Individual Reflective Essay 

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My journey into this module began with innovating some ideas involving merchandising companies. Our team leader, Victorine came up with this idea on her own and we simply expanded on this idea by implementing some unique ideas onto the table – we will sell merch that Double A or indie game dev studios release. We also came up with the strategy to begin to sell the merchandise before the game is released. I personally met this idea with scepticism since the game has not been released for the general public, not many people may have played the game and little to no marketing is involved. However, with my doubts aside, I found that we offer the developers some form of marketing by building the “hype” around the game with the merch involved. 

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In terms of work put out by our team, we have equally shared the same amount of work. We began by working on the Business Focus section of the business plan template provided. With the information and knowledge, we gained from our independent research, we have managed to complete this section of the plan quite easily. When it came to more difficult parts of the module, Josh and I handled all the marketing section, Victorine focused on the financial planning as well as assisting her with any difficulties and Finally Kyran was researching for the pricing that included the storage, products to sell, office space and others miscellaneous items, he is also in charge of the presentation/pitch deck, however we offered our assistance into finalising the presentation.  

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Our workflow is not without its criticisms – the speed of when we do our work has been slightly questionable, with most of the work being done during the final weeks of the submission, I found quite difficult. We have not opted in for an extension to allow more crunch – which not arguably an ideal spot to put ourselves in. But the overall speed of our work has been quite slow. To combat this, I personally would have heeded the advice of using a calendar to organise our work more efficiently, this way we can divide and organise our work without having to find little times during the day for fit in all the work. 

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Another matter that put our speed of work at a disadvantage was one of our teammates was not available to work during the Christmas holiday. This put us at a slight negative impact when it comes to finishing work. With all my effort placed into the marketing section of the business plan, I could not place myself into the financial planning as I had no knowledge of what to simply do.  

In terms of skills, I personally have skills in researching in what we need for the marketing – I have recently taken interest in this which I can use in the long run. It is not with its drawbacks; I am not proficient in the maths involving the financing, although I helped with some sections, Victorine was mainly responsible for the financial planning as she was very skilled in the maths involved, but she has not been involved in the business planning as she has focused her attention on the finance section. 

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Moving onto other positives, our communication between each team I found was fairly superb, there has been disagreements between the team in terms of the work, but a compromise was always found by communicating it to each other. We are usually in the same wavelength when it comes to working together, the only times where communicating were uncertain was slow response within our discord channels, but we always try to get back to each other as soon we possibly can, another problem with communications some of us stay muted during discord calls which can sometimes throw me off, but overall communicating with each other has not been a problem for us. 

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Our team were very skilled and lacking in some areas, I myself as well as Kyran have to double check my grammar as there can be mistakes, this is where Josh comes in, he alters the document, so it makes more sense to the average reader as well as captivate them. But he has contributed very little in some areas – especially with the research of some of the marketing side and the overall document. Since my work was focused on marketing, I told myself I was to help Kyran with the presentation, however with the speed of work, I was simply not able to. Which caused some lack of progress when it comes to the overall look of the presentation – it is still a work in progress rather than looking a finalised version.  

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We put our work together for the pitch to fill out most of gaps, Josh and I have also improved the overall look of the presentation to make it stand out more. With the designs, hopefully we will be able to captivate the audience with the innovative design. Our previous presentation was simply the template given us; this was lacking in terms of design as well as description slides of what was written on the presentation. With the lack of information, I found it quite difficult to understand. In addition to the pitch, one of us was not feeling confident about recording their voice, it was hinting that they were feeling shy.  

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My major flaw while working on some of the tasks was my lack of concentration. I find myself distracted mostly during the daytime with all the activities happening, especially during the Christmas. Family obligations was an impact that affected my performance overall. I did however manage to produce the marketing strategy section of the business plan, with less distractions from at this time, I was able to come up with a strategy for our target audience in terms of marketing.  

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Our team has strengths in a lot of fields within the industry. Mostly, we are experienced in 3D Art/Sculpture in general. However, we have strengths in other fields as well. Myself, I am an experienced programmer, working with programming languages such as C# and Visual Basic, I have also taken interest in the marketing section of the games industry as well. I could pursue the marketing path within the industry by consulting with lecturers who are experienced in the field, as well as attending conferences – individually or as a group who share the same interest as I do to find the suitable person who will provide me some insight for the role. 

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Our Team Leader, Victorine is an aspiring character artist, she has experience in working with various software such as ZBrush and Maya. She is also interested in animation as far as other fields go. As for her role in this module she has been working on the financial planning for most of the time with assistance from us, she has also worked on some parts of the business plan. Much like my strategy in choosing her careers, her best option would be enter the industry by meeting experienced people in the same field of 3D/Character artist, going to meet-ups and conferences to further secure her career path, while showing her work via portfolio, creating a LinkedIn account or Artstation to show off her work to employers who could be interested in her talents.  

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Josh is another talented character artist interested in both 3D and 2d art, from what I can recall, he has created for himself an Artstation account to showcase his work. Evidently, he is on his way to advancing and increasing the variety of his work. Josh mostly works in 2D art, although he is proficient in 3D work, his work mostly consists of 2D. In my opinion, he’s very much suited for in working as a character concept artist, with his illustrations he can simply build up his portfolio which consists of 2D and 3D work from either his years studying and drawings from his free time and simply show it off to employers who have a keen interest in hiring a skilled character artist in terms of concept art.  

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Finally Kyran is another talented artist, again, he is also interested in character art, specifically 3D. He has worked on various projects which include sculpting using ZBrush, animation using Maya and Unreal, apart from the 3D aspect of the work, he also dabbles in 2D work by drawing characters and showing it through social media (Instagram). His best option – similar to Josh, would be to expand his portfolio and LinkedIn account to show to potential employers. With the available work on hand, he has the potential to be hired by interested people who have an interest in his 3D work.  

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In conclusion, our work has been coming along together, we have done a tremendous amount work overall, although we could work more on the organisation and work ethic. Apart from the first few weeks, morale has been very high over last week working on the final stages of the project, which increases our motivation to work on sections of the module such as the presentation and financial plan. Another aspect in our team that needs working in is time management, leaving moments at the last minute has been a high-stress factor that impacts us health (mostly mentally). With a simple use of a calendar or a journal to plot out the next task, would prove beneficial in the long run when in comes to managing time. 

 

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