Game adverts before the Hobbit

Just watched The Hobbit - No less than three game ads before the film. Though what was interesting was the choice of game genres depicted in the ads: All three were very cinematic but what was interesting was that two out of three were MMORPGS and the other was a dystopian fantasy FPS

Trailers below after the cut:

Vote for your favourite Year 13 trailer

Click below to get to the year 13 trailer page on the VLE - after you have watched them all, click the link at the bottom to vote for your favourite!

LEGO GTA V trailer

Ever wanted to see the first GTA V trailer constructed out of Lego? You have? Well click below to view after the cut. Another great example of exchange or consumption of Rockstar's products - machinima videos made by fans such as this. I found this as it was shared on the Rockstar Games Facebook page. This shows that Rockstar encourage such fan devotion and this is part of the R* ethos. Enjoy!

Examples of game changes - many due to local audiences

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Lesson 22 - Lara's makeover

2013 sees a reboot of the long running UK franchise Tomb Raider, with main character Lara Croft looking very different from previous iterations.

Task: Blog a timeline of Lara Croft from her first Tomb Raider in 1997. Include images to illustrate the changes in character design over the years. What was the target audience? Find evidence to back up your views.

Read up on the developers' reasonings behind the choices made in the new character's design and report on your findings. Your Blogpost must consider the following question:
To what extent are the changing audience s responsible for the change in look of Lara Croft?

A localised world

It took seven months for a localised version Final Fantasy VII to hit US shores after its original 1997 Japanese release. It took another two months for it to reach Europe and Australia. It took a full year before Dragon Quest VIII finally came out in the US after its 2004 Japanese release, and another five months before it arrived in the dense cultural and linguistic patchwork of Europe.

Lesson 21 - Targeting local audiences - essay

Bulletpoint we are focusing on from the exam spec:

The issues raised in the targeting of national and local audience, specifically British, by international or global institutions.

Therefore, this morning we are going to research for and Blogpost an essay on this subject, taking in the various sectors of the gaming industry.

Introduction: Why do you think it is important to target national or local audiences?

Production: How do local audiences change the products introduced to markets? Use the example of China and consoles.

Localisation: What is localisation and what are the issues involved?

Marketing: How does games marketing change to target local audiences?

Conclusion: What do you think are the most important issues - and with globalisation and the role of the internet, is localisation more or less important in the current climate?

For each section, remember to back up with contemporary examples and make your own assumptions about the audiences involved.


http://www.edge-online.com/features/localised-world/
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/tag/localisation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_localization
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/feature-q-a-and-localisation-roundtable/084699
http://gengo.com/about-us/blog/an-inside-look-at-video-game-localization/
http://www.languages-media.com/press_interviews_mangiron.php
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/industry-careers-video-game-localization/

If critics want to ban Grand Theft Auto because it lets you kill virtual people, what world do they live in?

Charlie Brooker: In a previous life, I reviewed videogames for a living. As jobs go, it was a curate's egg. On the one hand, I could legitimately sit around playing games until three in the morning without feeling guilty - even if I wasn't specifically reviewing whatever I was currently playing, it all provided useful background knowledge. It never felt like work.

Grand Theft Auto creators detail Max Clifford’s engineered controversy

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Grand Theft Auto creators David Jones and Mike Dailly have gone into further detail on the fact that much of the controversy surrounding the series was engineered by publicist Max Clifford. The collaboration was last explored in David Kushner’s book Jacked: The Outlaw Story Of Grand Theft Auto.

The Making Of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

As Rockstar’s open-world classic arrives on iOS to mark its tenth anniversary, we look back to its creation with company president and GTA: Vice City executive producer Sam Houser. Here, he recalls the films, TV shows and music that inspired the game and the legacy it leaves behind – and why Ray Liotta thought he was a “fucking lunatic”.