Zynga

Business Model

Games developed by Zynga are free to play, and yet they still make a massive profit from any games they make. The majority of this is thanks to micro-transactions such as selling extra content, like extra items or clothing in game. However most customers will not pay more than £1 for this kind of content, though if millions of people buy these items Zynga still make a sizeable profit. However it’s because of this that Zyngas profits are somewhat limited, as if not many people are playing a game they develop, they will make virtually no profit.  A portion of Zynga’s profits also come from advertising, as their games often advertise an upcoming product, like a film or game. However again, this is limited as not many companies will want to advertise on an unpopular game.

Farmville 2
On 26th of June, Zynga announced farmville 2 the sequel to the extremely popular farmville. Farmville 2 has been shown at various press events as part of its advertising campaign to appeal to and inform investers, covering mainly the business side of the game. Another integral part of Zyngas marketing for farmville 2 is viral marketing. Often social games are advertised not only on the social websites that use them, but all over thye internet, on popular sites like youtube. 

 

Skylanders: Giants

                                                                 Skylanders: Giants
Skylanders: Giants, released October 19^th 2012, is the sequel to Skylanders: Spyro's adventure released across multi platforms, 14th October last year. Basically the series is built around purchasing and collecting physical toys and using them to unlock unique characters in the skylanders game. The games and toys have become a huge success though as the first game alone is estimated to exceed $500 million by next year. The reason that the first game was such a success was thanks to two things, the unique format and design of the game based around these toys, and the way the game markets the toys. By buying the game and the limited characters that come with it, the player is getting a very restrictive experience as there will be many areas or items in the game that require a unique characters abilities to reach, therefore enticing the player to buy more figurines to unlock more characters. Some, however, would argue that the toys are a waste of money in manufacturing and that the same strategy, of enticing the player to buy more characters, is just as achievable with the use of DLC. But what make Skylanders unique approach to the 'extra content' strategy, utilising physical toys instead of DLC, is that the character figurines are far more marketable to children (this games target market).Not only is the physical format of game content in a toy more appealing to a child, but it also makes the characters seem more like 'collectables' than additional content, which once again is much more marketable to kids, as there does seem to be a considerable market among kids for 'collectable monster' themed games such as pokemon, another game franchise that has made cumulative millions. Skylanders: Giants features new giant size characters that are implied to have completely different abilities from regular size characters. This is clearly a marketing strategy aiming to get kids to buy new figures in bulk, as 40 new figures have been announced with the release of Skylander: Giants. All in all, while the games themselves are average, what makes the Skylander series so successful is the symbiosis strategy using the toys and the games, and the way the game is marketed in general. 

synergy & symbiosis

Synergy- Synergy is when two factions of the same organisation work together to create a product that may turn a profit, or promote another product
e.g.- a book or series of books, like the harry potter series, being adapted into a film

Symbiosis- Symbiosis is when two diffrent organisations come together to create a greater company or product or achive more effective promotion
e.g.-McDonalds happy meals often promote an upcoming film with toys

My Gaming History

My earliest memories with video games go back to old Playstation games I used to enjoy like Rayman and Crash Bandicoot, but despite how nostalgic these games are to me I never actually owend a Playstation and the only chance I would get to play theses games was at my cousins house. The first gaming console I owned was the PS2 and the games I most fondly remember playing for it were 3D platformers like Ratchet and Clank and Sly Cooper. Recently I've come to enjoy other genres of games, particularly first person shooters and RPG's, the games I play the most though are open world games like Red Dead Redemption or Skyrim, although if I'm being honest its because of an addictive influence they have over me, I'd also be lying if I said I hadn't lost more than a few hours to minecraft. Aside from MMORPG's I like to think I've played at least a little of every genre of game, which pretty much sums up my gaming history.   

Rockstar Studios

Rockstar Studios

The First division of Rockstar Studio's (origionally known as DMA design), Rockstar North was founded in 2002 and based in  Edinburgh, Scotland, and was responsible for rockstars first games such as GTA1, Lemmings and Manhunt. As Rockstar grew, it branched out and created other studios such as Rockstar  London which developed Manhunt 2, and Rockstar Toronto (previously Rockstar Canada) known for The Warriors and the PC version of GTA4

business models

Business Models
Making a game can be very expensive and not all developers have enough money to work with as triple a developers like rockstar games. Therefor diffrent developers must use different Business models when developing a game.
  The Tentpole model is when a developer who has a triple A title already under their belt, uses the succsess of that triple A game to promote their other games. This is mainly used by developers like Rockstar and Maxis who can afford to be a little riskier with their development, as this business model saves money on marketing when a big developer creates a new IP.
  The Hollywood model is were instead of using an in house development team of 50 people to work on a game, a developer will save money by using 10-20 external specialist teams to work on a game. Often triple A developers like Rockstar or Ubisoft will use this Mode on thier triple A titles.
  The Indpendant Model (or "Indie" Model ) is used by developers who have very little money or resourses. Often an Indie games development team will consist of 2-5 people. This cuts costs on hiring developers but creates the problem of quality control, as the quality may suffer with so few developers
  

The Controller Revolution

The Controller Revolution

The Video Game industry is radically different now in comparison to 20 years ago, 2 of the greatest differences perhaps are the new technology that is available to the industry and the casual gaming market that has recently developed. In correlation with these 2 factors, console developers have begun to experiment more and more with the idea of motion controls, as they take advantage of modern gaming technology, and are appealing in their simplicity to the casual gamer market. However what we must consider is whether these motion controllers are a sign of what is to come in the future, or a product of our time.

  Arguably the most prominent developer in the controller revolution is Nintendo as they were the first of the main 3 developers to utilize touchscreen (for the Nintendo DS) and motion controls (for the Wii). Looking at Nintendo’s past as a video games developer we can see that they have always been attempting to change the way we play games (with less successful attempts such as the virtual boy and Nintendo zapper). However it is only now, with modern innovations in technology, that Nintendo can successfully develop controllers that utilize features such as motion controls. But the question is, why does Nintendo develop control schemes like this?, the answer is to appeal to the casual non-gamer crowd, who have recently been Nintendo’s target audience, however, with the casual gamer market growing larger and larger, does that mean that soon, the majority of developers will create consoles with motion controls as appose to the traditional 13-15 button layout?.

  For the answer we must look to the other main developers in the gaming industry, Microsoft and Sony. Unlike Nintendo, these two companies focus on the core gamer market as appose to the casual gamer market. Many argue that motion controls are unappealing to the core gamer market due to their over-simplification and unresponsive controls. However we can see that Sony, while focusing on a core gamer market, still implement motion controls/touch screen into some of their core gamer product, albeit lightly, such as the motion control feature of the six axis PS3 controller or the touch screen feature of the PSvita. However, even Microsoft and Sony realise that there is a casual market, a growing one at that, which cannot be ignored. This is prominent in such Sony products as the PlayStation move or the PlayStation Eye; however the peripheral that is most obviously aimed at the casual market is Microsoft’s Kinect. The Kinect takes this "simplify to appeal to the casual market" strategy, and takes it to a whole new level, as the Kinect utilises no physical controls whatsoever, as the tag line states: "you are the controller". However, it is debatable whether or not the Kinect is over simplifying controllers, as some argue, that games built around the Kinects control scheme are too simple, and therefore, aren't enjoyable. So it would seem that at this point in time, the control scheme that everyone is striving for is one that appeals to both the casual and hard-core gaming markets, a control scheme that utilises both simple and complex controls.

  It seems like this is the next step for controllers, as Nintendo’s soon to be released WiiU, utilises both a traditional 13-15 button/dual analogue stick control layout, along with both motion controls and touchscreen. Nintendo has even stated that their direction, their marketing strategy with the WiiU is to appeal to both the casual and core gaming markets. Whether the WiiU will live up to its expectations or whether Microsoft or Sony will follow Nintendo’s please all strategy is debatable, all that we can know for sure is that as  technology continues to evolve, so will the way that we play games. 

GTA San Adreas Hot Coffee mod

GTA: San Adreas Hot Coffee mod

1. The Hot Coffee Mod (created in June 2005) was a mod deveoped for GTA San andreas, that allowed accesss to a sex simulating mini game called "Hot Coffee". It is said that the hot coffee miningame was orginally inteded to be in the game, however due to controvercy it was made ineccesable at the last minuite. However some people found a way around this, while the mini game was innaccesable, it was still programmed into the games code, so through hacks, like the hot coffee mod, player could still access the mini game.

2.When the hot coffee mod was released and it was discovered that this mini game still existed in the base game, poloticians such as Jack Thomsan and Hillary Clinton, attempted to force Rockstar to increase the games rating, or even pull the game off the shelves alltogether. On July 20th 2005, Rockstar changed the games rating from matur (M) to andult only 18+ (AO).

3.Most of the lawsuits filled because of the Hot Coffee mod were actually filled against Take-Two interactive, not Rockstar. Because of this, Rockstar was under pressure from Take-Two to not let anything like this slip through future GTA games, Rockstar was also at risk of losing some of its distributors(such as Capcom in Japan), as they were unhappy with Rockstars slip up, as they didnt want their name attached to this controversial story.