Need to do List

Need to do                                                            yes                        no

SLENDER                                                              x                   
FREE TO PLAY                                                                                 
TOMB RAIDER                                                                   
FRESH NEW GAME
LOOKING IN TO A NEW GAME (INDIE GAME)

Slender The Eight Pages

Slender: The Eight Pages is set in the middle of a forest during night and is played from a first person perspective. The player's objective is to collect eight pages located in various areas of the forest while avoiding the Slender Man, a faceless humanoid entity with tentacle like appendages sprouting from his back which appear when the player is on the brink of death. The player is equipped with only a flashlight to see through the dark; it has limited battery life and will eventually shut down permanently if left on for an extended period of time.

The player character also has limited stamina as running will tire out the character and decrease their maximum walking speed. Slender Man occasionally appears in the player's field of vision, and game over occurs when either the sanity drops below a certain point (measured inversely by the intensity of the static) or if the Slender Man comes into contact with the player, which will turn you around and end the game. The game over screen shows Slender Man's "face" up close and blinking static pulses. As the player collects pages, the fog in the forest grows thicker and Slender Man appears closer to the player character, though the sprinting speed slowly increases as well.

Development and Release

After the game's release, several other games were released that were based on Slender: The Eight Pages, usually based on exploration mechanics with similar AI for the enemy. The most popular games based on Slender: The Eight Pages are Slenderman's Shadow which was released in several maps.

In Version 0.9.4 there is an unlockable "Daytime Mod". To unlock this mode, the player must beat the game as normal, but now there is a new ending where the player awakes in the daytime after collecting all eight pages and is caught by Slender Man. After waking up, the player can walk around in the daytime for a few seconds before the credits roll. "Daytime Mode" is simply during the day and without a flashlight. If the player beats "Daytime Mode" the ending will be the same as before, only the player wakes up at night. After the credits roll, the player will have unlocked "$20 Mode". In this mode, gameplay is more or less the same as normal mode, except if the player sees Slender Man a song called "20 Dollars" by American rap artist Ron Browz starts playing. This is a reference to a fan originated meme about Slender Man, stating that if you give Slender Man 20 dollars, he'll leave you alone. This is the only version in which the player selects these modes in the "Options" portion of the menu screen, and this is also the only version in which two hidden modes can be played at once ("Daytime Mode" and "$20 Mode"). However, the "$20 Mode" was removed in version 0.9.7 due to a copyright issue.

Media

Syed
Syed is from the masueds family, the masued family are an indian family who live in walford. They Own a Curry stand in the market and own the argee Bargee in eastenders. they are also portrayed in eastenders as being a religious Family. Syed is finding it hard to live near his family because of him being Gay.

Anwar Kharrel
Anwar is porttrayed as a young pick and choose Muslim, paskistani boy, meaning he chooses whick parts of his religion he will practise when convienient and which parts he will not when it is inconvient.
He is not a very devout muslim because he takes drugs at parties, drinks, partakes in premarital sex and even eats pork, although he does pray 5 times a day and believes that homosexulity goes against his religion.

Conglomerate Gta Map

Targeting Local Audiences Essay "Unfinished

Targeting Local Audiences

In the Gaming world today, Most Games Are Targeted at a National Audience, or a Local Audience. Game localization or game globalization refers to the preparation of video games for other locales. This adaptation to the standards of other countries covers far more than simply translation of language. There are different areas, such as linguistic, cultural, hardware and software, legal differences, graphics identity and music.Good quality localisation and QA are vital for an optimal game experience. For Localized Gaming, Heres An Example from Final Fantasy from a the Edge Magazine article.

 It took seven months for a localised version Final Fantasy VII to hit US shores after its original 1997 Japanese release. It took another two months for it to reach Europe and Australia. It took a full year before Dragon Quest VIII finally came out in the US after its 2004 Japanese release, and another five months before it arrived in the dense cultural and linguistic patchwork of Europe.

Thankfully, the days in which waiting was one of game fans' most familiar pursuits are largely over. The internet, fuelling feverish global anticipation of new releases and instant downloads, not to mention piracy, has now pushed all game releases on to the international scale from the moment they're announced – or leaked.

In the case of the series Final Fantasy, the developer, Square-Enix opts for an in-house model. European versions of Final Fantasy, such as the Spanish one, have the user interface in Spanish but the script is not dubbed. It is only subtitled and the English version is used for the voiceover. The cultural modifications have mainly to do with humour, inter-textual references and cultural references from Japanese or American culture.

In China, They would have to change a video game in it contained, explosive Bombs or even Nuclear Bombs, for example call of duty, they would have to change it or even ban the game from the country. China dont have most video games because they usually think its a waste of time. Companys have to produce gaming equipment with aorund 50 games changed into itas these are not seen as consoles by the chinese goverment. Another Example is the PC version of the game wolfenstein was withdrawn from circulation in Germany in 1994. this is Because the Nazi swastika mostly in the game, with the nazi anthem being play in the background. this was banned because of the social issues that the game may to the offensive emblems. Another example is that in china all consoles are banned as they are thought to corrupt the minds of the youth. they have been banned in china since 2000 .

Gta V Trailer Analysis

Rockstar released their well anticipated 2nd trailer for GTA V on the 14th of November. The new tralier to me felt like a film, it was filled with action and drama. it starts with the opening credits and the hit stevie wonder song "skeletons"it then starts to show an extreme long shot of los santos.

it also shows the house of the first protaganist, where there is a tennis court, showing the first protaganist is rich, then it shows a fancy sports car outside the house and shows "Rockstar Presents, you can then hear in the background arguments going on in the kitchen between the first protaganists family. In this scene we are introduced to the first protaganist, it gives away what his lifestyle is like, it shows that he has the perfect luxery lifestyle, he has a fancy sports car, he has a huge house, then it shows the first character, he is relaxing by his pool drinking whiskey.

The Second scene introduces us to the second male protaganist in Grand Theft Auto V, he is shown to the audience as being deranged, and mentally unstable. It opens the scene in a bar, and theres drunk people outside and then you see the second protaganist beating up the enemies in the bar, there is alot of jump cuts in the scene and then you see the character in a house and he setting the house on fire and blowing up the house and its like a film when you watch it this part in the trailer. Then futhur on in the trailer, you see the character jumping off a train which go's into another train which leaves this shot exploding.

Then you are introduced to the third Protaganist, Who is shown to the audience as being quite rich and having cars, and it shows the audience that there will be alot of racing or car missions involving this character. It shows Car Coming out of a van and its shows a movie trailer shot for Gta.

Finally at the end, we see the main characters are introduced together, which shows the audience that there might be a mission where they all work together and looking through the picture, they do a sign "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil". So something bad is happening in that clip which is making audience wanting to know whats going to happen.

The Sims Online

The sims online takes the gameplay from the sims and brings it into a consistenct online universe, where all the sims are controlled by real people.
The Genre of The sims online is Simulation, Simulation games are created with the goal of putting the player in control of a certain activity while attempting to make it as realistic as possible, basicially all electronic games are simulations. Most simulation games are not story- driven, since they concentrate on describing general activities, not concrete situations.
A free trial of The Sims, allows you to play the games for free as a trial for 14 days. After the 14 days if the player wants to continue playing, the user will need to purchase a subscription for £6.30 a month. The Sims Online (also known as EA-Land) was a massively multiplayer online variation on Maxis's highly popular computer game The Sims. It was published by Electronic Arts and released on December 17, 2002 for Microsoft Windows.

Four cities had special rules: Dragon's Cove was known as the "hardcore city", as there were a number of harder game objectives to consider when playing here. For example, a Sim would lose energy when traveling long distances, and the virtual costs for items were doubled. Betaville was a city created for the purpose of testing new features. A few examples of these features were the ability to create a family of up to four adult Sims, with adjustable free will levels; bills and fires and firemen. Another was Test Center, where the player could never move out of the city. Test Center Sims also started with three times the start-up money

Obtaining skill points was an important aspect of gameplay. They were necessary for receiving more money from paying objects and earning promotions in the offered career tracks. They were occasionally needed for special interactions with other players, such as serenading. A skill could be increased at a faster rate when multiple Sims in the lot worked on the same skill simultaneously.
The game had six core skills: Mechanical, Cooking, Charisma, Body, Creativity, and Logic. Skill level ranged in number from 0 to 20.99.

Example of symbiosis - Mountain Dew - Halo 4

This is an example of symbiosis, Symbiosis means where two companies come together to make a profit, This picture shows halo 4 and mountain dew coming together and making profit.

Top 20 Games

At the top of the chart is Assassins Creed III, Which just recently hit the stores on the 31st of October. it is published by ubisoft, and as you can see through the chart there has been 3 games that are published by ubisoft and are also on the top 20 video game chart.

Fifa 13 was released in september and still is at the top of the chart. it is published by Ea which has also got 3 games which is on the top 20 games, as you can see, you can play fifa 13 on the ps2, that is because brazil and india mostly play on the ps2.

Looking through all the games, they have different target audiences, they have a few of kids games, for example, lego batman 2 : Dc Super Heroes, Moshi Monsters :Moshlings Theme Park, and proffessor Layton and the miracle Mask.

There are overall, 19 Franchise games, and just One new ip game which is dishonored, it shows that franchised games sell more than new ip games however Dishonored has beat 10 franchised games in the top 20 chart.

As you can see there are alot of publishers that dominates each other, and its is interesting to see that there are three EA games and Three Ubisoft Games, there are also 2 activison games which audience is aimed as Children.
Looking through the top 20 games chart, you can see that there are only two first party games, forza horizon and pokemon black and white 2. You can see the third party games sell more than first party games, the reason why is because you can play third party games on different platform holders. and on first party games you can only play it one platformer. 

Vivendi

Skylander Giants

 Skylanders Giants

Skylanders Giants is a 2012 video game in the skyl;anders series, and a direct sequel to the 2011 game skylanders, spyro's adventure. As the title suggests, it features larger skylanders known as giants along with other game play manchanics.

it was released on october 17, 2012 in austrailia, on october 19th, 2012 in europe, and was released on october 21, 2012 in north america, and will be released on november 22, 2012 in north america, and will be released on november 22, 2012 in north america.

Skylander - giants

Developer - Toys for Bob, n - space.

Distributor - Xpec entertainment

series - spyro the dragon

Publisher - Activision, Neoplay, square - enix

Platform - Nintendo 3DS, Playstation 3, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360.

Modes - Single- player, Cooperative, Muliti-player, Competitive, PvP, Online Mulitiplayer.

Media distrubution - Blu-ray Disc, 3ds game card, nintendo optical disc.

Synergy and Symbiosis

Synergy

Synergy is where one thing is coming together with another to create a better final outcome. it Means That The Whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
For example Technologys support this process - web, dvd, downloading.
Symbiosis
Different companies work together to enhance a of related products. For example, Twilight with do spin-offs like easter eggs or for games like angry birds can do easter eggs

Examples - breaking dawn - Film Titles

Summit Entertainment

soundtrack

Film

Symbiosis

This is when different companies work together to promote a range of related products. for example, angry birds would enable spinsoffs like happy meals, easters. toys, and the distrubutor will agree licenising deals for companies to make and sell merchandising.

Zynga and Farmville 2

Zynga is a provider of social game services located in california, Social Networking websites such as Facebook, and google+. The company develops games that work both on mobile platforms like apple i0s and android.

Zynga Business Model

Zynga is supported in Two Ways, via Credit card payments and partner businesses.

Many Zynga games require Energy to play, Energy is used to engage in missions, it is a core feature is many games, Each Game consumes a certain amount of energy, after spending energy, it takes up to an hour to replenish 1 energy to play 1 mission. This can take several hours to replenish all energy to the characters maximum limit.

Zynga games are linked to offers from a number of partners in order to obtain game credits, which would allow them to replenish there characters energy or recieve currency that could buy other virtual goods.

A sequel to Farmville, is Farmville 2 which was released in september 2012.
it is avalible as an adobe flash application via the social - networking website facebook and microsoft's Msn Games, and was for time available as an app for the iphone, ipod touch and ipad.
The game is a freemium game, which means this is no cost to play however players have the option of purchasing premium content. it was once the most popular facebook game.
On 26 june 2012, farmvile 2 was unveiled. this version of farmville will be more 3d, and will allow viewing from multiple angles. also, zynga mentioned that the items farmed in game are going to be able to be used to make other items.

Zynga Inc., the biggest maker of social games, reported third-quarter revenue that surpassed analysts' estimates as "FarmVille 2" became the most popular application on Facebook Inc.'s social network.



Rockstar Studios

Rockstar Family

Rockstar North - Rockstar North was formerly known as DMA Design Ltd, it is a british video game developer which is based in edinburgh, scotland, it was best known for creating the lemming franchises back then and creating grand theft auto.

The company is part of rockstar studios, however it is owned by take two interactive.

Indie Games

Indie Games

Independent video games commonly referred to as indie games are video games created by individuals or small teams without video game publisherfinancial support. Indie games often focus on innovation and rely on digital distribution. Indie gaming has seen a rise in the last few years, primarily due to new online distribution methods and development tools.

There is no exact widely-accepted definition of what constitutes an "indie game". 

However, generally indie games share certain commonalities. Indie games are developed by individuals, small teams, or small independent companies. And, typically, indie games are smaller than mainstream titles. Indie game developers are not financially backed by publishers and usually have little to no budget available, thereby generally relying on Internet digital distribution schemes. Being independent, indie developers do not have controlling interests or creative limitations, and do not require publisher approval as mainstream game developers usually do. Design decisions are thus also not limited by the allocated budget. Furthermore, smaller team sizes increase individual involvement.

Therefore indie games are known for innovation, creativity, and artistic experimentation. Developers may also be limited in ability to create graphics, so they have to rely on gameplay innovation. Both classic game genres and new gameplay innovation has been seen. 

 Super Meat Boy 

In This Case Study, I chose Super Meat Boy, I thought i should of chose a game that alot of people have played, so it would be interesting to reseach about.

Super Meat Boy is an independent video game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes and developed by Team Meat. It is the successor to McMillen and Jonathan McEntee's October 2008 Flash game Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy was released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010, on Windows PCs in November 2010, on Mac OS X a year later in November 2011.

Super Meat Boy is a platform game in which players control a small, dark red, cube-shaped character named Meat Boy, who must save his girlfriend Bandage Girl from Dr. Fetus. The game is divided into chapters, which together contain over 300 levels. Players attempt to reach the end of each level, represented by Bandage Girl, while avoiding crumbling blocks, saw blades, and various other fatal obstacles. The player can jump and run on platforms, and can jump off or slide down walls. The core gameplay requires fine control and split-second timing, and has been compared to traditional platform games such as Super Mario Bros. and Ghosts'n Goblins.

The game was acclaimed by critics. In 2010, it received awards for Most Challenging Game from IGN, and for Best Downloadable Game from GameSpot and GameTrailers. Critics lauded the game's precise control, retro artwork, and soundtrack. Reviewers generally praised the game's challenge, although some warned that not all consumers would appreciate the level of difficulty. The game has been a commercial success, and has sold more than one million copies as of January 2012.

The original Meat Boy is an Adobe Flash game created by Edmund McMillen and programmed by Jonathan McEntee. The game was developed over a three week period, and was released on Newgrounds on October 5, 2008. By April 2009, it had garnered over 840,000 views at Newgrounds, and 8 million overall. A map pack for the Flash version was released on December 8, 2008. McMillen began development of Super Meat Boy after Nintendo and Microsoft requested that he make a game for their download services, WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade, as they were impressed by the success of his Flash games Aether and Meat Boy At the time, he was working with Tommy Refenes on a Flash game titled Grey Matter. Although McMillen initially pitched the companies a sequel to Gish orAether, the pair decided to form Team Meat and work on an expanded version of Meat Boy instead. Team Meat also includes soundtrack composer Danny Baranowsky and sound effects designer Jordan Fehr. According to the developers, Super Meat Boy is "a big throwback to a lot of super hardcore NES classics like Ghosts'n Goblins, Mega Man, and the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros 2", with the plot written as "a mash-up of every videogame story from the early 90s". The game was explicitly designed by the team to be reminiscent of Super Mario Bros.

Modes of game development

The Tent Pole Buisiness

The Tent Pole Business model is similar to the business model alot of hollywood studios, The plan is that  pubilsher releases one blockbuster game, that is accompanied with Marketing and investing, The money made from the Game supports development of the other creative games.

For example, Grand theft auto brings in alot of money for rockstar, which allows them to invest in smaller gamjes, like bully, manhunt, and future games like max payne 3 and la-noire.

 Another example, EA rely on the annual updates of madden and fifa to create cash for reaseacrh and development of other games.

Hollywood Model

Hollywood model - The idea is to contract out parts of games design to other companies to order lower development costs, so instead of having a permanant in house development team of 50+, developer can have a team of 10-20 piecing the work together undertaken by specialist external teams.

For example, Stunt teams, director of photography, scriptwriters, etc - all elements are contracted out, just like in the production of a AAA blockbuster movie.

Independant game development

Independent game development - unitl recently games development was a costly buisinees, usually requiring a development was a costly business, usually requiring a developer to have a publishing contract in order to pay for the development and the lincense fee required to develop for a particular console. 
However, now there is a growing 'indie game' market thanks to open source software, apples app store and xbox live marketplace small teams and even individuals can create games, get them distributed and make money.

The point to make is that because of new technology, convergence and new ways of distrubution we have a return to the bedroom development culture weird, wonderful, often abstract games - so it means not all games have to be GTA 4.

Jane Mcgonigal - Reality is broken

• ·         More than 10 million “hard Core” gamer's in the United Kingdom, France and Germany spend at least twenty Hours a week playing.
• 
  
• ·         Collectively, the planet is now spending more than 3 billion hours a week gaming.
• 
  
• ·         Meanwhile, the scientific journal Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking reported in 2009 that 61 per cent of surveyed CEO's  CFO's, and other senior executives say they take daily game breaks at work.
• 
  
• In the United States, there are 182 million active gamers.

• Collectively, there are 4 million gamers in the Middle East, 105 million in India, 100 million in Europe and 200 million in China.

• There are more than 10 million gamers in the UK, France, and Germany that spend at least twenty hours a week playing.

• 5 million 'extreme gamers' in the US that play an average of 45 hours a week.

• The planet is spending more than 3 billion hours a week gaming.

The Hot Coffee Mod

Grand Theft Auto "San andreas"

What was the hot coffee Mod?

In june 2005, A Mini-game for grand theft auto "san andreas" named the hot coffee Mod was released by patrick wildenborg, a 38-year old modder from the netherlands. The name "hot coffee" refers to the way the released game alludes to the unseen sex scenes.

How did the mod affect San Andreas's Age rating ?

By the middle of July 2005, The minigame started to get discovered by politicians which started to get controversy, which meant the game was going to get rerated to an adult game, and pulled from shelves, however the minigame was then removed which meant that the rated will stay the same.

What was the impact for each of the stakeholders?

For the developers, they had to becareful making gta iv, so they dont do a silly mistake, there game had to be taken off shelves.

For the platform holders would of been affected because they would of being a bad name and would put people off on the consoles. Retails would have to take the item off the shelves, it would be known as a recall, they would of lost sales.

Media Essay : The Controller Revolution

The Controller Revolution

(How Have they Affected the Video-games industry)

Have You Noticed Anything Changing lately ?, Remember when we can just use a normal controller to play on the xbox, And on the playstation. it was just you controlling the controller, but now on the xbox 360, you can use your body from the kinect motion sensor to play a game like dance central where you can dance in your living room without using any controller at all. Same with the playstation 3, however you can play a game using a handheld motion sensor wand. As you can see the Controller revolution is Changing quickly. In this essay I will explore how these controllers are changing in the video-games industry.

Nintendo started of as a card company, and it started to develop arcade games because of technology changing. Nintendo created the wii motion plus which is added on the wii controller, which creates a more accurate shot to play the games. The wii is most likely to be targeted at a family,  because they would find it more easier and more fun . The Nintendo Ds is targeted at younger children, and casual gamers, because it has less control buttons for casual gamers which means it would be more easier and for the children, games are produced by nintendo as a first party develop and most of the games they develop are targeted at younger children. Overall Nintendo controls are changing fast. The Wii U, is an upcoming video game console from nintendo which changes the relationship between you and your television, it also features the wii motion plus and is introducing a new control, The Wii U gamepad, where it has control buttons to use but also features a touch screen where you can interact with that and it would show up on the television.

Microsoft introduces the kinect for xbox 360, The kinect has become the fastest selling gizmo ever. Kinect for Xbox 360 changes how you watch TV, movies and sports, play games and listen to music. It lets you enjoy endless entertainment by using your voice or moving your body. The kinect enables users to control and interact with the xbox 360 without the need to touch the xbox controller. It features spoken commands. For example, when you turn your xbox on, it directs you to the home page, you just have to simply say xbox for the kinect to turn and then you don't have to use the controller, plus you can either watch a film or play a game. Its Aimed at broadening the xbox 360s audience beyond its typical gamer base. The Kinect is mostly targeted at a family audience, There are games like Kinect Sports which is created by the developer, Kinect sports brings family together, and keeps them entertained with games they can get involved. Microsoft is a big competitor against Nintendo and sony.

Playstation Move is a highly precise motion controller that works with the playstation eye camera to track and translate the players movement, delivering the most accurate gaming experience yet. 24 games available this season for playstation move and 15 more expected at the end of the year. The PlayStation Move motion controller features an orb at the head which can glow in any of a full range of colours. The PlayStation Move navigation controller is a one-handed supplementary controller designed for use in conjunction with the PlayStation Move motion controller for certain types of gameplay. Sony has made the playstation move as their own major platform launch which has an aggressive marketing campaign to support it. Playstation Move has targeted many audiences, like families, children and many adults, It supplies games that would suit their genre in games.

Conclusion. 
As you can see when nintendo introduced the wii, with the motion sensor. You have noticed that technology has changed and Nintendo, sony and Microsoft are introducing the motion sensor where you can hold a handheld controller wand or nothing at all, the motion sensor will capture your every move and give the best gaming experience yet. 

GTA IV

 GTA IV

Grand Theft Auto IV is an action game, it was released in 2008 published by Rockstar Games, and developed by UK game developer Rockstar North. It has been released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 video game consoles, and for the Windows operating system. The price to make GTA IV was approximately $100 million, and Microsoft paid $50 million to make the game DLC. The price to pay for GTA IV is around £15-20. It's playable on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Overall, Grand Theft Auto IV took over 1000 people and more than three and a half years to complete, with a total cost estimated at approximately $100 million, making it one of the most expensive games ever developed.