What has the impact of increased internet connectivity been on the media production, distribution and marketing process?

2. What has the impact of increased internet connectivity been on the media production, distribution and marketing process?

Increased internet connectivity means that we can achieve a faster broadband that is more accessible for a range of people to use for business and personal uses. A faster internet speed has had a positive impact on the production a of product. This makes the construction of a new product easier to arrange . For example the faster access means large amounts of programming data can be sent back a forth to developers in a faster and easier way. This speeds up the production process, instead of having to run around with CD's to all the people who need it, you can E-mail, or live stream things to the people who need to see. This increased time at development stage decreases the time it takes to produce the game. one disadvantage is that using a totally online production system means information sometimes gets leaked and data is sometime lost or sent to the wrong person which can result in the release of more information then was intended to give away.
As more people become connected to the internet E-commerce becomes an easier choice for buyers. Instead of going out to the shop to buy your game you click a few buttons and type in your credit card details and you get the game sent to you, this opens the market of delivery. also buying online in some circumstances can give you deals for other products sold by the store, this also opens up the door to more advertising, e.g. amazon.com has a tab called other items you may enjoy, which gives a list of products also bought by customers who bought he product you're looking at. One disadvantage of e-commerce is it takes business away from the physical stores simply because its easier to get something delivered then go out and buy it.
Increased internet connectivity opens up new windows for advertising for example websites specifically aimed at advertising the game or specifically for the game itself, also websites can put up banners advertising which makes a new source of income for websites. websites can also feature trailers and release dates, as well as advertising pre release material. websites are generally updated quite often so information is fresh and keeps the suspense building. For example GTA IV had a release clock and released information in little snippets just to keep the market buzzing about it. Also they put up hoax websites like those you can find in game on niko's laptop. Rockstar also came up with a competition which was to send in interesting and funny conversations which could be featured in the game on the radio stations.

Pros and Cons of Onlive

Advantages

- Get the games instantly don't need to go to store to get the game or wait for it to be delivered.

- Don't need disc to play and takes up no memory space of your PC or Mac.

-Large variety of games from existing consoles as well as new ones.

-Cheaper to get games to gamers as they don't need to pay packaging and shipping costs.

-Don't need to get memory cards to save game data.

Disadvantages

-Will Reduce jobs meaning people will get made redundant as manufacturers and retailers will have no jobs in the games industry.

-New software so possibility for lots of problems.

-Lose owner ship of the game (ie the disc)

- you need to buy a new and expensive console to play the games on even tho most people probably have a console already i.e. xbox PS3 and Wii

-companies will spend money on creating competitive exclusive content for certain games.

-lots of people downloading a new game would crash the server

Wii Fit Marketing

Nintendo claimed to have the biggest marketing campaign for the Wii fit that there ever would be, mainly because this product was aimed as a whole family game rather then one for hardcore bedroom gamers, this opening in the market created massive space and a massive audience for Nintendo to advertise too.

Marketing

Specialist Press: Nintendo advertised their Wii fit to gamer magazines. gamer magazines focus mainly focused on the games enjoyment ability rather then the corporate information behind the product or the USP of the game which is pretty obvious already.

they also advertised in business magazines to possibly advertise to fathers who want more ways to spend time with their children and kids magazines for kids to recommend to their parents.

Mainstream press: this mainly focused of the corporate information of the game and the USP.

Guerilla marketing. this marketing style did no exactly fit the image of wii fit as it is a generally crime based way of advertising e.g. graffiti, how ever there were some bill boards in notable places. As well as an unplanned advert which when on youtube http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200824/1226/Nintendo-denies-sexy-Wii-Fit-video-is-viral-marketing

Marketing Terms

Marketing Terms

- Marketing : the process by which companies determine what products to market and in what way to advertise them to their target audience. they decide what strategy to use in sales, business development and Communications.

Used to gain customers and keep those customers satisfied, as the customer is the focus of its activities.

-Viral Marketing : Determines the way in which advertising is used to encourage people to pass on the message about products or services. if information is passed from one person to big groups of friends then the product quickly gets well known. if the word does not spread then the product fizzes out shortly after being advertised.

-Guerilla Marketing : unconventional style of marketing relies on imagination rather then conventional methods such as viral marketing. guerilla marketing campaigns are unconventional and unusual and markets its target audience in unexpected places. the idea of creating an unique individual thought provoking buzz. It is an unusual way of advertising.

-Specialist Press : Advertising in specialist magazines and websites which are aimed at a specific audience, examples include a gaming magazine, cooking magazine. this addresses your main audience specifically although advertising space is shared with others in a similar market.

-Mainstream Press : "General news examples daily mail. BBC news. advertising addresses all markets possibility to draw in new customers from a different market.

Wii Fit Research

Development

Wii Fit was first revealed as Wii Health Pack, by Nintendo's chief game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, during a conference in mid-September 2006. Then described as a "way to help get families exercising together", the game idea had first been included in Miyamoto's original design document for a core group of games including Wii Sports and Wii Play, the entirety of which was scribbled onto a sheet of paper.

As with other games designed by Miyamoto such as Nintendogs, the design of Wii Fit was influenced by activities in his daily life. He states that he and his family had become more health-conscious, going to the gym and tracking their weight. He found that it had become "fun over time to talk about these things", and as weighing oneself "didn't make much of a game",Nintendo decided to build games around the idea to mesh with the concept.

In an interview with Game Informer at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2007 Miyamoto revealed that Wii Fit had been developed with a "full-scale" team for a year at the time. The Wii Balance Board had been worked on for "almost two years", and was inspired by sumo wrestlers' need to weigh themselves with two scales.

The game was announced under its current title at Nintendo's E3 press conference on July 11, 2007 and demonstrated by Miyamoto, Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aime and other participants.

Research

Zynga
Casual games developer located in San Francisco, they focus mainly on browser based games as well as application widgets on websites like Facebook and Myspace.
Feature games

• Attack!
• Blackjack
• Café World
• Farmville
  
• Football
• Friend Factory
• Friends for Sale
• Gang Wars
• Ghost Racer
• Guild of Heroes
• Heroes vs. Villains
• Live Poker
• Mafia Wars
• My Heroes Ability (Zynga's only original title, discontinued)
• Pathwords
• PetVille
• Pirates: Rule the Caribbean!
• "Poker Blitz"
• Prison Lockdown
• Roller Coaster Kingdom
• Space Wars
• Scramble (browser game)
• Scramble Live
• Sea Wars
• Slayers / Vampires / Werewolves / Zombies
• Special Forces
• Street Racing
• Sudoku
• Texas Hold'Em
• Treasure Isle
• Triumph
• Vampire Wars
• Word Twist
• YoVille

Capcom
Capcom is a Japanese based company which has stretched out all over Europe and America.
Capcom is a manufacturer and Distributor of electronic games machines. founded in 1979.
now an industry leader in the video game industry because of its cutting edge technology and software which it has released into the industry.


Wideload
A hippopotamus logotype, they develop new games in the old fashioned way, by taking some talented but "weird" people
The games that emerge from this process are unique beasts - and like the mighty hippopotamus, they are not easily categorized or constrained. Games like Stubbs the Zombie, Hail to the Chimp, Cyclomite and Texas Cheat'em have charmed demanding gamers around the world. Now, after their recent move to Disney Interactive Studios, Wideload is busily staking out a beautiful new patch of the creative jungle. If you are put off by other video games, you may find our work refreshingly different.

XBOX live market place
this is a digital market place built into the xbox 360. you can purchase credit called microsoft point which you can use to buy game trailers, games, music, and even full length dvd quality movies. The market place requires an internet connection but means you dont have to go to the shop to get promotional upgrades and features.
The 11th August 2009 update added Xbox 360 games for download, Avatar Marketplace and renamed Community Games to Indie Games. The market place also has content control for regions to stop them breaking rights laws.

Braid

Braid is a platform and puzzle video game developed by an independant software developer Jonothan Blow.
Braid was only accessable on the xbox live market place, or available to download on the PC, until may 2009 when the company hothead released the game for the mac and in november the same company released it for the playstation network. There is no disc you can buy from the shop on it this saves microsoft money by not having to find
distributers for the software they can sell it online.

Open source software

Open-source software (OSS) is Computer software that is available in source code form for which the Source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software. Open source licenses often meet the requirements of the Open Source Definition. Some open source software is available within the public domain. Open source software is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the most prominent example of open-source development and often compared to user-generated content. The term open-source software originated as part of a marketing campaign for free software.A report by Standish Group states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers.

RAGE Rockstar Advances Gaming Engine

Rage is a game engine crated by Rockstar San Diego with contributions from Rockstar north.
This was used mainly in 6th generation consoles (ps3, Xbox 360, wii) and features in games such as Midnight Club3 and GTA IV.
The game engine features programmes such as Euphoria character animation engine and open source bullet engine.
RAGE made games more realistic and less cartoon like.
Rockstar's previous game engine was called Criterion games' Renderware.




Games powered by RAGE
-Rockstar presents table tennis
-Midnight Club Los Angeles
-Max payne 3
-GTA IV
-Red Dead redemption
-Agent

Gta IV distributor

Gta 4 has two distributors. One in retail (Take Two Interactive) and Steam (Online).
Take Two is an American publisher, developer and distributor of videogames. Take Two own rockstar games and 2K games.
The headquarters is based in new york.
Steam is a digital distribution company who only sell online, they vary their distribution form large popular games to small independent ones.

First Task.

Play Station 2 - Grand theft auto (Vice City).

• The one thing I liked about the game was that it had a lot of freedom, allowing you to explore its fairly detailed setting and move around freely, commiting violent crimes.
• The age certificate of the game is 18 as it has violent content. This means it is targeted at people above the age of 18 and maily male due to the male main character and the voyeurism of women. The target audience would not be targeted at people above 25 as its not a very mature game.
• I thought that the game content was very violent allowing you to brutaly kill and steal cars. The game experience wasn't very good as the aim was not clear, meaning you end up just cruising around the setting untill bored.
• There are to main potential issues with this game. The first being that the point of the game isn't made clear, making it feel pointless and lacking the objective. This means its loses the winning thrill you recieve from most games. Secondly, the game must influence disruptive and violent behaviour in its comsumers and if someone underage gets hold of the game they could be confusing there idea of right and wrong.
• As the game is set in the 80's there are a lot of references of the music industry during the 80's. For example, when you get in the car at the start michael Jackson is playing on a the radio.
• Grand Theft Auto is simular too Canis Canem Edit and Red Dead that are also made by rock star as they all have the main theme of violence.
• Grand Theft Auto was released on PS2 as it was the newest console that would have the best graphics at the time of the games release.
  
  Play Station 2- Canis Canem Edit .
• The only thing I found likeable about this game was the way you were clearly given a task and shown how to complete it.
• The games age certificate rated at 15 meaning its aimed at people over 15. Once again as the main character is male, the main target is males. As the game is set at a school, it would not really appeal to people over the age of 19.
• The game content is again fairly violent but limited. The character content was very sterotypical as most of the characters were either posh school nerds or bullys. The game experiance became boring as it was too easy to fail and be made to restart.
• One potential issuse is that, alough the aim of the levels are clear, the point of game over all isn't. This maked the game seem random and pointless. Another potential issuse is that the graphic were poor at times, for example, we character kicked ball into wall it disapeared and then rolled back through the wall causing the game to feel julty.
• This game was simular to GTA and Red Dead as they are all violent.
• There were no references that were made to other media industries udring the game.
• This game was played on PS2 which was the best console at its time of release.
  
  
  XBOX - Red Dead revolver.
• The best thing about this game was the selection screens before you play the actual game, everything after was just disapointing.
• The games certificate was rated at 16 meaning it was targeted at people over 16. Due to the unreal and childish western theme of the game the target age would stop at around 20. This game is also male orentated meaning its aimed at males.
• I thought that the content of game was poor and that the content was boring.
• Potential issues with this game is that its aim isnt clear and its control and instructions arn't clear.
• There are slight reference to the film industry in this game as the western theme relates to western films such as Wild West.
• This game was simular to GTA and Canis Canem as its violent.
• This game was played on an XBOX because the XBOX was the best console to support is updated graphics.
  
  XBOX 360 -Table Tenis.
• It was a simple game the aim and instructions were clear making it easy to play.
• The games age certificated was rated as low as 3. This means the game is more family suitable as it doesnt count out any age group or gender as plays are of both genders. The target audience would variey from 6 to 40. The lowest age its aimed to is more likely to be people at the age of 6 rather than 3 as a 3 year old wouldnt be able to play a games console.
• The content of the game was good as the graphics were quite realistic. The overall game experiance was also good as its a competive fun game.
• The only issue with this game is that it wouldnt attrack Rockstar's usual gamers.
• During the game there are references to the clothing brand Addidas as it uses its logo to make for realistic advertisers at a real table tennis game.
• This game was not at all simular to the other games.
• This game was played on XBOX 360 as it was the console to make best of the realistic graphics.
  
  
  Play Station 3 - Midnight Club Los Angeles.
• I liked the racing ascpect and realistic graphics of the game.
• The games age certificated is rated at 12. The driving aspect of the game would be appealing to people from ages 12 to 30. However it is more likely to appeal to males.
• The content of the game was good as it had realistic graphics of LA. The overl game experiance was good as the game was easy to follow.
• One issue with the game is that it was only one player, meaning that you couldn.t race against friends which could of made the gamer more fun and competitive.
• There were not any specific references to any other media industries during the game.
• This game was fairly simular to certain aspects of Grand Theft Auto as you can drive wildly around the setting.
• This game was played on PS3 as its the one of the newest and best console out making use of all the memory and graphics on the game.