Video Games Flashcards
Who owns the games industry?
The gaming industry is controlled by a handful of large corporations. This is known as an oligopoly. These corporations are Microsoft, Sony and, Nintendo. They have more money and power than all the other companies in the industry.
how does rockstar, the smaller company stay in business?
Smaller companies for example Rockstar (the company that made GTA V and Red Dead Redemption) need to find ways of staying in business. It engineered the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE). This is a game engine developed in order to facilitate game development on the XBOX 360, Playstation 3, Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Wii systems. **It should act as a form of protection for the company as all ‘next-gen’ consoles will need this upgrade in order to play all future Rockstar releases.
What is the purpose of the games industry?
The answer obviously is to make money. These companies want consumers to 1) stay loyal to them and 2) use their platform for other things besides games and become home entertainment hubs.
how does the games industry maintain loyalty?
1) Producing successful franchises ‘in house’. E.g. Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda
2) Buying up companies that make successful games and ensuring all future releases of the franchise are made for their platform. E.g. Bungie was a studio that made Halo until Microsoft bought it.
3) “Sweet heart” deals e.g. Rockstar Games released exclusive episodic content for the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV. Microsoft paid Take-Two (the publisher) a total of £40 million for the first two episodes.
4) Incentives for gamers – E.g. the Rockstar Games Social Club is a web site that displays the gameplay statistics of registered users and features competitions and awards based on player activity within the game. Rockstar also rewards visitors to their PlayStation Home apartment with ‘goodies’ such as clothing for their avatar and items and decorations for their own PlayStation Home apartment. Also, X Box Live offers exclusive downloadable content.
5) Holding back new technology so that people still buy current platforms and drip-feeding innovations into the market to ensure new must have features. Consoles have built in obsolescence.
what is technological convergence?
Home entertainment hubs besides play games allow users to preform many functions like Surf web
Watch Blu-ray DVDs
and even buy good online
technological convergence
Console companies want you to replace your DVD player, PC, home phone, stereo system with their system. This will either put other companies who supply these out of business or force them to do deals with Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo.
It will also allow them to reach you easier and sell you new products and services. In the future, there will be less advertising on broadcast TV and more product placement on Xbox live and in games e.g. billboards in Gran Turismo.
how has production changed over time?
Game development in the 1980s used to be a ‘cottage industry’ i.e. a single programmer or a handful of programmers working alone producing games that were then bought by publishers such as Electronic Arts.
whereas nowdays, games are produced by hundreds of people working on different aspects of the game sometimes in different countries. Around 150 game developers alone worked on GTA IV. its also costed 80 million and took 3 and a half years to complete
how are production comanies more like established film companies?
Production companies are more like established film production companies nowadays e.g. Working Title (a company that has made 100s of films e.g. Hot Fuzz) with 100s of people involved in production. Both films and production companies are called studios. Rockstar, the studio that created GTA IV has also funded films like The Football Factory (2004) and Sunday Driver (2005).
how do Games now share many of the production techniques of films.
Games use famous actors to voice characters e.g. Kiefer Sutherland in Call of Duty, Stephen Fry in Fable 2. Famous musicians are commissioned to provide the sound tracks e.g. Hans Zimmer who composed the music for Gladiator also composed the music for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The camera in the game mimics the techniques of films that belong to the same genre. The cut scenes look just like exerts from films. Rockstar’s latest game Red Dead Redemption is inspired by and often mimics classic Westerns such as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and The Wildbunch.
how is the video game industry becoming more like the film industry
1) Games use famous actors to voice characters e.g. Kiefer Sutherland in Call of Duty, Stephen Fry in Fable 2.
2) Famous musicians are commissioned to provide the sound tracks e.g. Hans Zimmer who composed the music for Gladiator also composed the music for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
3) The camera in the game mimics the techniques of films that belong to the same genre. The cut scenes look just like exerts from films. Rockstar’s latest game Red Dead Redemption is inspired by and often mimics classic Westerns such as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and The Wildbunch.
what are publishers responsible for?
funding the development, publishers are responsible for the manufacturing and marketing of games. Larger video game publishers, like EA, also distribute the games they publish.
how is distribution changing
Distribution is the process by which finished games get sent out to members of the public. The only way to buy games used to be from high street shops such as Game and HMV. As more people became connected to the Internet they bought them from such websites as Amazon.co.uk. Now, as more people acquire broadband it is quicker and easier to download a game direct to a console or PC. TV adverts for X Box games now say ‘ready to download’ rather than ‘in shops now’. As broadband increases in capacity this will become more popular and may signify the end of the high street stores selling games.
Game campaigns now includes:
Film style trailers
Film tie-ins
Soundtracks
Magazine and Newspapers
Ambassadors
Online advertisements
Posters in public
Viral marketing
Publicity stunts
Celebrity endorsements
Celebrity endorsements
e.g. Wayne Rooney FIFA Football
Film style trailers
game trailers often look and sound exactly the same as film trailers. E.g. trailers for games such as Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty: World of War begin with a slow dramatic establishing shots then aim to excite the audience by quickly cutting to a montage of intense action scenes from the game to a dramatic soundtrack.
Game conventions
e.g. E3 generate hype for future releases - Microsoft vice president Peter Moore announced at E3 2006 that GTA IV would appear on Xbox 360, by rolling up his sleeve to reveal a GTA IV temporary tattoo.
Corporate synergy
As part of its “It Only Does Everything” marketing campaign for Move Sony has entered a synergistic relationship with Coca Cola.
benefits of sandbox game
TV, films and games now compete against each other for people’s money. GTA IV was hyped in the same way a blockbuster film like Dark Knight. TV and films are passive while gaming is becoming more interactive all the time. GTA IV is an example of a sandbox game, which allows users to depart from the game’s narrative and create their own. In films the audience has to watch the plot unfold in sandbox games there are lots of possible endings the user can choose from. This is known as non-linear game play. The latest generation of games let users create their own content. The narrative and action goes in the direction the player wants it to. An example of this is Little Big Planet.
narratives in video games
in videogames, understanding how the story elements work often does help players to win. Narratives are most apparent a game’s cut scene which can be thought of as mini movies existing inside a game. They borrow many techniques from cinema, such as camera moves (the pan, zoom and tracking shots) and angles (the mixture of close up and wide). Compare for instance the cut scenes in Red Dead Redemption to the films of Sergio Leone.
Murray’ s agency
“the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices”. Games provide many opportunities for players to exercise agency which Murray argues makes them more immersive.
stereotypes of gamers changing
The stereotypical gamer used to be a lonely, obsessive teenage boy. Now games are mainstream gaming crosses all social, gender and age barriers. The Wii is often marketed towards women and families.
what are the 3 major territories that video games are culturally and financially significant.
Japan, Europe and the USA
Curran and Seaton
Curran and Seaton suggested that media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality.
What are the main reasons for the shift towards digital distribution?
Casual gamers, mobile phone gaming models, improved sales margins
Why do so many titles now release DLC after the initial game release?
Micro-transactions are big business, extending the life of a game, maintaining franchise loyalty
To what extent is it important that consoles allow access to other media formats, e.g. film and television?
Responding to new ways that people access their media, convergence
