Games.com is a new e-business that specializes in connecting buyers to electronic games to purchase. Ie. They are not a games retailer, they will search retailers and return prices from multiple retailers. Games.com provides rankings of Game Versions along with providing the search capabilities. They want you to develop a prototype that demonstrates potential functionality (using Microsoft Access – not web technology – that’s in the advanced DB class). We are to develop an integrated database application that will keep track of games for multiple types of systems (Xbox, Play Station, PC, Mac, ...), retailers, and prices of games for different systems in different regions, and at different retailers. You will need to enter sufficient data to demonstrate the capabilities of your prototype.
Functionality provided should include:
· User friendly interface(s) for data input for each kind of data
· User friendly interfaces for update/delete for any kinds of data subject to frequent updates
· Menus leading users to the capabilities that they can make use of
· Support for some pre-planned reports and queries. An initial specification of desirable queries/ reports is given below.
We will talk more about this project in upcoming weeks. Your first task is to hand in a survey to aid people who don’t have a group in mind to find compatible groups. This should be done ASAP (today!). Note that the DB design is due Oct 18, a first installment is due Nov 17, and the completed project is due Dec 8. The will be a handout later on project deliverables.
NOTE: Some (NOT ALL) business rules include:
You will probably have to ask me about other business rules as you get into design. Don’t wait until the last minute to get going.
Tentative Queries / Reports:
1. Show all Games, with Publisher Name, Game Name, Genre, ESRB rating, ordered by Publisher Name and Game Name.
2. Show all games from Publisher X, with Game Name, Genre, ESRB rating, ordered by Genre and ESRB rating.
3. Show all Games with Genre X, with Publisher Name and Game Name, and ESRB Rating.
4. Show all Games with Genre X, and ESRB Rating Y, with Publisher Name and Game Name
5. Show all Game Versions for Game X, With System/Platform Name, quality rankings from Games.com, and System requirements
6. Show all Game Versions for System (platform) X, available in Region Y, with Publisher Name, Game Name, Game Genre, Game ESRB rating, Game Version quality rankings from Games.com, and System Requirements
7. Show all prices for Game X, for System/Platform Y, in Region Z, with Retailer Name, price
8. Show all release dates for Region X, with Game Name, System/Platform Name
9. Show all release dates for Game X, with Game Name, System/Platform Name, and Region Name.
10. Show all PC Game Versions available in Region X that run in Windows XP, with Game Name, Publisher Name, Genre, ESRB rating, Games.com quality rating, and Release Date.
11. Show all Game Versions for System/Platform X, released since Year Y, with Game Name, Publisher Name, Game Genre, Game ESRB rating, Game Version quality rankings from Games.com, and System Requirements
12. Show the total number of Games by Genre
13. Show the total number of Games by ESRB rating
14. Show the total number of Game Versions, by Region
15. Show the total number of Game Versions by Platform
16. Show the total number of Game Versions by Retailer
17. Show for System/Platform X, show the Average Price by Retailer
18. Show for Game X, show the Lowest Price by System/Platform
19. Show the Average Games.com quality rating by Publisher
NOTES:
· Always remember when designing output that these are designed to help humans. Thus, for example, if the primary key value is not meaningful to humans, other identifying info should be displayed in addition/instead. E.g. In addition to or instead of game ID, display game name.
· Many of these should be “parameterized” in order to be flexible. Some, but not all, of the queries that should be parameterized are indicated with X, Y, Z etc.
· If the description includes the word “total”, I’m looking for some summarization, not just a list of raw data. The “by” clause is an attempt to indicate what results are to be summarized “by”.
· It probably makes sense to organize your application by what kinds of users need what capabilities. If you have any questions about who might be interested in different queries, please ask.
· All of the above will be queries. Do at least 3 as reports based on their query. Reports are particularly valuable if subtotals or totals or grouping of data is of interest in addition to details.
· Somehow (at least in documentation) let me know which query is which (by number)
· These are tentative. If you find any of these that are problematic, check with me. Also, if you think of any great additional canned queries/reports, feel free to include them.