LO1: Business Report

Team Cooper is a games development company that was founded in the year of 2006 and was since then built up after a two year span to incorporate more members into the business rather than just the founder himself, converting the company into a full on team rather than a one man band. Since then Team Cooper has worked on a multitude of projects and developed a large quantity of games, ranging from many different genres and types over the years. Mainly the group focuses solely on app games for both the apple and android devices, yet they also produce games within HTML5 for browser-based games as well.

Structure

The company itself is a sole proprietorship, which means either a single person or a family owns it. The founder and overall managing director, Tim Cooper, is the one who is in charge and owns the entire company, seeing as it was his creation in the first place. Taking the role of the business development director we have Emma Cooper, who was the first member that Tim hired to join his team in May of 2008, alongside Kyle Rodgers, a developer. Russell Stearman was hired in May of 2010 as the lead developer and, one month ahead, Simon Morris was took on as a developer who then became a full time member in May of 2012. Jumping ahead a year Tim then gained two more members to his business, Adam Clay, who joined in January, became an illustrator and animator, and John hunter, the current team assistant and content writer, joined in September. The newest member to the team is Angelique Williams, who was welcomed in January of 2013 and is at this moment in time the project manager.

Platform Technology

The company produces games for both the android and apple devices through the use of apps, as well as a few HTML and Flash games for browser based games as well, particularly on websites of social media. Production is obviously different because of this thanks to the amount of programs one would have to use to develop games on these varying devices because of how they are built, programmed and interacted with. The company facilitate these development processes simply by having the entire team working on different things, and specialising in that aspect in order for them to finish their work as efficiently as possible.

Game Types

There are many different types of games out there, and Team Cooper seems to have covered quite a large part of it. Within the puzzle genre we have games such as Beehive Bedlam, a game which involves aiming, firing and matching up groups of a certain flower to eliminate them all to pass the level, and Fraxinus, where players would create and manoeuvre rows of coloured leaf shapes to get a high score, and then they add that pattern to their collection. It’s then up to the other players to achieve an even higher score to claim said pattern. Bobble Bots is a different type of puzzle game, requiring the player to guide the ‘moshlings’ to their destination through careful planning by opening and closing routes for them to move. Dani’s Castle – Hidden Treasure is an example of a point and click game, utilizing the touch screen interface to let players navigate through various locations in search of a bunch of treasures. With sidescrollers we have games such as Roof-Top Rush, where the player would control Santa running across the rooftops to pursue his reindeer that have seemingly left without him. Nurse Quest – Love Hurts is a throwback to the old free roam action/adventure point and click games such as King’s Quest and Monkey Island. A full roster of their games is as followed:

• #ShareTakeCare
• Angry Buyers
• Beehive Bedlam
• Blockbusters
• Bobble Bots
• CBBC'S Pup Stars
• Choices
• Dick 'n' Dom's Hoopla!
• Edward and the Strange Invasion
• Farter Christmas
• Hidden Treasures
• Man Up!
• Nurse Quest - Love Hurts
• Retro Arcade
• Roof-Top Rush
• Scary GodParents
• Sick, Snot & Explosions
• The Marathon
• Tiny Tumble Bubble Art
• Unclean Canteen

Games on Multi-platforms

The same game, just on different platforms. 'Fishing with Percy' is one such game, having been initially developed as a flash game for an internet browser, being on the computer, one platform, it was then ported over to both the Android and Apple smartphones available to download through Google Play and the App Store respectively, and that's two more platforms that this game is apparent on. The controls are different considering what inputs the games use, with the mobile apps utilising the touchscreen and the computer instead uses the mouse.

Regulatory Bodies

Team Cooper have to comply with what their clients want, and produce a product based on those proposals and guidelines. They have worked with many clients over the years, with a list of them being:

• Addicting Games (Nickelodeon)
• Adult Swim
• Beazley
• Brass
• CBBC
• Cbeebies
• Challenge
• Croda
• DFDS Seaways
• EBuyer
• Jeem TV
• Mind Candy
• Nickelodeon
• Quba
• BBC Radio 1
• Safe@Last
• Sky
• Third City
• Terrence Higgins Trust
• Topps
• TheSainsburyLaboratory
• World Gold Council
• Yellowbrick

Developmental Software

The software pieces that Team Cooper regularly use to develop their games are mainly Flash and HTML 5. HTML 5 is basically a markup language, used for structuring and presenting content for the internet and is pretty much it's core technology at this moment in time. Whilst HTML 5 has been considered superior to Flash in many ways it isn't entirely true, considering the program can do a lot of other processes probably vital or at least very helpful to this sort of design within the gaming industry, with both software's having their own strengths and weaknesses.