Videogames 1

SEGA Advert 1990s - 

- targeted at young men through the use of innuendo
- absolutely no reference to women
- a pastime, something unnecessary
- uses sex to sell, as though the game could be sexually fulfilling







Videogames are much harder for a wide audience to experience because people need a video game console in order to play it, and it is much more expensive than most media products. They tend to target a niche audience, and video games are much more interactive than most other media products as well. As well as this, they are also stereotypically played by a much younger audience and doesn't reach or appeal to older audiences. It is a specialised industry. They rely on servers and online access in order to be multiplayer, however due to this aspect they can be non-permanent.

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL - this assumes that the audience are stupid, and the people will become what they are watching or what they are doing. This is a commonly held belief with videogames.

The reason videogames have a bias and many people are against them is because they are so hard to understand, and due to the constant disequilibrium within them they often mean repeating what you have already done in order to get to an ending - many people prefer instant or much more easy resolution and gratification from the media product.

the first video game was 'SPACE WAR', released in 1962. It was largely developed using military software in the US, and computers were still fairly new. It was originally an experiment. The very first few games were multiplayer roleplaying games similar to 'Dungeons and Dragons'. Taito then developed 'SPACE INVADERS', which is an arcade game, and was a shooting game - one of the first of it's time. They have a dedicated cabinet, and is publicly available. It was so popular that Japan suffered a shortage of 100Yen coins.

In America, one of the games that caused the 'arcade boom' was 'CENTIPEDE', another game which was played within an arcade and had a dedicated cabinet with a trackpad. Shortly, things like Donkey Kong was released.

What developed from this was 'micro computers', which meant people could play games at home. Bedroom coders within the UK began developing their own games, and companies like Atari picked these up and made them compatible for the ZX Spectrum console. Many of these early video games were born out of having fun, socialising and drinking. These were low quality but expensive for the time, however due to this bad quality the video game industry suffered a crash in the 1980s.

Atari went bankrupt, and this was due to the E.T. video game which they only spent a moth developing and therefore when it was released it sold very little copies. In turn, they were forces to bury so many copies as it was a cheaper way of getting rid of them.

However, Japan was thriving, and creating games such as Dragon Quest. Many newer games are actually developed from this, and many western games are inspired by successful Japanese ones. Japanese games were much more graphic-heavy, and relied on a narrative, however Western games were more puzzle focussed.

In 1986, Super Mario was created for Nintendo. To this day, it is still the highest grossing videogame in history. It is marketed specifically towards kids, and is easily recognisable through it's soundtrack and graphics, which were much more advanced compared to many others. Mario is easy to understand and play, however hard to master.

In 1994, the Sony PlayStation 1 was released. It's advert was interesting, as it uses almost reverse psychology in order to get people to buy it. The parody nature of the advert is interesting, and what could have appealed to the audience is that you are being rebellious and brave and daring. It uses satire, which is quite sophisticated, and challenges the ideas at the time. By using something complex like this, as well as using more hip soundtracks and taking consoles to clubs, they were attracting a much older audience.

The Japanese game 'Final Fantasy 7' incredibly linear, and the game had a set path you had to follow. In comparison to this, Fallout was much more free and you could do pretty much what you pleased. This displays the difference between Japanese and Western games.

Modern games such as Red Dead Redemption are major games, and they are developed by a large team and take many hours to make - pretty much thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of hours. These are called AAA games, and other examples are COD, Halo and The Last of Us. In comparison to this, Indie games are made by smaller teams.

One game that has received backlash is Lara Croft, which is said to have been made due to the fact that the player is staring at her ass and it was much nicer to look at than a man's.

In the modern day, people rely less on physical copies and downloads are much more popular. Companies like Steam are set up for people to be able to download. What makes this quite bad is that many games get lost due to them only being able to be accessed through download, and serves an be shut down in order to stop people being able to play them.

WHAT MAKES VIDEOGAMES A SPECIALISED INDUSTRY:

• Interactivity
• Huge expenditure of resources
• Much higher RRP (due to hardware as well as software)
• Significantly longer length
• A dedicated, 'core' target audience
• Games are developed for a specific hardware or multiplatform

For Component 1 Section B, we are looking at Assassins Creed 3: Liberation, created by Ubisoft in 2012 for Playstation Vita, and had a re-release is HD on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5RxYUw4DFY - How does this advert target a specialised and generalised audience?

Videogames are regulated by PEGI, and are regulated differently.