LO1: Bussiness Report

Sumo Digital 

Sumo Digital is an independent game development company what are based in Sheffield but have office in India. They have made 40 titles, in the 13 years what they have been operating for. Sumo now primarily work for Sony and Microsoft, this makes them unique cause they are one of few studios what work on PlayStations and Xbox platforms.

Below is the Hierarchy of the company

Carl Carvers ( MD F9E Europe)

One of the co-founders of Sumo, he worked at Atari (formally Gremlin) as Studio manager.

Paul Potter 

Mr Potter worked at Rolls Royce doing Scientific Software Development working on nuclear plant modelling. He then went on to right code for Broken Sword, after he went on to mange the creation of cross platform development systems. He then went on to Co-Found Sumo  

Darren Mills 

Mills worked as a Cameraman, editor , designer and animator for Sky, ITV and BBC. Joining Gremlin in 1995 he worked on titles as well as being a lead artist. He went on to become a Co-founder

Ash Benet

His first job was with Gremlin in 1989  writing games for C64, going on to work for SNES, NES and PC. He then went to Probe Entertainment 

Garry Edwards 

He was a programmer at Gremlin in 96’, he was OEM producer and worked with loads of hardware companies. I helped start infogames in 2000. He re-joined he former colleagues at summon as executive producer. The in 2009 he was promoted to Development Director.

Sean Millard

He had been designing games for companies though the 90’s and he joind sumo in 2003 and in 2011 he was promoted to Creative Director.

Steven Zalud

 He joined Gremlin as producer and since he has been promoted to the Director of Product Development at Sumo.

Development 

Sumo build their own engine, they also build their own tools. However, they have been know to work on other engines when collaborating. Sumo Digital also use of the self products such as; Z Brush, Maya, 3D Studio Mac, Adobe Photoshop.

Platform Technology

Sumo over the last 12 years have built up a large portfolio of games. They have been licensed to make games for many different consoles.

For example Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed is available on;

• Wii U- this was lunched with the release of this next gen console and managed to beat Mario Cart in sales.
• Nintendo 3DS
• Xbox 360
• PS3
• PS Vita 
• Pc
• Ios
• Android

Sumo are able to develop on next gen consoles; Wii U (what they made Sonic All Star Racing Transformed), Xbox One (what they made Xbox Fitness) and Play Station 4 (which they took over the Little Big Planet series and made Little Big Planet 3). 

Regulatory Bodies

PEGI are the regulators for video games. It’s in now law that a game has to have a PEGI rating since 2012. They are 8 factors what are taking in factor when rating a game; Online, Sex, Violence, Gambling, Drug Use, Fear and Profanities. Games have age ratings these are; 3,7,12,16,18. These are suggested age ratings as it relates to the maturity rating.

Here’s and example of a PEGI rating.

Game Types

Sumo established them selves making racing games, the first game they made was Outrun. Since they have made racing games like; Sonic and All Stars Racing, Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed and Forza Horizon 2.

Sumo Digital game genres are; Racing(outrun), Sport(Xbox Fitness) and adventure (Little Big Planet 3).