Arcade Game Maker Pedagogical Product Line: Marketing and Product Plan

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1 Arcade Game Maker Pedagogical Product Line: Marketing and Product Plan Arcade Game Team July 2003 Unlimited distribution subject to the copyright.

2 This work is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. The Software Engineering Institute is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. Copyright 2004 Carnegie Mellon University. NO WARRANTY THIS CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE MATERIAL IS FURNISHED ON AN "AS-IS" BASIS. CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, AS TO ANY MATTER INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR PURPOSE OR MERCHANTABILITY, EXCLUSIVITY, OR RESULTS OBTAINED FROM USE OF THE MATERIAL. CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY DOES NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO FREEDOM FROM PATENT, TRADEMARK, OR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. Use of any trademarks in this report is not intended in any way to infringe on the rights of the trademark holder. Internal use. Permission to reproduce this document and to prepare derivative works from this document for internal use is granted, provided the copyright and No Warranty statements are included with all reproductions and derivative works. External use. Requests for permission to reproduce this document or prepare derivative works of this document for external and commercial use should be addressed to the SEI Licensing Agent. This work was created in the performance of Federal Government Contract Number F C-0003 with Carnegie Mellon University for the operation of the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center. The Government of the United States has a royalty-free government-purpose license to use, duplicate, or disclose the work, in whole or in part and in any manner, and to have or permit others to do so, for government purposes pursuant to the copyright license under the clause at For information about purchasing paper copies of SEI reports, please visit the publications portion of our Web site (

3 Revision Control Table Version Number Date Revised Revision Type A-Add, D-Delete, M-Modify Description of Change Person Responsible 1.0 7/03 A Created document JDMcGregor 1 Overview 1.1 Identification The Arcade Game Maker (AGM) product line will produce a series of arcade games. Each game is a one-player game in which the player controls, to some degree, the moving objects. The objective is to score points by hitting stationary obstacles. The games range from low obstacle count to high. 1.2 Document Map The AGM product line is described in a series of documents that are related to each other as shown in Figure 1. This map shows the order in which the documents should be read for the first time. Once readers are familiar with the documents, they can go directly to the information needed. This is the marketing and product plan. Its purpose is to communicate the marketing strategy that provides the rationale for which products are to be built and when Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University 1

4 Requirements Scope Business Case Architecture CONOPS Production Plan System Test Plan Template Unit Test Plan Template Brickles Product Pong product Bowling product Bibliography Glossary Miscellaneous documents Key: The object pointing is dependent on the object being pointed to. Figure 1: Document Map 1.3 Reusable Assets This document establishes the high-level context for decisions in the product line. In a product line, assets are designed to be reusable within the context of the product line. That is, no attempt is made to make an asset as general as possible. Each design decision is made with regard to the extent of the products in the product line. The scope definition document formalizes this context and the architecture further refines the context defined in this document. 1.4 Readership This document is intended primarily for those stakeholders responsible for scoping and business case development. It provides some level of information to all the stakeholders in the AGM framework. Managers will find information that supports product planning, architects will find information that supports commonality and variability analysis, and product developers will find the rationale for each product s membership in the product line Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

5 1.5 Use in Product Planning and Production This document is used in the earliest stages of product line planning. It is used as input to the business case for the software product line. It provides information that is useful in developing the production scope and schedule. 2 Product Context AGM has been producing large scale computer games for many years. Our latest analysis points to new markets, which we have not been serving. While there are players in those markets already, we believe our experience and reputation will allow us to capture a sizable market share, approximately 30%, in a very short time. We have identified three types of products that we want to analyze. These are shown in Table 1. The freeware games are simple implementations of basic games that are used to attract potential customers to our web site. The implementations can be simple but the quality must be high. These games represent us. The commercial PC games will require the resources of a standard personal computer. These games should have additional features beyond the basic freeware games since they will be the professional versions of the freeware games. Finally, the commercial wireless category includes games that we would sell to wireless carriers who would make these games available for download by their subscribers. These games should be a port of the professional PC games to a variety of wireless platforms. Table 1: Feature Example Attribute/Product Matrix Freeware Arcade Games Commercial PC Games Commercial Wireless Games display standard bitmaps vector graphics wireless access protocol WAP bitmap interaction mouse/buttons pointing devices/buttons buttons game pieces simple icons dynamic icons dynamic icons scoring high scores stored locally local storage/scores shared with subscription scores stored on network/subscription required 3 Feature Model In this section we present a high level feature model of the arcade game domain. This model captures the product features that are necessary to compete in the market and to satisfy our existing customers. It includes all of the features that would be in any of the products Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University 3

6 arcade game services qualities rules action configuration natural interaction realistic keyboard driver mouse driver graphics display Figure 2- Top level feature model action movement collision straight-line movement Functional algorithm movement elastic collision absorbing collision Figure 3 - Action sub-features services play pause save Figure 4 - Services sub-features Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

7 rules Brickles Pong Bowling Figure 5 - Rules sub-features 4 Analysis and Projections 4.1 Hook We have identified a possible hook around which we could build a marketing campaign: a nostalgia series in which we release games such as Brickles, Pong, and maybe a Bowling game. Most of the newest generation of users does not know these games but their parents do. We believe that releasing these games for new platforms and even old ones would be a popular offering. These games are represented by features in the rules feature tree. 4.2 Niche opportunity We have identified an un-served opportunity that might be profitable if we can meet the necessary price point. Companies are continually looking for new items that can be used as giveaways in exhibit booths at conventions to build a mailing list. The latest opportunity is for simple computer games that have been customized to include company specific icons and product presentations. 4.3 Projections Given the information in sections 2 and 3 and our hook idea, we can project the sales (or downloads) totals of the anticipated products as shown in Table 2. The figures are the anticipated sales given three different release dates. Table 2 - Projected Sales Figures December 2004 May 2005 September 2005 Freeware PC games 300,000 (downloads) 300,000 (downloads) 300,000 (downloads) 2004 Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University 5

8 Wireless device games Customized convention giveaways 400, , , , ,000 4,500,000 The freeware games will generate moderate attention whenever they are deployed. No revenue will be directly generated but we estimate that the sales figures for the other releases would be 25% lower if they are released before the freeware versions attract users to our web site. The wireless games will be built for the MIDP1.0 standard. It will be about April 2005 before that standard is widely available on wireless devices. It will also have a short life cycle being replaced with MIDP2.0 by the Fall of The convention giveaways sales figures reflect that attendance at conventions is slowly increasing as the economy recovers. We do not expect this business to be profitable until Fall Recommendations We recommend that products of the types described in Table 2 be put into production as soon as possible. Note that the figures in the body of the table give a possible sequence of production based on optimizing the sales figures. We recommend a nostalgia series of games. Brickles, Pong and Bowling are three that tested positively with clients we interviewed. These three should be released in each of the three forms shown in the product table. 5 Maintaining the Marketing and Product Plan 1 Periodically the marketing group will scan the business environment and update the marketing and product plan. A scan will be initiated by one of several events: a recent major change in economic forecasts; or a change in the company s strategic goals; or the passing of one year since the last scan. 1 This section is the attached process described by Clements and Northrop [Clements 02]. For the product line marketing and product plan, the process focuses mainly on tracking industry and consumer changes Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

9 As the process diagrammed in Figure 6 shows, a scan begins with data collection, followed by data analysis, and dissemination of the information to both upstream and downstream consumers. Collect economic data; survey existing customers concerning changes in demand Analyze data and revise marketing and product plan accordingly. Inform party responsible for business case maintenance of revised plan Figure 6: Process Flow for Maintaining the Marketing and Product Plan 6 References For information about the references in this document, see another document in the Arcade Game Maker Product Line series: Arcade Game Maker Pedagogical Product Line: Bibliography Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University 7