Media Essay- UNFINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In this essay i shall talk about the importance of localising a game for national audiences.

Localisation is adapting a game to match each countries norms, values and language, and preferances individually. Localisation is one of the most important aspects of a games production as a games national popularity and acceptance very much depends on how successfully a games company localises its product.

For the most part localisation only consists of minor adjustments to a game ie language however there are examples of when a companys attempt to localiser is alot more drastic such as Wolfenstein 1992 which was banned on the pc in Germany and the console version was heavily edited removing all Swastika's and the boss modelled from Adolf Hitler was renamed the 'Staatmiester'. Another even more drastic example oif localistion comes from China where all consoles have been banned as they are seen as corrupting the minds of the youth despite China being the largest producer of consoles worldwide. So instead video game companys have to produce gaming devices with around 50 games pre programmed into it as these are not seen as consoles by the Chinese government and also China is the number 1 pc gaming country.

Distributors (unfinished)

The distributor of Skylanders is 'theinthing'

'The distributor of Angry Birds is 'Chillingo'

The Distributor of GTA V is 'Take two Interactive'

Advantage Distribution

PEGI-Video game ratings

PEGI or the Pan European Game information was started to help parents and players make sensible decisions on buying video games. PEGI was first launched in the spring of 2003 and since then has overcome almost all competition and is now the most used game age rating system in Europe. The idea behind PEGI is to make sure that gamers are not absorbing content from games that may be to mature for them. A example of how itis used in the new Grand Theft Auto V which will be rated an 18+ due to its violent, criminal and sexual nature. PEGI origonally was only used as guidance for how old someone had to be to play a game however now PEGI's age rating are enforced by law.

I believe the main issie that PEGI will be facing now is the rise in digital distribution as now it becomes essentially impossible to stop someone from buying a game deemed to  mature for them when all you can access about them is their gamer profile and card details.

Lord of the Rings Online

Lord of the Rings Online is falls under the genre of 'Fantasy'
To Download the game is copletely free but to subscribe it costs  $14.99 per month $41.85 per 3 months $77.70 per 6 months.
Lord of the Rings Onloine is differant in comparison to your normal console based game as it is a completely free roaming (open world) based game meaning that millions of players are placed into a server and what they can do if left completely to their imagination rather than pre determined quests in an order.




Lord of the Rings Online has been developed and published by 'Turbine' and 'Midway Games' on April 24th 2007.
Lord of the Rings Online is available worldwide.

GTA V trailer

The start of the GTA V traioler has the song 'Skeltons' by Stevie Wonder. The first shot of the trailer is an establishing shot of the game are area Los Santos a remaking of Los angeles. This is to show the graphic capabilities of this game. after this the music softens with a voice over narrative with a selection of slow panning shots. this is becauese the trailer is introducing the first protagonist who has a easy living lifestyle. this judgement is made clearer by a wide variety of low angle shots and long shots of his house and possessions which also gives the impression that this character is in a position of power.

From here the music start to liven up again and there cuts start to get  quicker and more unpredictable. also the first shot of this sequence is again a establishing shot but this time of a more inner city like scene.  This is because the trailer is introducing the second protagonist who is a lot  more rugged. This judgement becomes alot more clearer when the trailer transforms almost into an action film with alot of shots of explosions and action sequences. this part of the trailer also has alot of close ups of this characters face to show his clearly crazy and animalistic style that he will bring.

From here the trailer intoduces the final Protagonist but doesnt give much away in terms of his character type. instead it shows his wealth with again a variety of action sequences involving a multitude of differant vehicles.

GTA V so far...

GTA V

GTA V is the fith and latest installment of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. The GTA franchise is created in the United Kingdom by the Houser brothers. It is mainly developed by the the fromer DMA design but now named Rockstar North, and published by Rockstar Games. Since the first release of GTA in 1997 there have been 4 more installments in the series including a variety of spin of such as 'China Wars' and Liberty city Stories'.


All of the games in the GTA franchise are based haevliy on famous US locations. the gameplay is heavily open world free roaming meaning the player can choose when s/he will do the main story quests as well as side missons or just simply do what they want in the huge open world.

TOP 20 GAMES

From this chart it becomes apparent that the most successful publisher is EA at the moment having 3 of their games on the list all of which are in the top 6. However it also shows the worth of having an established franchise as all of the top 5 are a established franchise. However it also show that there is some worth to having a new IP with a few appearances ion this list such as ' Proffessor Layton and the Miracle Mask'. This list shows that the growth of the kids market is becoming more prominent with appearnces from 'Skylanders' and 'Moshi Monsters' both of which are published by Activision which demonstrates their success in this area of the market. It could also be argued that the top games have had the best marketing stategies thus making them highly anticipated amognst the community such as Assasins Creed III.  There are 3 first party games on this list such as the Pokemon franchise as well as Forza.

  From this list it also show that the top 3 platforms are XBOX 360, PS3, and PC as all but 2 of the to     20  games are targeted at these platforms. this shows their dominance over the market.

HALO 4 & Mountain Dew

The collaboration of Mountain dew and Halo 4 is a perfect example of symbiosis as it benefeits Halo as it is more widespreadly advertised and it benefeits mountain Dew as now they will be more recogognised by the Halo community.

VIVENDI

Skylanders Giants

 SkyLanders Giants is the a sequel to SkyLanders: Spyros’ Adventure, Giants includes many new feature includong a whole new variety of differant characters, they are known as Giants. this game was released on October 17^th 2012 in Australia, October 19^th in Europe and on the 21^st October it was released in North America, and in November it will be released in South America. i believe this shows us the scale of popularity of this series as it is available and popular world wide. The popularity of this game can also be recognised as ACTIVISION sold over 31 million toys from the prequel Skylander:Spyros' Adventure. Skylanders Giants will be available on all the big platforms on release which is the Nintendo 3DS, Play station 3, the Wii, Xbox 360 and It is also going to be available for the new Wii U.

Skylander: Giants is available on Amazon for order. The Price of a starter Pack or booster pack which includes the game and one giant figure for the Wii it cost’s [£36.99], for the Xbox 360 [£39.99], on Play station 3, [£39.99]. For the price of one figure alone they are in the price range of [£17.00].

The most creative and inovative feature of Skylanders: Giants is the ability to purchase any character of their choice, place it on the 'portal of power' and watch it appear on the screen ready to play.

Skylanders Giants is advertised on the televison, youtube, games websites such as IGN, and the social networking sites ie Twitter. it is very cleverly marketed as certain aspects of the game are only accessible with a specific type of character which means that the consumer will have to go out and purchase another character for £17.00 if they want to access that part of the game. I belive that that aspect of the game is what is going to bring in the laargest amount of revenue as even if some one does not hav e the game they may still want to buy the figure.

FarmVille2

On 26 June 2012, Farmville 2 was unveiled.Farmville 2 was released in September 2012. it will have 3D features as well as a 360 degree rotating camera. It was heavily marketed on Facebook such as groups for people to like and talk about it to raise the hype of the game (this group has 2843617 followers). There were also adverts on the side bar of facebook as well as additional advertisements on other Zynga games as well as the origonal Farmville to try and keep their more loyal followers engaged in the product.

Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal

the entire gaming community counts more than 4 million gamers in the middle east 10 million in Russia 105 million in India 10 million in vietnam 10 milllion in Mexico 13 million in central and south America, 15 million in Australia, 17 million in South Korea, 100 million in Europe, and 200 million in China.

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

With all of this play, we have turned digital games- for our computers, for our mobile phones, and for our home entertainment systems-into what is expected to be $68 billion industry anually by the year 2012

Zynga

Zynga games are supported in two main ways. the first way is through dirtect credit card payments this is were people buy additional additonal content with their own money to recieve more credits and content. the other way is through partnerships with other compoanies. this is where zynga will team up with another company to recieve their experties in other fields.

Wii U

The Wii U is what will be the start of the 8th generation of video games consoles. It was first unveiled at electronics entertainment expo on june 7th 2011. It is schedualed to be released between november 18th and december 8th. Depending on the memory space you want the Wii U upon release will cost between £250.00 for the 8GB and £300.00 for the 32GB. some titles have already been confirmed for the console such as zombie U, mass effect 3 and arkham city. The Wii U will be unable to play DvD's however it still will be a mutimedia machine being able to run Youtube and Netflix. The Wii U will introduce a new controller that has motion senseing ability and a touch screen call the Wii U game pad.

Synergy and Synopsis

Synergy is when differant sectors of the same company collaborate together for a single Outcome.

Symbiosis is when differant companys collaborate for financial gain.

Rockstar Task

Rockstar Japan
2005-Present
Responsible for localization in Japan of Rockstar titles

Rockstar Leeds
2004-Present
Were Mobius Entertainment and based in Lower Wortley
Most recent work is the Microsoft Windowsa version of L.A Noire

Rockstar Lincoln
1999-Present
Previously known as Tarantula studio's

Rockstar London
2005-Present

Rockstar New England
2008-Present
Previously known as Mad Doc Software
based in Andover Massachusetts
developed xbox 360 and PC versions of Bully

MineCraft

Minecraft was released in alpha mode on May 17^th 2009 and since then has become one of the most successful Indie games of all time. The game was originally created by Markus Persson or ‘Notch’. Minecraft is what is called a sandbox game. A sandbox game is basically an open world game where the player chooses his/her own objectives and ultimately can do whatever they want. There is no aim to Minecraft other than to survive on the randomly generated world you are spawned in to using what you can find or what you create yourself from resources you have mined or farmed. It is because of this that the players can be as creative as they want and therefore will spend hours on building these massive projects.

Minecraft now though is known for its community which creates their own worlds and makes their own story’s which others can play by entering the worlds code or ‘SEED’. By doing this Notch and Mojang have to do very little to keep the community entertained as they are doing so themselves due to the sandbox nature of the game. Another influence that the community has added to the game is their seemingly endless supply of ‘MODS’ which again others can download which means that Mojang do very little to keep their audience engaged with the game.

Minecraft has broken 8 million sales on the PC .This is not counting all the free downloads from when the game was in Alpha. The XBOX 360 version is selling approximately 17,000 copies a day generating $340,000 every 24 hours.

Indie Games

'Indie' or independant games are not your usual AAA blockbuster game. Rather they are usually small scale games produced by either an individual or small team. As they are only produed by small groups they recieve no financial support from a publisher so everything is coming from the developers back pocket. The greatest upside for Indie games is their level of creativity Such as 'Minecraft' which has revolutionised the games community and has become superstar in itself with a fanbase just as large if not arger than any AAA blockbuster game.

Indie games have been growing in interest  since their spike in popularity in the late 2000's
The expansion of the internet has allowed Indie games to be purchased on platforms such as Steam, Xbox live arcade and onLive.

Notes : Indie Games



-Tentpole buisness model

when a recnt 'blockbuster' such as GTA funds a riskier, more creative product.

-The Hollywood model

is to contract out part of the games design to lower production costs.

e.g. scriptwriters, stunt teams, director of photography.

-Indie Games

small teams and individuals can create low budget get them distributed and make money.

aside from basic development costs conslole game developers are reqwuired toi pay fee's to license required software.

Modding-'Hot Coffie'

1. what was the 'Hot Coffie' mod
The 'Hot Coffie' mod was a mini game that was originally inaccessable for Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas
It was first found on pc on June 9th 2005 and latyer was found on playstation 2 and bo versions of the game. The mod was seual intercourse simulatewr featuring ther main character Carl Johnson and and his girlfriend

2. How did it affect the age rating.
following an investigation from the ESRB on July 20th 2005 the ESRB anounced that the agerating was being changed from a mature 17+ rating to a adult only 18+ rating.

3. Effects
the stakeholdes, developers and publishers lost money as the game was taken off shelves. the platform holders also got a bad reputation for allowing the game on their consoles

Madden

Madden NFL 13 is an American football game created by Electronics arts. It is available on Xbox 360, PS3, WIIU, WII, VITA. EA both producesand develops Madden NFL 13. The game received a 9/10 rating from Ign. Madden 13 is the the first game of the series to introduce the infinity engine which is designed to give AI mass, balance and more realistic gameplay in general.

gta 4

GTA 4 is published by rockstar games and developed by Rockstar north and Rockstar Toronto. It is available on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Microsoft Windows. The game received 10/10 ratings from Gamespot, IGN, and Official Xbox magazine (UK). The game sold almost 3.6 million copies upon its first day of availability while also selling 6 million copies throughout the week totaling $500 in sales.

Digital Distribution-Thomas Parr

Digital Distribution

Digital distribution is the selling of games without the need of a physical copy. Digital distribution is much cheaper than normal as there is no need for packaging or shipping costs. For this reason the idea of digital distribution has been adopted by the PS3 and XBOX. Digital distribution is ideal for the person who just wants a clean gaming area that is free of clutter or does not want to go down to their local game shop and purchase a solid copy. However even though digital distribution is cheaper for the company it is more expensive for the consumer which makes it less competitive with the selling of physical copies right now. Another disadvantage with digital distribution is that modern consoles such as the XBOX and PS3 do not have the memory space to support a large quantity of full games. Even though digital distribution is not ready to be a replacement for full game releases  it has been very successful in one aspect which is DLC. DLC stands for ‘downloadable content’ which is usually in the form of game add ons such as using COD as an example the map packs they introduce. However the main factor that is holding back digital distribution coming to the forefront of game distribution is the day one and midnight releases. This is an issue as none of the platforms available will be able to handle such a large demand for one game coming in at one time this is due to internet and download speeds also it takes away almost a kind of event on midnight releases for example where people wait outside shops for hours to get their copy of the game. Even though the midnight release may be seen as a hassle it is an event almost amongst the gaming community and is great business not only for the game publishers/developers but also for the shop that is distributing the copy’s.

In conclusion i think that digital distribution is the future of selling games but just not now as no console is capable of handling such a large demand of full games or the memory space to hold them. However once that consoles are capable of handling the downloads i believe that digital distribution will take over the market of selling games because of its low effort appeal.