Intro to video games

Sega advert: Viz comic early 90's:

• Targeted at only young men 
• Implies women aren't interested and aren't able to play them 
• uses sex to sell the product

What is a video game:

• Must have a console 
• Tend to target a core/niche audience
• Video games are generally much more interactive 
• There is an assumptions that they are played by a younger audience and doesn't appeal to an older audience 
• Often there is an online component to them
• More complicated narrative
• Huge expenditure of resources
• Much higher RRP
• Significantly longer
• Tend to be released for a specific console or computer

Hypodermic needle model- makes a massive assumption that the audience are stupid

The Video game industry is a specialised industry:

History:

• First ever video game was in 1962 called space wars- developed in America, designed originally as an experiment in the US military 
• some of the first video games were multiplayer, roleplaying games similar to 'Dungeons and Dragons'
• Space invaders- Taito developed the arcade game, they have a dedicated cabinet and is publicly available. It was so popular in Japan (where it was originally made) suffered from a shortage off 100 Yen coins
• In America one of the games that caused the 'arcade boom' was 'centipede' another game which was played within an arcade and had a dedicated cabinet with  a trackpad, shortly things like Donkey Kong was released.
• What developed from this was 'micro computers' which meant people could play games at home,. bedroom coders within the uk began developing their own games, and companies like Atari picked these up and made them compatible for the ZX Spectrum console.
• 1980's video game industry crash 
• Aktri went bankrupt due to the E.T video game which they only spent a month on developing and sold very little copies- they buried them as it was the cheapest way to get rid  off them
• However Japan was thriving and creating games such as Dragon Quest- Japanese games were much more graphic heavy and relied on narrative however western games were more puzzle focused
• In 1986 super Mario was created for nitendo- to this day it is still the highest grossing video game in history- it was marketed specifically towards kids, with an easily recognisable soundtrack and graphics which were more advanced than many others. Mario is easy to understand and play however hard to actually master
• 1994- Sony Playstation 1 was released- they advert they used to go with the console used almost reverse psychology- making fun of the idea the video games make you stupid - sophisticated advertising campaign challenging the idea they're only played by nerds- also took the play station to clubs and there sound tracks were made by up and coming artists
• Video games tend to be a lot longer than films
• Indie games tend to be made by small development teams
• Where as a triple A game take thousands of people to make them E.g FIFA or call of duty
• Controversies surrounding representation: lots of sexiest representation when the first women was put onto a video game 
• Digital distribution: no hard copes of games anymore 

Component 1- section B:
Assassin Creed 3- Liberation ( the game we need to know)
Published by Ubisoft in 2012 for the playstation Vita, with a subsequent HD re-release for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Trailer for 2014 re-release:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5RxYUw4DFY 
Pegi 18 - regulated in a different way to films 

In May 2019, the game will be re-released as a part of Assassin's Creed III Remastered for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows.

• to start with the game sales didn't meet the companies expectations which is why it was then rereleased on more consoles in 2014
• Didn't get very good reviews and the story line was heavily criticised 
• Critically the game didn't do well which heavily impacts sales
• Being rerelased a second time is an easy way to make more money as only things need to be tweaked not completely designed 
• 600,000 copies were sold on the first release on only the ps vita which is really low considering its a triple a