, 12, 16, 18, in the UK PEGI ratings over 12 are enforceable meaning that they can refuse to supply people under the age rating for the game.

Promotional Websites-

Promotional websites is a very good way to get your game to a wider and bigger audience due to the amount of people that are currently using social media and the internet as a whole. So the best way to advertise your game would be to advertise it on some bigger mainstream websites or create your own and let people know all about your game and what it entails. A really good and cheap way to create your own website is by creating it on godaddy.com which would cost around £2.99 each month. You would also have to pay for a URL which is roughly around £10 each year so super cheap really, you just have to make sure that it does not infringe on any copyright laws since there are millions of other websites out there.