Gaming Industry

Additional Research

 

Q 4-8

4. is the size of the audience any different now than before the impact of new and digital media (or has the pattern of usage changed)?

Gaming is now reaching out to a wider audience due to its various facilities. Unlike the ps2 the ps3 offers more to the audience than just gaming from watching blu-ray films to communicating with your friends online.  There is also the availability to use the video streaming service of Netflix which has recently become available on the console. Stats showing usage beyond gaming for ps3 reveal 51% use it to watch movies, 43% use it to listen to music and 15% use it to watch videos on demand/streaming services. Although all there Is a variety of things to do on the ps3 it has been outsold by the ps2 in recent previous months there has been a decline in worldwide video game sales.

5.Who are the primary target audience now and has this changed?  Who was it before and how do you know?

TEXT	CURRENT TARGET AUDIENCE	ORIGINAL TARGET	HOW DO YOU KNOW?
PS2	12+	15+	Originally the target audience would have been higher but with the ease of the console a lot of the younger audience was capable of playing it. [ME, PS3 12]
PS3	16+	15+	This console is a lot more complicated than the previous model hence the current target would be higher than the original. However, it wouldn’t be too much higher as games are still targeted to a relatively young audience plus the age of the average gamer is 34.

6.How have the audience responded to the changes?  Is there more customer choice?  Is there evidence of a more pluralistic model?  What evidence do you have to support this?

New and digital media has provided a lot more consumer choice. The PS3 now offers a variety of opportunities in which the audience can choose what to do. There has become more to consoles than just gaming. Consumers can now listen to music or watch movies and here is also the availability to use the video streaming service of Netflix which has recently become available on the console. Stats showing usage beyond gaming for ps3 reveal 21% use it to watch movies, 23% use it to listen to music and 23% use it to watch videos on demand/streaming services. Although all there Is a variety of things to do on the ps3 it has been outsold by the ps2 in recent previous months there has been a decline in worldwide video game sales.

7.What concerns/ considerations are there (if any) for the media institutions involved in your case study as a result of the impact of new and digital media? (e.g. deskilling or multi-skilling of the workforce/ decline in workforce etc)

New and digital media has allowed consumers to buy games without the need of retailers which could be a factor for the recent bad performances of game retailers. Last March Game Group went into administration similar to HMV in 2013. It may not be the biggest reason however, it may be one of the many factors of why these institutions have gone in to administration. This is supported by the increase in revenues of the PSN over the last few years and has question the role of the game retailers. New and digital media has also caused Sony problems, over 2 years ago PSN was hacked and the details of 1 million users were exposed which goes to show because of new and digital media they also not in complete control. The potential costs of the attacks, according to analysts, are up to $24 billion and the cost of prevention would have been £10,000.

8.What are the political and social implications of the new technologies and the methods of their consumption?  E.g. moral panics etc?

Both directly and indirectly video games can enhance the social relationship of youngsters, the ability of using the online feature to play with your friends is the direct way video games have done this and the indirect way would be that the following day or sometime soon after users discuss events that occurred whilst they was playing video games. Playing video games is seen to improve visual-spatial ability which is the ability to mentally manipulate two- and three dimensional objects .Hence it is clear that there is a causal relationship between video game playing and enhanced visual attention skills .Video games have taken aboard Blumler and Katz theory of uses and gratifications by providing escapism for the user, this is supported by Professor Talmadge Wright of Loyola University who had this to say "It gives people an option of actively participating in some kind of fantasy role they could not do in real life that allows them to play with their own feelings". There is also the stereotypical argument which is most commonly used by parents that playing video games makes you perform worse in education and there could be some truth behind that saying as excessive gaming creates attention deficits, which in turn can lead to poorer school performance. It is also believed that video game addicts argue a lot with their teachers, fight a lot with their friends, and score lower grades than others who play video games less often, which is supported by a study conducted by the Minneapolis-based National Institute for Media and the Family. Not just violent video games but any ordinary video games have been recognised to have a negative impact on users.  One of the negatives from any video game would be, those who spend more time playing video games subsequently have more attention problems as well as games can confuse reality and fantasy.

What impact has there been on how the media institution now has to produce the texts and the way in which the texts/ products are distributed and exhibited? This should involve a detailed textual analysis of at least 3 texts to demonstrate the point.

Sony has adapted their console over the years, play station 2 and play station 3 are very different in various ways. One of the most obvious ways would be the online feature, PS3 allows you to use the internet and hence take a part in online gaming this facility was not available on the PS2.  There was a possible way to play online on the PS2 but it was very difficult. Another difference between the ps2 and ps3 is the amount of storage, the ability to store movies, music, photographs has meant the storage capacity has had to increase. Ps2 took external memory cards made by Sony which would hold just under 8mb of data whereas, the maximum hard drive capacity on a ps3 is up to 500gb. Ps2 controllers were restricted to a certain length however, PS3 offers wireless dualshock sisaxis controllers. Along with the console the games have also changed, games on PS2 offered no online functions whereas,  one of the main attractions about Ps3 games is the online game play. There has also been a major improvement in the graphics and realism in games. Along with all these changes the way games are distributed has also changed. Sony has taken full advantage of the internet, games are not only available on disk but also available online, through PSN [playst ation network].  The audience can now purchase games via playstation store which are then downloaded and stored on the hard drive. Games are still available the classic way on discs from retailers.

What impact has there been on the way in which the audience now consume the media products/ texts involved in your case study? How does it differ from what went before?

Social Historical Economical Political

The gaming industry has changed significantly over the years, benefiting from the improvement in technology. The development of new consoles such as the Ps3, by Sony, has provided a platform for video game creators to take gaming to a whole new level. Modern day games such as Little Big Planet, created by Media Molecule, has given the power to consumers like never before which is supported by David Buckingham, Professor of Media and Communications at Loughborough University who had this to say, ‘In the age of Media 2.0, ordinary people are no longer mere consumers of media, but also producers. A game like Little Big Planet lets the user become a producer in various ways, from designing your own sack boy to creating your own levels, these features are specific to Little Big Planet however, every modern game lets consumers become producers through YouTube. YouTube is a video sharing website which is commonly used by gamers to upload user generated content of them playing a specific game in the form of a video. One would think giving the chance for consumers to become producers would increase the popularity and sales of games however the gaming industry has suffered a decline recently, ‘in 2011 retail sales of video games fell by 8% which was followed by a further 20% in 2012’. Although in recent times there has been a large decline in sales of video which may have been due to the struggling economy it is predicted that in the coming years the gaming industry will grow to a staggering $82 billion by 2017 which could provide a huge boost to our current economical state.

Has new and digital media had an impact upon ownership and control of the media institutions involved in your case study?

The involvement of new and digital media in the gaming industry has an impact on the ownership and control of the media institutions. New consoles from the likes of Sony and Microsoft, such as PS3 and X-box 360, have allowed these institutions to be more in control of the gaming industry. Taking full advantage of the internet and new technology games and consoles are a lot more advanced and offer various different types of opportunity for the consumer, from playing alone to with your mates to watching Blu-ray films offline.  Sony announced it had sold over 70 million Play station 3 consoles worldwide, this has taken them just 7 years. On top of that the console comes with PSN [Play Station Network] which sells a variety of things from games to dynamic themes to avatars. However, Sony is not in complete control, little over 2 years ago PSN was hacked and the details of 1 million users were exposed which goes to show because of new and digital media they also not in complete control. There are also many new handheld consoles being released, one of the most recent ones would be the PS Vita which meant that consumers no longer need to be at home but can experience gaming on the go as well seeking to increase their audience range however, the recent performance of the PS vita is not gone the way Sony would have wanted it to. Even after the PSP vita was released it has been out performed by the PSP, a much older version which goes to show that new and digital media might not always be successful in a industry.  Some could say that institutions are losing control, one of the most recent examples of this would be the Connecticut school massacre in which it is said that gunman Adam Lanza spent hours playing violent video games such as Call of Duty.  This has led to criticism of violent video games, as the National Rifle Association blamed the entertainment industry ‘specifically the producers of violent video games for inciting what has become a pattern of gun violence in the United States’. These types of tragic events have occurred over the years, other examples of video games inspiring real life acts of violence would include a Thai student who murdered a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the Grand Theft Auto as well as, Tristan van der Vlis who killed 6 people in the tragedy known as the Alphen aan den Rijn shopping mall shooting  was inspired by a game called Airport Massacre, in which the player can choose (or not choose) to participate in the killing of a large group of innocent people inside an airport terminal.

Weekly News

HMV workers take over official Twitter feed to vent fury over sacking

Employees of HMV took over the company's official Twitter account to express their dissatisfaction of being sacked.  One or more angry employees used Twitter to vent their anger, they managed to post seven subversive messages before the company regained control of the account and deleted the posts. The employees were quick enough to get a brief explanation of their protest on to the site before it was removed. One of the Tweets included "Under usual circumstances, we'd never dare do such a thing as this," they said. "However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined … and those hard working individuals, who wanted to make hmv great again, have mostly been fired, there seemed no other choice."They also went on to claim that the official HMV account had been set up by an unpaid intern two years ago. HMV's administrators declined to comment on the tweets, but did confirm that 190 redundancies had been made. They said there had been no redundancies in its retail network, adding that all its stores remained open and were still trading. Nick Edwards, a joint administrator, said the administrators remained hopeful that they would be able to "secure a future for a restructured business".

MY OPINION: Some would argue that this is ethically wrong and the employees had no right to conduct this sort of behaviour. It goes to show how institutions are beginning to lose their power relative to the power of pluralism. It shows the society is becoming more pluralists as they are beginning to fight back against those in power.