My Thesis and its purpose

In Sweden, the term Media Technology broadly defines technical tools and instruments used to, among other things, create, administrate and publish content through different media channels such as the web, printing, film etcetera.

My thesis is an explorative attempt at a smaller scale to explore the relations between Media Technology and the Swedish games industry. The purpose is to find out if, how and why game developers utilise tools such as a CSM, the Adobe-series and so-forth along with what kind of technical competence exists.

The results aspire to answer the following questions among others:

– What kind of relation exists today?

– What level of technical expertise does the companies or their employees possess?

– Is the level of technical expertise sufficient?

– Is it necessary for the industry to institutionalize or develop programmes in order to aqcuire this expertise?

– What possible impact does the results have on marketing actions and strategies?

– Which difference is there between the large developers and indie developers?

The usefulness of this would be to explore how these technological tools are used. At a basic level I’d assume that most developers have a basic knowledge or understanding of tools like photoshop for instance, but there is no scientific proof or inclination to back this up. That’s why I first need to establish scientifically that this link exists. Furthermore I want to see for what purpose a company which develops games would use these tools?

Basically I want to explore if games developers have the competence needed to handle printing services, to produce material adapted for web or print, whether they need to institutionalize a system to aquire this competence, etc… as you can see there are more than a few questions.

By extension, one could also ponder whether it’s necessary at all? Maybe marketing should be left entirely to the publisher?
If so, does the developer need key personnel to handle material or communication between creative departments and the publishers marketing department?
Maybe developers of these tools should create more of them suited for the gaming industry?

Sorry if I’m rambling on a bit, it’s late and I’ve had not nearly enough coffe… 😉