Warcraft Ltd: Live-Action Role Play Essay Game.

About Warcraft Ltd and Tech Solutions

Warcraft Ltd is a private limited company with the sole purpose of developing and promoting the live action roleplay and battle game where players take the battles from fantasy video games and table top games out on to the field. A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically portray their characters. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by the real world while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may be mediated by game rules or determined by consensus among players. Event arrangers called game masters decide the setting and rules to be used and facilitate play.

Jack Johnson is the Managing Director of the company Warcraft Ltd, which has been experiencing a reduction in the players and inability to retain players. It has a basic web presence and has considered re-designing their site, along with traditional marketing approaches and an app, to help to promote and grow their business.

You have been working for Tech Solutions for the last three months in their web and mobile app development department. Your company has applied for a tender to redesign the website and develop an app for Warcraft. Due to the importance of this project, the CEO of Tech Solutions, Luke Harrison, and the Director of Web and Mobile Development Donna Smith have both made this project a priority.

The initial investment in the project is estimated to be $170,000 in year 0 of the project, $25,000 in year 1, $25,000 in year 2, and $20,000 in year 3 a total of $240,000. Tech Solutions requires a discount rate of 10%. It is anticipated project future cash inflow as follows (Years 0 to 3): $0, $140,000, $140,000, and $120,000, a total of $400,000.The project will be expected to make at least a 22% ROI, to conform to the Tech Solutions business model. The goal of the project is to propose an app, which is optimized for iPhone and Android devices. The app should allow client and potential clients to enroll and pay for lessons, contact other participant, hire clothing, re-training, and booking tours and watch videos. Users should be able to subscribe to Warcraft newsletter and related upcoming events. There should be access maps of all the venues, and videos showcasing all the facilities. There should be a photo album for all the participants. The app should provide users with an ability to provide an overall ranking of the game centre in terms of training and services. Management believes it will take about five months (20 weeks) with a budget of $170,000 for this important project. Morris aims for a budget contingency reserve of approximately 10%.

Project Objective

Luke Harrison and Donna Smith have formed a search committee to find the best candidate for managing the Warcraft App Development Project. After reviewing many strong candidates, they decided to appoint you, to put together the business case for this critical project. Your previous job was with a consultancy firm where you successfully implemented several android application development projects for medium sized enterprises, using virtual teams. Since this is a high priority project that should be completed in five months, they felt it was appropriate to get the best candidate to put together a quality business case and project management plan. They are offering a premium for your contract at $100 p/hr for 2 d/wk, but a lot is at stake, Warcraft and similar businesses are likely to request further mobile app development projects. In order to get the app developed in the time frame you propose to use well known waterfall development approach. It is anticipated the requirements and operations phases will take 2 weeks each, and the other phases approximately 3 weeks each. Your team consists of two programmers and a digital image specialist. The three team members will spend the equivalent of half a day a week on project management related activities (e.g. completing status reports and attending meetings etc.) and the remaining 4.5 days on development. They will be paid at a rate of $65 p/hr, which is negotiable. You will also need access to a Tech Solutions consultant (Jamie Patterson). The consultant and liaison team members pay rates are negotiable and will only be required for a maximum of one week.

You anticipate several challenges if this tender bid is successful. The type of people who work on gaming projects are often different from people working on the other marketing projects. They often have different educational backgrounds, skill sets, and ideas. Most of the people hired in the past year have been hired to support these new markets. Even though you and the Warcraft project team tried to do a good job managing key stakeholders, there are some difficulties with several employees who disagree with the company’s new market strategies. The plan is to roll out, review existing information, conduct research and gather new material. Detailed storyboards, a prototype, alpha, beta and final version of the app will developed. The app will need to be tested, and promoted prior to roll out. The project will be considered a success, if it comes in on time, on budget, within scope and key stakeholders have been pleased with the communication and reporting processes.

In this assignment, you will be required to form teams of approximately four (4) people. One team member is to be elected the project leader for the duration of the project. Teams will prepare a project business case based on an IT project case study and should use their own initiative regarding assumptions and the scheduling all deliverables.

Warcraft Ltd is the company who is responsible to develop as well as promote the video live action battle game to the field. A live-action role play gaming is one sort of role-playing game where the parties can be able to demonstrate their characters. The participants of the game achieve their goal within a fictional setup and there the participants of the game can be able to interact with each other. The participants will have to strictly follow the rule of the game and must complete it. Event arrangers or the game masters define the rules of the game and assist the participants in playing the game.

The managing director of the company is Jack Johnson. He is currently observing reduction of players in the company. He is trying hard however, he fails to retain players. Jack has planned to re-design their website. He also wants to enhance the app. The managing director wants a complete rejuvenation thus they want to improvise the marketing strategy as well. The latest strategy will help them to embellish their business growth. For this reason he is seeking assistance from an IT company. Jack wants to take help from IT Consultant. The IT Consultant is working for the Tech Solutions over three months in their web development as well as mobile app development. Tech Solutions has sent attender request to rejuvenate their website and develop a utility app for Warcraft Ltd. Luke Harrison is the CEO of Tech Solutions. Donna Smith is the Director as well as Mobile Development department of Tech Solutions and they have prioritised the Warcraft project.

The primary investment for the project is around $1,70,000 in the initial year, in the second year they invest about $25,000 and in the third year about $240,000. Tech Solutions need discount rate of 10%. The market analyst has assumed the cash inflow of the project as follows-. They are expecting that the project will make about 22% ROI and it will go along the business model of Tech Solutions.   

The primary objective off the project is to develop an app that will run on iPhone as well as android devices. The app will enable the clients to enrol and pay for the lessons. The app will have other functionalities like it can aid in booking tours and watching videos. It can also help them in hire clothing, re-training and contact other participants. The app will facilitate the customers of Warcraft to subscribe to newsletters of Warcraft. The users of Warcraft can be able to access maps of all the venues and they can be able to view the videos showcasing all the facilities. The app must have the ability to perform the overall ranking of the game centre both in terms of services and the training. Luke and Donna of Tech Solutions have appointed a project manager to take up the project of Warcraft. It will be his responsibility to develop an app such that it can facilitate Warcraft in carrying out the business objectives. The IT Consultant will assist the project manager from the start to end in accomplishing the project.

Project Objective

The project manager decides to take up the waterfall methodology to carry out the project activities. The project stakeholders associated with the project can face several issues while conducting the project. The stakeholders have come from several educational background and thus a conflict can create. The project plan will be developed which consists of the marketing strategy. The project plan must be approved by the all the stakeholders and will require the client’s sign off before proceed on with the project. The project plan developed will have the project timeline information, project budget information and the project dependencies.

Strength

Warcraft will use license for using the software. The transaction licensing model will evaluate the use of Warcraft software as per transaction basis. The software vendors get a continuous cash flow, and this enhances the transaction volume as more and more stakeholders involve in the project. Since Warcraft is opting for redesigning the app and the website the approach can certainly assist them. The proposed Warcraft app will facilitate the customers or the users they will not have to pay heavy monthly or yearly. Warcraft can certainly reduce the cost over head of the business operations they conduct. The app will contain the features like the pay-as-you-model. The users can pay for the game according to their convenience at any time from any devices. The model can pay them flexibility and several benefits. The customers or the users of Warcraft can be able to subscribe the application. The subscription licensing enables the users to enjoy unlimited service of the software. The subscription licensing will consist of varied subscription models and it will help Warcraft users to choose the appropriate model of their choice. Thus the subscription feature of the app can provide them several opportunities to earn money. The subscription package will certainly reduce the usage of pirated copy of Warcraft game. The customers will be highly facilitated and it will definitely reduce any additional costs involved.

Weakness

The users of Warcraft once takes the service of Warcraft will have to stick to their services. Warcraft will offer periodic updates and the users after paying a huge amount of revenue for the software usage will have to stick to the Warcraft even they are dissatisfied. Thus they most provide a feedback form feature in the proposed app, it will let them know how they are providing services to the customers or the users. In case of Warcraft the adoption of new technology services can be challenging. Tech Solutions will design the website and will develop the app and will host their website and relevant services to the cloud. Tech Solutions will maintain the software and the database as well. Warcraft will have to pay money on monthly basis and yearly basis to use the cloud services. Moreover, there are security and privacy related issues, they can be Tech Solutions will have access to all the data of Warcraft. Warcraft will pay heavy amount thus they will have to spend money on other items wisely.

App Features and Benefits

Opportunity

Warcraft with the aid of the website and the app can provide enhanced services to the customers. Their services will be hosted on the cloud and so the customers can register for their live action role-playing game services and can make the payment online. Warcraft can opt for digital marketing and with some attractive features can enhance their business. They can attract customers with several lucrative features for enjoying the live action role-playing game. Thus their market share will increase; their productivity will take a leap. The app and the website will certain enhance their SEO ranking and this will fetch them competitive advantage. In this way they can become popular and can come close to more and more customers. However, the app will provide a lot of benefits. The customers can see the newsletter; they can get all the necessary updates on the smart phone. The website and the app will have ‘contact us’ customer service features. Warcraft can stay connected with the customers all the time and can provide excellent service to the customers.

The first risk is overreliance over security monitoring software. Then there was insufficient system logging. The network and system devices have been allowing for various incidents and event logging. Besides, the people have been unable to do logging. As enables, the logs are frequently not saved and get reviewed by managements. The logging is also a tedious method. As not properly configured, the logs bog down the email inbox. Further, the technology innovations have been out spacing the securities. Here, the consumer demand for greatest and latest software packages have been driving develop to undertake shortcuts, using various outdated codes and testing new products for getting product at the marketplace. This has been resulted the software to put into production prior they are vetted against sufficiently against various security vulnerabilities or compatibility of systems. Further, Warcraft using the most updated version of those products must be testing that extensively before it gets installed to the production systems. Then there are outdates operating systems. Here, the older versions of softeares have been eventually turning to be unsupported by vendors. The vulnerabilities have been going unpatched and they are the first spot hackers focusing while trying to gain access to the systems. Then there is lack of encryption. This is the first line of defense to prevent various unauthorized access to the information for protecting that at rest and the others are in transit. Removing media has not been allowing data to get placed on them without making any replacements to develop any encrypted folders to encrypt and device to the overall device. Then there is data over user-owned mobile systems. This conflict between the user-owned and company owned devices has been continuing. Here, the employees have been using their mobile devices like smart phone and tablets for gaining access to systems around the Internet. The next one is IT diplomatic immunity under the organization. Warcraft has been seeing members of System Administrators and IT managements feeling exempting from system accessing various requirements that detailed under the policies of the organization like non-expiring passwords. The IT staffs have been reasoning they are getting vetted. However, the accounts of the employees has been possessing high level of permissions and accesses making them huge targets for different hackers.

Project Management and Methodology

The securing of systems and controlling those regarding suspicious activities reduced the risk of different breaches. Development of enterprise-wide approach towards data security and supported by the management is the best way to secure Warcraft’s business. First of all they must understand uses of diversified portfolios to monitor those tools. Second they must consider any third-party software that must be allowing refining the process of logging in and then alerting the personnel for significant events and incidents. There has been combination of well managed SIEM tools along with strong login practices that can be helpful for various system defenses. Then a non-first adopter policy must be followed and the software must be allowed to prove them for about half time every year prior using that product. As Warcraft has been producing such applications, they must put specific concentration over the privacy from the beginning of the process of development. They must plan and track those primary systems for preventing systems to run various unsupported software.

Next, Warcraft must be using third-party software tools for aiding with encryption. The tools are able to scan various outbound emails as far as sensitive data is needed and require senders to use the secure file lead sites or encrypt the information prior the transmission. Here the hard drives must be provided with complex-drive encryption unlocking data as the use logs into the device successfully. Next, the third-party applications must be allowing users to possess sandbox of data. This is a secured segment for Warcraft’s information to be accessible to mobile devices. This includes files and emails that is stored in the secured directory of the system of the organization. The employees must be permitted to gain access the usernames, passwords and two-factor authentications. As the mobile devices has stolen or lost, the organization data remains within the device and networks. It reduces the risks of breached or lost data. Next, the entire user reviews of settings and accounts are to be done about couple of times per year. In order to run the review, the member of security or the audit team must be used along with another qualified person external to IT. This helps in verifying that every personnel have been complying with those policies of IT. Moreoevr, Warcraft must encourage and educate their members of management who have been understood the necessities for protect systems and must be able to communicate necessitates across Warcraft. Additionally, they must be focusing over training, retentions and abilities for reducing various turnovers and create a strong team for IT security. The security must belong to the dedicated role like Chief information Security Officer and Security Analyst

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