LO1 Business report - Sumo Digital

Sumo digital

Sumo digital is an independent games company that was formed by 4 employees of Atari in 2003. Sumo digital is foundation 9 entertainment group. They are based in Sheffield and employ more than 220 experienced employees, they also have office in Pune, India that employ 40 people. Sumo have a license to develop on most game platforms including Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo DS. On these platforms they develop mostly racing and family games, however they also produce 2d platformers and fitness games.

Structure

Platform Technology

Sumo Digital work on many different platforms as they have a license to develop on most platforms. The first game they developed was an arcade game called Outrun which needed to be transferred from the arcade platform to Xbox 360. They have early access to the newest Microsoft products so that they can develop games in time for the console or product release, an example of this is when Sumo produced the Nike Fitness game for the latest xbox consoles kinect which was released on the Xbox ones release day. Sumo Digital work very closely with both Microsoft with the Xbox consoles and Sony with the PlayStation consoles.

Game Types

Sumo have the most experience in Racing and family games. However they also create games in sport, sandbox, 2d platformers. Sumo mostly develop games that they have been given a brief for, these are external IPs. They do this mainly because the cost of making in house games (internal IPS) is too large. The main companies that give Sumo there brief are SEGA, Microsoft and Sony. An example of one of these external IPs is Little Big Planet 3 as they were given this brief by Sony to carry out. They also work with producers to produce games that fall into the racing genre, they work with Microsoft to make Forza Horizon 2 and they worked with SEGA to make Sonic and Segas All Stars Racing.

Games on multiple Platforms
Sumo digital approach making games on multiple

Regulatory bodies

Sumo’s main regulatory body is PEGI as PEGI is the company that restrict and age rate the games in which Sumo make. Since the 30th of July 2012 PEGI is the legally enforceable system for game classification and have become to sole provider of game classification which means that BBFC (British Board Of Classification) don't have to do it anymore. PEGI use 5 age classifications 3, 7,12,16 and 18 and 8 content descriptions violence, bad language, fear/horror, sex, drugs, gambling, discrimination and online. For example one game that Sumo Digital produced was Little Big Planet 3 and was restricted to a 7+ age rating by PEGI, the content descriptors for Little Big Planet 3 are Comic Mischief, Mild Cartoon Violence and Tobacco Reference.

Development Software

Sumo Digital use software that they make in house, so they use there own engines and create the own tools. However they are also more than capable of using the software and engines. The softwares that they use that isn't created by them are Adobe Photoshop, 3D Studio Mac, Maya and Z Brush.