Thorbjørn Walle thorbjw@ifi.uio.no INF5180 Software Product and Process Improvement in Systems Development Thorbjørn Walle thorbjw@ifi.uio.no

The Company Nordic developer and publisher of computer games. Started as a niche developer with few sales and games similar to each other. Popular among the ”die hard”-fans of this genre, but unknown to the majority of other gamers.

In the last few years: Made more accessible games and widened their focus. More focus on mainstream gamers. Some games published also for gaming consoles (as well as for computers). The number of games made and published has increased rapidly. And so have the sales numbers.

Problems and issues ”Hacker culture”. More structure needed. Inefficient use of pair programming. Needs improvement. ”Patch” policy. Much effort used in improving and bug-correcting the games after release. Copy protection issues. Better protection needed as games become more mainstream, but at the risk of introducing new problems.

Problems and issues (2) There is a quite urgent need to know what most customers want, in order to continue the mainstream focus and reach out to even more common gamers. But: Fear of losing the loyal customers if they change their ”good old game recipe” too much, since these provide an invaluable steady stream of income.

Thorbjørn Walle thorbjw@ifi.uio.no