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.