Iomega® Jaz® Solution Helps Games Producer Take Creative Control
While developing and manufacturing video gaming machines is a niche occupation requiring specialist knowledge and tools, designers in this arena need also address the same challenges as their colleagues in more traditional areas.
For leading US-based games specialist, International Game Technology (IGT) Australia, the decision to set up an in-house creative department over the last 12 months involved a broad range of considerations - both specialist and generic in nature - and resulted in the company implementing a storage and backup system based on Iomega® Jaz® disks and drives.
The largest manufacturer of gaming machines in the world, IGT supplies microprocessor-based slot machines, video games and software systems to casinos, hotels and clubs throughout Australia. The company is not only responsible for the actual creation of the machines, but also the animations that make the game, and the artwork which appears on each casing.
"Although we had successfully outsourced our artwork to third parties for several years, we had reached a point where the growth of our company depended on having more developmental flexibility and creative control over finished products," explained Thomas Tatko, IGT's Creative Manager. "We are now at a point where if we see something that's not quite right, or if the salespeople see something they don't think will sell, its easy for us to just change it on the fly, rather than waiting until we are well down the creative track."
"While this move was an obvious and logical development, the challenges involved in consolidating eight years of artwork from various agencies were immense. We essentially had to develop a coherent storage and file management system from scratch."
The challenges involved in consolidating this information were further complicated when IGT expanded its Australian operations by taking over a Melbourne-based gaming manufacturer and took on board these additional creative responsibilities.
"Aside from all the issues we had with bringing older work back to the one location, we had never had enough capacity to save all our large artwork files on the one hard drive, so things had been saved all over the place," said Mr Tatko. "This made it extremely difficult to find things, and meant staff would spend hours working out where a file was and whether it was the final version.
"At that point we were certain about on thing - we definitely needed a high capacity storage system which would enable us to more effectively manage and archive these files - which was why we felt Iomega's Jaz was essential during the initial setup of our art department.
Although Mr Tatko investigated a series of backup and storage options during the set up of his art department, he did not feel that other options really offered the capabilities he required.
"One of the options we were seriously considering was a CD burner," said Mr Tatko. "However, like many service organisations, a quick turn around time is central to our effectiveness, and we need to be able to transfer and backup our information as quickly and efficiently as possible. Options such as a CD burner just cannot match the speed or flexibility of Jaz, and with the added advantages of simplicity and reliability, Jaz was obviously the best solution for us. Having Jaz at the backbone of our art department has enabled us to make a significant contribution to the growth of the company, and improve our productivity tenfold."
After implementing the Jaz storage and backup solution, Mr Tatko was able to collect, sort and back-up eight years of artwork in two days, a feat which he feels would have been impossible using any other storage solution.
"By using the Jaz drives and disks to centralise our memory intensive graphics files, we were able to develop a flexible and comprehensive filing system which has greatly simplified the way we work," he said. "The beauty of having such a reliable storage system is that it can also be used as a backup solution for all our work in progress. Our IS department regularly backs up our work onto Jaz disks, which can be easily tucked away in a fireproof safe, giving us the added reassurance of reliable and easy to access security blanket.
"In fact, the versatility of the Jaz means we can also use it to share and transfer the large files involved in developing our games. The last few trade shows that we've been to, there's been an amazing response to the new games that we've been developing. In addition, we are also seeing an increased interest in Australian designed games from overseas companies, and are beginning to export more and more of our designs to our American counterpart.
The designs are shipped as final artwork on Jaz disks, which are the industry standard storage option for large files. This means that whether we are sending artwork to the printer around the corner, or a final game to our colleagues in the US, we can be relatively confident they will have access to Jaz at the other end, and will be able to read and process our information with ease. My guess would be that anyone involved in the artistic side of the gaming industry - or indeed in the graphics profession overall - would find it very difficult to operate without a Jaz drive."
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