Sumo Digital is a Sheffield based games development company. The company was founded in 2003 by Carl Carvers, Paul Porter and Darren Mills. Carl Carvers is Sumo Digitals CEO (chief of executive officer). Before founding Sumo, Carl worked for Gremlin from mid 90s onwards. As well as being a co-founder Paul Porter is also the the COO (chief of operations officer). Originally there were only 12 members of staff at Sumo, and most of these came from the Sheffield based company gremlin which shut down at around the same time sumo was founded. Since then the company has prospered and grown in size. At the moment the company has around 220 members of staff in the Sheffield area, all within 4 buildings, they say they may need more buildings soon. They also have a branch in Pune India where there is a further 40 employees.
There are many different jobs within this company. These are Concept Artists, Character Artists, Environment Artists, Animators, Graphic Artists, Technical Artists, VFX Artists, Head Artists, Level Designers, Mission Designers, Lead Designers, Programmer, Render Programmer, AI Programmers, Network Programmers, Physics Programmers, Lead Programmers, Sound Designers and finally QA Test Teams. The Concept Artists take the content of the games design document and then visualises what it will look like into concept art. This relates to the characters, levels and also the vehicles. The Character Artist brings life to the game and sculpt the characters for the game. The Environment Artist builds the actual game world (the story world for the game). The Animator takes the 3D characters and brings them to life. The Graphic Artist designs the interface for the game such as the menus, the fonts and also the icons. The Technical Artist supports the whole team as they find solutions to any art or technical problems that the team may face. The VFX Artist adds special effects to the game. The Lead Artist has a role in the whole creative aspects of the designs and also does the advanced planning. The Level Designer build the levels and focuses on the play spaces,to do this they work very closely with the artists and designers throughout the projects. The Mission Designer populates the play spaces with different objectives. The Sound Designer adds audio and spot effects to the game and the characters. The QA Test Team, test the game to see if there are any problems before the release of the game.
Sumo Digital- World Class multiple award-winning independent game development studio.
accessed: 14-09-2015
http://www.sumo-digital.com
Sumo Digital- head artist
Accessed: 07-10-2015
Platform Technology
Sumo Digital is licensed to produce games for all different leading platform technologies such as;
Nintendo, PC, Microsoft and Playstation and also mobile phones and tablets.
Sumo Digital- World Class multiple award-winning independent game development studio.
accessed: 28-09-2015
http://www.sumo-digital.com
Game Types
The types of games that Sumo Digital normally produce are sports games, arcade games and finally, racing games. The company pride them selves on being a racing studio. They have made many games for the different platforms. These games range from Race Car Driver to Virtual Tennis. Most of the games that Sumo produces can be played on different platform as many of them were produced for different consoles.
Games on Multi-platforms
Sumo Digital is licensed to create a large range of games. They have many different types of games that they have created and most of these are sports and racing games. These games do range over all the different platforms. Some of the games they have produced are; Outrun 2 a racing game, Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast and Race Driver again both of these are racing games, Virtual Tennis, Doctor Who: The Adventure Games, Big Little Planet 3, Fast and Furious Presents and finally they produced the racing aspect of the Disney Infinity 3 (Toy Box Speedway).
Regulatory Bodies
Because Sumo games mainly tend to consist of sports and racing games, the PEGI rating is a maximum of 12 with the odd occasion of being higher when they have created a different style game. Sumo's games contain minimum violence and also, little to no swearing.
Development Software
Sumo uses different development software programmes for many different jobs. The artists and designers of the game tend to use programmes called MAYA, Z Brush, 3D Studio Macs. The designers use a lot of 3D software to create different aspects of the games that are produced. They also use programmes such as photoshop to add colours to the characters, vehicles and the actual setting of the game. The animator will use 3D software packages to add key frames. The VFX artist will use either the 3D software or home engines. The game coders tend to use CH.
