Lesson 19 - UGC

Click below to see PPT from today's lesson as well as the two homework tasks:

Year 12: What you need to have posted (to be up to date)

I will be going through my spreadsheet tomorrow evening checking who is missing what. You should have the following elements posted on your Blog.

1. My gaming history - A brief summary of your experiences with gaming to date.
2. Your essay on innovations in the gaming market out of the choices available
3. A post detailing what is known about the Wii U launch - how much will it cost? What are the launch games? Do you think the market for the Wii U will be the same as the Wii?
4. Post a few statistics lifted from the introduction of the Reality is Broken book by Jane McGonigall that I handed out to you all OR from the TED lecture we watched in class, as similar stats feature in both (also available on this blog!)
5. A post about the Hot Coffee mod - What was it? what were the consequences for developers Rockstar, publishers Take Two, retailers of the game and the gaming world at large.
6. Indie games - What are they? How do they differ? Find one indie game and research it, posting a case study on the game. You will need some knowledge of an indie game for the exam to compare with Rockstar and GTA4 and 5. If you are struggling, then click here for the Minecraft label cloud. That's what the label clouds are there for!

If you feel like you are up to date, then it is never too early to see what the examiners will be looking for in January - click here for the posts i've put up about the exam.
There is a list of past years' questions, examplar answers and other tips.
Or if that seems a bit heavy but you want to do a bit of media work, then you can do a lot worse than rewatch the History of Rockstar Games.

P.S I have the letters for Play Expo so will hand those out on Monday but please return with the cheques for £17.60 by the end of the week, thank you! Will be a great day :-)

Mr H

Essays: The other topics

Need to read up on a topic you did not look at for the exam?
Have a read of the following:

Is Mobile Gaming the future?
Shaun O

Or is Social Gaming?
Max S

Today's consoles - is there anything they can't do?
Tom C

Well done everybody, really pleased with the amount of effort and research that has obviously gone into all of these - the rest of us will find your essays useful reading for when the exam comes around!

Click here for a reminder of the Homework essay tasks

Mr H

Essays: The Controller Revolution

A lot has changed since I was a lad. We had an A button and a B button. Maybe even a Start button (which ironically was just used to pause the game...) - Nowadays you seem to be forced to subscribe to one of two camps: controllers with 13 (X360) or 15 (PS3) buttons  - or a second group of consoles/systems where controllers have barely any buttons - you have Wii's gesture controller, or PS3's Move, or you forego controllers alltogether with the 360's Kinect system. Have a read on what those below have said about this peripheral shift...

Amy A
Oliver L

Essays: Single player

Is single player dying out in favour of multiplayer?
Check out these essays by
James F
Joe W

Well researched with lots of examples - we need to share each other's knowledge!

Essays: Digital Distribution

This seems to be the most popular topic out of the available subject for this essay on technological innovations. If you are researching this topic, here are the essays on the subject:

Ashleigh F
Jonathan H
Casey McV
Thomas P
Zoe R

Check them out, lots of really well researched facts and use of real-life examples to back up their thoughts on the topic of the future of distribution: will we soon see the retail market moving purely digital/online? Have a read!

Homework essay: WHAT'S NEW? Innovations in the videogames industry

Homework Task: Innovations in the videogame industry  essay

Set: Monday 17^th September

Due:  Monday 1st October

(To be written in Word, spellchecked and then posted on your Blog)

The 2012 Videogames Industry: Your task is to write a 750-1000 word essay on one of the set questions below on new innovations in the videogames industry today. You are to conduct your own reading and note taking around the subject using my Label Cloud on the right hand side and the Gaming Site feeds also on the side to help you. For the first part of your essay define and give examples of the keyterms in your question - those words in bold below.

Essay questions

1.       “Freemium” and microtransactions – Are the days of Day One purchases numbered, with publishers wanting more purchases down the line?

2.       Digital Distribution – Will everything become digital in the future and who wants this?

3.       The controller revolution: Gesture controllers – Wii, Kinect and Move etc – How have they affected the videogames industry?

4.       Technological convergence – Game consoles becoming Swiss Army Knives – How have consoles evolved from purely game consoles and what has been the impact on the industry?

5.       Social Gaming – Are casual Gamers taking over?

6.       A long way from Snake: Mobile gaming – iOS and the rise of Android – is this the future of gaming?

7.       Is single player dying? The rise of online gaming and multiplayer: Are single player games at risk of being the exception as opposed to the rule?

Is there an area of the videogame industry that you would like to research that is not covered by the topics here? See me asap and we can sort out an appropriate question for you to look at.