Video Games

Video Game

• Is a media product with an interactive or ludic element
• Ludic: Latin for 'i play'
• They are more interactive than other media industries
• It is the broadest industry and has a lot of genres
• There is an assumption that videogames do not have anchorage and a deeper ideology
• There is more competition in videogames than other media products such as tournaments
• Substantially higher RRP (Recommended Retail Price), cost a lot more than other media products.
• Games are developed for specific hardware
• Videogames target a specific audience, a dedicated, niche, enthusiastic, core audience.
• Videogames are an extremely specialised industry
• Dichotomy: 2 things that contradict each other, binary/diametric opposition
• The videogame industry is nerdy and niche, however the industry is large and profitable

Fans

• Fandom is not the same as audience
• Fanfiction
• Merch
• lunch boxes
• hoodies
• t-shirt
• Gives us social interaction and makes life more interesting

• Pony's Creed Sisterhoof
• is a great example
• 'the death of the author'
• Clay Shirky
• 'End of audience' theory
• Audiences are no longer passive: they interact with media products in an increasingly complex variety of ways
• Suggests that the audience is the producer
• However this theory is very untrue, it is not entirely convincing, 
• Criticise this theory
• 
  

Steve Neale

• Cover art for Assassin's Creed is repeated over and over again because it sells, all the same genre

Assassins Creed III: Liberation

• Published by Ubisoft in 2012 for the PlayStation Vita
• With a subsequent HD re-release for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
• Trans-national creation as it was developed in Bulgaria, Canada and Italy
• Videogames are extremely expensive to make so they need to sell thousands
• Assassin Creed III: Liberation was too big to fail
• Has a clear and communicatcble story that has an understandable narrative
• The number of sales didn't live up to expectations
• A Sequel and a spin-off
• Wasn't a typical PSVita game
• A hand-held system means you feel more imersive in the system, however
• It was re-released on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 
• Consumers in the west tend to prefer home consoles instead of consoles on the go and that why the PSvita was more popular in Japan
• Assassins Creed's III sold 3 million copies, however Liberation sold 600,000
• Avatar is the technical term for a character you play as in the videogame
• The life bar, map and weapons selector is known as the HUD (heads up display)
• Ludo-narrative dissonance, the gameplay elements get in the way of the story elements
• Trailer:
• High-production value suggests it was made by a major company
• Main protagonist is a mixed race black woman
• Potentially this game is trying to aim towards a mixed race women (A unique selling point)
• Targeted a mass audience as if it was a movie
• Uses black fade
• Slow-motion
• There is no gameplay, parts of a videogame that is interactive
• Only cutscene footage
• The trailer is a link to Sony's distribution Service
• The trailer has a clear and easy identifiable narrative
• A story of a former slave who fights back, such as Django Unchained (Intertextuality)
• Over the top action and violence, makes it looks like the production value is high
• Set in Louisiana
• Offers the audience the pleasure/gratification of escapism
• Touches upon Slavery, can create a controversial topic
• Excellent example of digital convergence. videogame advertised on youtube that acts like a movie trailer 
• Didn't include the sci-fi elements of the game so that the producer could target a larger audience
• David Hesmondhalgh: The Media Industries
• Horizontal and Vertical integration
• Monopolisation
• Curran and Seaton: Profit and Power
• The media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the profit and power
• Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality
• More socially diverse patterns of ownership can create more varied and adventurous media productions

Death Stranding (2019)

• Death Stranding x Rick & Morty
• Unconventional 
• Subversive
• Mysterious
• Hermeneutic
• Leaves a lot of question
• 
  

• Livingstone and Hunt: Regulation


• BBFC
• Due to the digital technologies, the regulation of all media industries are widely ineffective
• The increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies and transformations in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation and risk.
• PEGI is the company that regulates videogames

• PEGI
• PEGI replaced ELSPA
• In 1982, a game called Custor's Revenege was uploaded to Atari. It involves raping a tied up native American woman.
• In 1992, a game called Night Trap was the first game that got BBFC certificate  
• The regulation of video games inefficient, age ratings would not work, so PEGI was used instead

Target audience is 14-21 males

Lots of dark colours

Capture the Zeitgeist

Could suggest why having a female lead in Liberation may have not gone too well

The Proairetic code of the hood promotes violence

Mise-en-scene of weapons 

Read Dead Redemption 2

• The higher the age rating, the younger the audience
• Completely illogical 

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Ubisoft:

• 90's 
• Indiana Jones The Last Crusade: The Action Game
• 00's
• Battle of Prince of Persia
• 10's
• Farcry 4

Super Mario Land

• Came out 1989 on the Gameboy

Plato system

• Started in 1960s
• touch-screen activated

How significant are economic factors in the magazine industry? Woman and Adbusters

How significant are economic factors in the videogame Industry? Assassin's Creed III: Liberation

• First commercialised in Japan
• Space Invaders was so popular that it lead to a shortage of 200 yen coins
• Entire blocks in building were rented out and filled with space invader arcade games
• America followed with Atari
• One such example being Centipede
• At this time, Nintendo existed
• UK
• ZX-Spectrum
• Famous for extremely low-budget games (bedroom coders)
• Early experimentations and generic fluidity

• 1980s videogame crash
• The game that supposedly ruined the game industry was ET
• Games started getting more dull and boring
• Nintendo
• Released a Famicom/NES, which was Nintendo's first console
• They gathered all the American videogames into one console
• Started issuing RPG, role-playing games, such as DragonQuest
• Super Mario Bros came out 1985
• The NES revived videogames
• This created a huge division between American games and Japanese Games
• Japan had more rpg games whilst the US had more of a open world game
• Sega vs Nintendo

• Super Street Fighter changed videogames because it was one of the first multiplayer games

Reverse Pyschology was used to get people to buy the first Playstation in UK

• In London they set up clubs for young adults to take part for Playstations

Digitally distributed: The process of having an online shop sell you games, like Steam

The Magazine Industry

To what extent are woman and Adbusters examples are specialised and institutionalised media productions?
Make reference to their distribution and circulation

IPC (producer of women magazine) bought it's rivals Woman's Own Newnes and Woman's Weekly Amalgamated in order to eliminate competition, this is an example of horizontal integration and conglomeration.
The IPC is now a subsidiary of Time Inc UK

Time Inc/ IPC is dominantly aimed towards middle age white people
"Woman serves the fastest-growing and most influential audience in the uk" - Women aged 40+ for woman magazine

The audience is 40+ and is for mass market (they are basic)

The magazine is explicitly telling it's audience to follow the rules of society (Hegemony)

IPC owns other identical woman magazines because it integrates all women magazines monopolising that side of the market.

IPSO is extremely similar to the PCC

George Gerbner: Cultivation Theory

• The idea that prolonged and heavy exposure to TV cultivates. The long exposure of the idea reinforces the ideology/stereotype of that group.

Curran and Seaton: Power and Media Industries

• The media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the profit and power
• Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality
• More socially diverse patterns of ownership can create more varied and adventurous media productions
• With this power, media producers cultivates ideologies

1985 Woman Advert

• Aimed towards younger audiences
• There is a prize for a car in it
• It captures the neon colours and feel of the 80s
• Still has a section about women
• Aimed towards working class women still
• IPC is now known as Time Inc, this is an example of horizontal integration, we are then left with a product which is bland and has no challengers
• IPC is a major company: opposite of Indi or Independent 
• They are a conglomerate
• Sparked a monopolisation

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1. the words "A-level" are repeated a lot, suggesting that the target audience isn't a-level and that the magazine is aspirational 
2. Images of simple face make-ups are generic and could be anybodies face
3. Every face is white, that the assumption here is that the target audience is white
4. Assumes that the target audience women like make-up
5. The term "tactics" is symbolic for war, and that war is too looking good for attracting men, reinforcing hegemonic norms
6. This article is forcing the audience to question itself
7. The article heavily implies that all women have limited aspirations 
8. Blatantly telling the audience that they are ugly by including the 'exam'
9. If one company is creating media, there we see only one ideology

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Power and Media Industries (Straight Outta Compton)

The film is a blockbuster

Movie posters with a yellow background signify comedy, very independent with mainstream enough script so its accessible enough for the main public.

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Curran and Seaton: Power and  media industries


The media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the profit and power

Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality

More socially diverse patterns of ownership can create more varied and adventurous media productions.

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Straight Outta Compton
Produced by legendary pictures who entered in partnership with Universal Pictures (The films distributor) in 2014.

Universal is owned by NBC Universal, a Comcast company.

Conglomeration: The process of a big company, owning many products and services, being formed

Horizontal Integration: When one big company buys another big company to get money of it.

Vertical Integration: When a company buys another company of that are involved in the making of a film.

Fuck the police

Gangsta/hiphop rap

Explicit

For late teens

Highly offensive/controversial/racist

Directly attacking white police officers

Negative representation of the police

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsbWEF1Sju0

• Appeals to a young black male audience who may relate to the characters
• There wasn't a lot of violence,swearing and sex scenes in the trailer, but there is in the movie
• The trailer has a political message
• Blurs out swearing so they can show the trailer in other films
• Dull piano music goes to uplifting, exciting hip hop music to give the audience goosebumps.
• Trailer gives us a narrative
• Rags to Riches story
• The trailer is light-hearted, it does show some serious point but also tries to be quite funny
• Don't know who the actors are, they are not the most well known, but we are given the characters names.
• The main selling point is the NWA
• Synergy

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Different way a movie can be marketed: 

1. Poster
2. Trailer
3. Leaflets
4. Social Media
5. Toys
6. Billboards
7. Magazines
8. Streaming Platforms
9. Websites

Marketing is the process of selling something

The average amount of money used to advertise a film is $39 Million

BBFC
The British Board of Film Classification (regulates the film industry in the UK)

UC: Suitable for unsupervised children
U: Suitable for all
PG: Parental Guidance
12/12A: Suitable for 12 years and over
15: Suitable for 15 and over
18: Suitable for only adults
R18: Only to be shown in licensed cinemas or sex shops
E: Doesn't need a classification

The BBFC is the regulation of theatrical releases (cinemas) and physical releases e.g DVD's, not the internet

The BBFC regulations is not very effective in the UK, partly due to digital technology.

Synergy: Is when 2, or more, industries combine

For Straight Outta Compton  it's the music and film

Film is a specialised institution

Regulations: The Rules and instructions a media product must follow


Key theory: Sonia Livingstone and Peter Hunt: Regulations

The increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rising convergent