Skylanders Giants

Skylander pushes an interactive view on gaming by the way you can buy actual figures in real life and place them into the game by using a port, this is set to be the best selling game for christmas as it appeals to kids the idea of collecting toys and the last game also sold well

Zynga and social games

Zynga was founded in April 2007 by Mark Pinicus. There first game was Texas Hold 'Em for Facebook and there logo is a bulldog. As of now there are 333 million users and there website is www.zynga.com. It has an estimated worth of 7 billion.

There are two ways that Zynga make money, one of the ways is using real money in minor credit card payments to pay for things in the game that are needed to make you progress, for example on texas hold em poker you can purchase more chips from your credit card or bank card to help you progress in the game.

Another way they make money is advertising, they sell some of there space to companies that pay well to advertise there business on Zynga games.

Farmville 2 is in 3D, and also doesn't let you bring in things from your farmville, meaning people will pay again to reach a higher level or a better farm, generating revenue for Zynga.

"The Controller Revolution"

As the gaming industry has been alive for the excess of 20 years, we can now take a look back and see the contrast in the first generation of games consoles to todays generations of consoles such as the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The main differences between today, and when video games were first brought into the world, are the fact that the technology introduced in todays gaming world is a lot more highly advanced and also, the casual gamers market that has only recently developed. The fact that the new technology such as controllers, which have developed over the years to suit the gamer, may also help with the fidea of the casual gamers. For example, the soon to be released wii U, wont really appeal to the hardcore gamers as it is more of a thing to do when your bored, and again Nintendo being the first to utilize more modern technology with another type of control with the touch screen on the DS series, which again appeals to more casual gamers.

Motion control, which is also used by playstation in the "move" and the xbox in the "kinect" seems to be an idea that instead or as well as using a controller, you can use your body to control the game.. However, this was again first utilized by Nintendo with the first Wii, and despite it being a sell out for the first few weeks due to the new idea, it hasnt really continued to be a best selling gaming console like the Xbox and the Playstation, which shows that they appeal more to the casual side of gaming, where as the playstation 3 and xbox 360 which both do now have motion controls, but didnt at the time, appeal to more hardcore gamers as they are still played by a lot of people, and the fact that they introduced the motion control technology may show that this is the future, and they are trying to appeal to more of the gaming crowd.

Despite there being many many different ways of controlling a games console, some of which talked about above, it is debateable what the enct generation of gaming console controllers will be like, we are due the release of the Wii U soon and that uses all of the above including touch screen, but it is debateable whether this will cause sony and microsoft to follow. However, as technology will evolve, so will controllers and the way we play video games.

Synergy and Symbiosis

Synergy is when the same franchise, e.g. High school musical all help walt disney because they have the film, the soundtrack and the DVD game, help boost eachothers sales, it will all be inside one company.
Symbiosis is when two companies work together to share the profits for example Rovio's game angry birds will team up with a teddy bear company to make accessories for the game which will help make profits for both companies.

Here is an example of a synergy, the monsters vs aliens series was brought out on game, cd sountrack and dvd.

Rockstar Studios

 - Rockstar Japan - started in 2005 and still exists today, this is responsable for localisation of rockstar games and products in Japan.
 - Rockstar Leeds - started in 2004 and still exists today, this was formally known as Mobius Entertainment, based in Leeds, England. Specializes in handheld games and was also responsable for the microsoft windows version of L.A Noire
- Rockstar Lincoln - started in 1999 and still exists today, previously known as Tarantula Studios, based in Lincoln, England.
 - Rockstar London - started in 2005 and still exists today, took over the production of Manhunt 2 when Rockstar Vienna closed
 - Rockstar New England - started in 2008 and still exists today, based in Massachusetts, developed Xbox 360 and PC Ports of Bully
 - Rockstar North - started in 2002, based in Edinborough and previously known as DMA design, famous for the Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt Franchises
 - Rockstar San Diego - Started in 2003 and still exists today, previously known as Angel studios and is responsable for RAGE system featured in Red Dead Redemption

Notes

Tentpole business model - a game that is the best seller in the market, that boosts funds to promote other games, for example, rockstar games uses the GTA series to fund games like LA Noire and bully.
The hollywood model - GTA is an example of a hollywood model, it uses a number of different departments to design the game, for example paying people in the art department to help design certain scenes.
The indie games- Games that aren't produced by a multi national business, and instead cheaply designed by 1 to a few people that pay the likes of apple or xbox to host there games on there marketplace/app store, these tend to be more arcade type games that couldnt be released on disk due to funding

My Gaming History

I play games occasionally and have since i was young, i prefer to play games such as Fifa on the Ps3 but in my household, i have a Wii, Xbox 360, iPad and iPhone were games are also played occasionally but my main gaming console is the Ps3. I have a variety of games on this and i frequently play a number of them, but my favourite is Fifa.

Introduction

This is my media studies blog