The Future

I think there will defiantly be a future in this technology but it is unclear what it will be, the use of 'blue-ray' disks will be introduced allowing more data to be put on disks so bigger games will be produced, but this will come down to price.

The games will become more expensive as there will have to be more technology within the consoles to play them. This small article from the ‘bbc’, tell us what they think about modern games and how they will expand. I think this is a problem in itself, how can the consoles expand? Currently there is no new technology to go into the consoles, we have the HD and the blue-ray and wireless controllers, the only thing they can do is make the consoles smaller which doesn’t bring the technology forward at all. Unless a new type of game playing system is created e.g. no disks or a new memory format then there is a limited amount of thing that can be put into these consoles. This doesn’t really matter now as all 3 of the major consoles have just been released it will be 4-5 years before they will re-release of just bring out a new console. This means that the computers will take priority as they are continually expanding.

The other thing that will become huge in the future is the online gaming network, as they continually evolve it soon every one will be involved in it as it means that you can interact with friends over the other side of the world without having to see them and at very little cost to the user. This is really what it comes down to. If something is very cheap to use and also easy it will be take up by thousands of people, if it is expensive like the console then it will be limited to who uses it. This is really what the consumers of this technology want, they require cheap easy to use technologies, this is what the creators are trying to make and this will be the future.

Issues

There are a few issues that arise from this new media technology; firstly the small problem is that nobody is watching the online console gaming. The gamers themselves host the matches so there s no need for a host to control the game. Who says what is right and wrong within the game and are there actually any rules. This lets things that can not be controlled happen, for example from experience I know that people will ‘shout abuse’ at others online on the ‘Xbox live’ function on the Xbox 360. This cannot be controlled by a person in charge as it is only the voice communication. The user can mute the other players but then it stops normal communication. This is just one thing that can be classed as a problem over the internet that can not be controlled by the makes of the game.

Another thing that would be considered a major issue is the illegal activity that happens on online social games such a ‘second life’. There was a report that a paedophile ring was made on second life and people were able to go and join in with sex with clearly small children. They may not have been small but the fact is that they were shown to be like this. The moral question is why the creators didn’t remove these people rather than letting them do this. They said that it was because they didn’t know about it. This is the problem really; the game is so big and expands so fast that they don’t have time to check everything that is built. This is a small report on this issue on second life.

There is another small issue that these games create, this is that a large amount of people don’t leave there houses anymore as they can interact with new people and friends over these games so there is no need for them to go out. This does eventually create people that are hooked to the game and become engulfed in the computer. This will eventually create a moral panic for society that doesn’t need to leave there home as they can do every thing from a computer.

For games that are not online there is still the concern about those people that don’t leave there console and will play all day, this means they become dependant on it and can not do anything else. This then become the bad cases where children will go mad from playing a violent game and then someone gets seriously hurt. People then feel it is the games fault, where really it is the consumer who takes the game to literally or just is underage so doesn’t understand the difference between right and wrong. This creates the panic about violent games, which will cause companies to stop selling the games and them loosing money.

Audience

within this the main thing I will look at is the new online based interact games such as second life.

This has completely changed the way we can interact on the web; it lets you roam around and meet new people and lets you pretend to be whoever you like. People make money of this game and create a living doing so, and there are even cases of people falling in love over this game. This does bring up the question of what people are not doing to play this game instead, firstly they are not going out to meet new people but playing the game and finding people over the web. This stops the meeting of new people and although you may make friends over this game, you may never meet them in real life. As most people may go out in a n evening you would be confined to the computer to socialise with your friends.

This new technology is passively consumed and takes the full concentration of the user; it has no main target audience and can be used by all age groups.

There are many advantages to this new media, firstly if a person is not able to go out and interact with people due to a disability or just doesn’t want to then they can go online and meet people that way, giving every one a chance to meet new people and make new friends. This new media goes to a new level letting the user do what ever they want to do, there are limits but they can shop or build or even fly, this makes people live out there dream life on the game. although there are major concerns over control, there were reports of a paedophile ring within the game and this is due to the vast expansion of the game and the creators not being able to control what is being build and what is happening in the game.

This then bring up the other side of the argument that this is fine and good for the information rich areas of the world but bad for those who ar information poor. The phrase was once said that we are becoming a global village and every one is connected to each other. This is true but for the people who don’t have this access then the divide between us and them is increasing and making the gap further apart. Also there is a concern over who is watching people in the game and checking up on them; do they have the right to? And who is really in charge in the game. The main question is can the controllers see what you are doing in the game and do they have the right to check up on us. This is true both in online gaming as well as the console gaming. When we are playing online are the able to see who we are playing against and actually what is happening in the actual game play.

Institutions

when looking at this section there are two main sections that i need to cover, firstly it is the developers and then secondly it is the platforms.

Firstly the developers who make the game into what it is, they may not come up with the idea but they make it into the game. Looking at some of the main developers you can see that they are well know for the types of games they create and make a name of themselves for that, this gets them more money and more business. Take EA for example, they make hundreds of games and are well know for making film games like lord of the rings as well as sports games such as Fifa and Madden. The EA group has been around since 1982 and is know for being the world’s largest third party publishers. The company made just over 3 billion dollars last year in revenue which made the net income of 76 million dollars.

They make alot more money than other companies due to the fact that they own the right to things such as ESPN which covers all major sports in America. They have a deal to receive all major sports coverage for simulation games first. This means they get to make all the major sports games first so other companies will have to make copies of the games, which will not sell. Another thing they do to make more money is to buy smaller companies which create the same types of games, this way they have no competitors. This clever solutions means that the public don’t end up having lots of the same type of game to choose from, thus filing in the publics demands and making the gaming experience greater as more time can be spent on a games development. (Information sourced from a Wikipedia page)

The second thing we need to consider is the platforms; they have to agree to the game being made so they keep up their reputations for good games on their console. They make new technology to keep the buyers happy and to make more money for them selves. Take the Xbox 360; they released a new console to cover the needs of the public. Once HD TV’s came out they need to be able to play their game content in this high definition, and they needed wireless controllers to add to the fun of playing on the console. It also lets them charge more for the games as the public think they are new so must be more expensive. Although it does used backwards compatibility letting you play on the old Xbox games.

The other major thing that must be considered is the online gaming market, this consists of different things, firstly there is pure online games and then there is console games that can be played online.

The pure online games make money out of the subscription to the game where as the console games make money either from a subscription to the console internet usage or make no money at all. The Xbox 360 has ‘Xbox Live’ this costs around £40 a year, this gives you access to the other games and lets you have clans and is better organized than the other consoles, the PS3 uses normal internet so the interactivity is no so organized, this is similar to the wii, although the wii doesn’t have such a vast online network of players.

1. technology

My chosen technology is going to be gaming, within this i will look at the 3 major consoles; Sony's PS3, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. I will also be looking at the world of online gaming, both console and computer gaming.

The products are all marketed differently and depending on what they are marketing, for actual games then magazines and posters can be used but also web sites will list all new games that are being released, for example, the new xbox 360 games that are being released are shown on the 'game' store website shown here. this is similar to the other 2 consoles. But for the online games they are marketed differently, usually when have a online game it will be run by a company who make you log in and choose the type of game you wish to play, and they will have games advertising on there. this allows the users to find new games witch have been created by the same craters. this would show the user that if they liked the game they are playing on then they will like the new game. this advertising is aimed at the people who use the consoles or those who use online gaming, this is usually the younger generation but some of the older generation to. This website shows the statistics of who are the main gamers. interestingly the demographic for online games shows that 41% of online games are women who play on such sites as 'miss video games' and 'guild cafe'. still showing that it is a male dominated industry, this could be to do with the violent games that are released.

There are hundreds of companies who make games and there is a variety of cost. This website shows the main publishers and where they rank in the producing scale. It shows how many games have to be produced to keep them at the top of the charts. Electronic arts or EA sell hundreds of games, this shows most of them but there are still so many missing. Due to them dominating the sports industry games they have published games for each year, e.g. Fifa 94 up to Fifa 2008 this is similar with other games such as madden 94 to madden 08. They also follow such series films like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.

News games have a tendency to be expensive when they are sold on the consoles but cheaper if they are to be played on a computer online. Looking at the game website it shows new console games to be around £30-£40. Which most would consider very expensive but people are willing to pay that for new games.

The gaming is a mixture of push and pull gaming, depending on the games and what you need to do where as online it is much more pull as you have to freedom to explore the levels and interact with other all around the world. And the new media is defiantly hot media as it is new and is continually expanding.

The video gaming industry which includes the online gaming isn’t a new technology just and old one that is radically improving, although new media is been used inside the consoles to improve them. For example the new use of HD or high definition within gaming shows that the technology has to move forward with the new technology that is brought forward. The use of blue-ray disk inside the PS3 shows that we are capable of improving new games even more that before.

In my opinion it is the console developers who have been responsible for developing the new games and kept the industry moving forward, this is because they need to make money and if they improve there software then the game developers will keep making the games to go on them. This comes down to every one wanting to make money and the easiest way to do that is to keep upgrading the software and bringing new things into the market.