Contents
Task 1
Historic Development of the Video Games Industry
Technological Innovations in the Industry
Security
3D Work Tools
Historic Development of the Controllers for Games
Immersion
Customisation
Task 2
How the World Informs Video Games
Kids on Games
Brain Benefits
Brain Problems
Advertising through Games
Story Development and Flow
Video Game Culture
E-Sports
Content Creation
How Audience Expectations Relate to Product Development
Establishing Expectations
Product Development
Task 3
Looking at one Specific Game
Society & Culture for League of Legends
Company Origins
Society Affecting LoL Design
Culture Having Influence
Game Promotion and Context
Advertising in More Ways than One
Application of Real World Social and Cultural Contexts
Evaluation
Task 1
Historic Development of the Video Games Industry
The video games industry used to be led by the rising enthusiasm for arcade machines which would be found in public houses or buildings dedicated to them called arcade houses, this even, was much before the popularisation of home consoles. The Magnavox Odyssey was one of the first consoles released to the general public in 1972 after Atari normalised arcade gaming with Pong in the way as described above. Although Atari produced Pong as an arcade machine they saw the potential in home video game consoles and released the Atari 2600 in 1977, before it, games were mostly found on the home console themselves in a set list of games tied to the console you purchased. However the Atari 2600 popularised the use of microprocessor based hardware and games that came on separate ROM cartridges to the console themselves, this changed the way developers could market things as it started to allow them to offer a greater amount of content to the user and also a more customised and tailored experience. Following onward, in 1982 the Commodore 64, an 8-bit home computer sold 12.5 million units with thousands of floppy disk games to choose between, it began the rise of what would become PC gaming in the future and also allowed for a personalised version of play to the gamer in the form of picking the games you play.
The next big chronological events in history was when Nintendo released their Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985 and later the Nintendo Gameboy in 1989, with the pre-evolution being the Colour-TV Game series of consoles they created exclusively in Japan. The NES brought forward a few innovations which will later be discussed such as how it overcame the video game crash of 1983. The Gameboy was the first majorly successful handheld console as the designer, Gunpei Yokoi, merged elements of his previous designs of the small game & watch series with the Nintendo famicom/NES line. It had the use of ROM cartridges like the NES as well as the dpad design continued on from the game & watch while it was marketed with Tetris leading the advertisement as the game to define the console.
Over in the sector of PC gaming in 1993, the file transfer of doom1_0.zip to an online network caused a revolutionary change to the culture of gaming as it was known. ID Software created Doom which became a heavy influence on how games would present themselves in the future and properly nurtured the genre of FPS into consumers hands. In opposition to the usual cartoon-like, bright and happy visuals of a generic game in that time Doom brought into speculation the true display of demonic and evil features within a video game, it also was stated that ID Software was open to modding and their distribution of source code may of led to many people entering the industry due to the simpler entry point neatly made for them through modding.
The PlayStation was released in 1994 and was the most successful console to date with credit going to the cheaper games production on CD-ROM and with a majority of those games adapting the more adult directed game-play visuals in comparison to cartoon themed approaches. It was the competitor to the other 3D graphics rising alternatives such as the Nintendo 64 (1996) or the Sega Saturn (1994 as well) and its market success also goes greatly to its wide array of games in comparison to other consoles.
After the PlayStation’s reign in the generation of gaming over 400 million phones by Nokia in 1997 came pre-installed with the game Snake which made an expectation for the users where every phone would normally have Snake on it. This lay the foundations for the future of mobile gaming but would not be seen to blow up until about 10 years later. Another innovation that would rise in this time was the game developed and published by Valve in 1998, Half-Life. It introduced new methods of story telling in games with things such as scripted sequences instead of cut-scenes and through this the result was a greater amount of player immersion since the player would still be able to control the first person view-port while story events were occurring, or the player would still be playing whilst assisting NPC’s were providing information to expand the plot.
When the Sega Dreamcast was released in 1998 and was said to be ahead of it’s time with a built in modem for online play however it was held back due to its limited third party support. Sony’s PS2 had the fan-base of the PS1 providing it with a strong and trusted branding at its release in 2000 and also while having backwards compatibility for PS1 games and controllers to be used with it. This greatly increased the PlayStation 2‘s success as well as it being a DVD player and having thousands of games released for it, also it wiped it’s competitors out of the competition. Microsoft’s Xbox and the Nintendo Gamecube didnt reach the same heights in sales as the PS2 which still to this day is the most sold home console.
In 2004 the portable console market was tackled by Nintendo and then by Sony in 2005. The Nintendo DS bested the PlayStation Portable with it’s interesting features like it’s built in microphone and WiFi capabilities as well as its touch screen for innovative ways to play. In the next generation of home consoles in 2006 the Nintendo Wii took first place in sales count by again (like the DS) tackling new ways to play games with its motion control and a focus on social party themed gaming to bring people together. These concepts attracted more people than the Sony and Microsoft alternatives of PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 respectively.
Shortly afterwards, in 2007 the phone market allowed developers to work on a different platform entirely with the Iphone and it’s App Store which opened in 2008. To start the upbringing of mobile gaming into what it has become today, that being over 50% of the gaming industry’s revenue generator, it allowed many new developers to create mobile games and then started the new market plans with micro-transactions where customers would not just buy the game, but be able to buy stuff within the game due to the ease of access of virtual money on said device through gift cards or debit/credit transactions.
The micro-transactions in mobile games started to move to PC with the release of League of Legends in 2009, this game was entirely free for anyone to play by just creating an account and downloading the client however once that was done you were able to start buying cosmetics exclusively with real money. Because it was free to play compared to many other big games at the time many players found no reason not to try out this new MMO and lots of which found who themselves hooked often found themselves reaching into their pockets to show off an appealing new look which suited their tastes. In 2010 the game released a new competitive mode where players could climb the ranks to show off their skills and the top of the top competed in the first e-sports event, the world championships in June 2011.
Since the rising of PC and mobile gaming, consoles are having to compete with them in ways such as upping the specs of the console or making customisation options like mods available in certain ways, some such methods are seen to have been approached by Microsoft’s Xbox One or Sony’s PlayStation 4 (Release in 2013). There are also the approaches towards mobile gaming such as the gimmicks like tilt control or the small touchscreen and also the fact that the mobile device is portable compared to a home console not being so. Nintendo tackled these points with the Wii U (Release in 2012)in the current standing generation of home consoles which had a controller with a screen that some games used as a second monitor for some gimmicks in game-play however unfortunately it was only wireless in a small area away from the main console. As a refinement to the Wii U Nintendo released the Switch, a new console that isn’t a controller with a screen, but an actual console with a screen, it can be docked to a HD TV for HD quality play and has detachable controller modules from the console/screen while also being portable with a long battery life.
Technological Innovations in the Industry
Through various technological innovations the world of gaming has changed in the ways above and some ideas and methods come through to the open world as the norm in the modern day.
Security
In 1993 there was the video game crash and as mentioned the console to break the ice of the stale year was the Nintendo Entertainment System, a small modification of the Famicom to be widely used across the continents ready for third party developers to work on their own games for the device. The unique thing about this console was that it allowed third party developers to develop a maximum of 5 games for the console per year and by themselves being the only manufacturer permitted to make the game cartridges the game maker would have to pay them for the cartridge manufacturing costs resulting in higher profits for Nintendo. In order to enforce how they wanted to be the only manufacturer, they implemented an authentication chip in every console and no game would load unless the console detected a counterpart chip in the cartridge inserted, Nintendo called this the golden seal of approval that third party developers could get on only 5 of their games every year. Some businesses however, saw big potential in the NES hence they would try to find workarounds and manufacture their own cartridges that could bypass the authentication system, some would channel a high voltage through the console to temporarily disable the authentication chip and allow the game to load while others used different technological methods like dongles that would simulate the licensing of another legal cartridge being loaded.
3D Work Tools
With digital technology in software and hardware developing the usage of new computer input tools is seen to be new and exciting. From what used to be exclusive to pen and paper, art comes into the digital world with the use of handwriting recognition by computer graphic tablets. Generally first originating in 1957 with the Stylator, but became better known in 1964 when the RAND Tablet/Grafacon was introduced. It used grids of wires in the board that would let magnetic signals be detected by the stylus and converted into a co-ordinate value for application to the computer. Graphics tablets are widely used across various sectors from education, where teachers can make notes in handwriting in front of the students on a projected screen, to forms of digital art and technical drawings or as input-methods for 3D manipulation software. Along with software like Adobe Photoshop being produced the hardware improves with time as well, graphics tablets gain more features such as pressure sensitivity and software like Photoshop compliment this with different types of brush stroke to choose from. in terms of 3D manipulation software, programs like Blender or Zbrush encourage the use of a graphics tablet for its precision in work and features like pressure sensitivity, and in cohesion with these advancements, the graphic elements of games improve in terms of 3D meshes and the digital art made possible.
Historic Development of the Controllers for Games
The input devices used for gaming, known as controllers have been connecting us to our games since the start. With the Joystick of the first big-name console the Atari-2600, it was simple and games made use of it’s intuitive layout and it was able to perform how it needed to for the games on the Atari-2600. The NES controller expanded the options in gaming by adding another action button and also the 2 menu control buttons, start and select. It is also important to note the use of a D-pad for movement and how the action buttons are positioned on the right, where (right-handed) people would use their more precise hand for quick and accurate actions in games.
Afterwards, Atari went on to experiment with a few concepts such as with the Atari-5200 a joystick was used with a number keypad similar to a mobile phone keypad and some buttons towards the top end of the sides of the block which made up the controller. The Atati-7800 did simplify the 5200’s controller greatly but to no great success like the Super Nintendo Entertainment System controller with it’s 4 action button scheme that has become a staple in contemporary controller design. The SNES controller was also the first to have shoulder buttons and not only that but it was superb in how it was thought out and constructed on a smaller level of attention, the Y and X buttons have and outer lip on them to give the tip of the thumb more grip while the A and B buttons are smooth easily allowing for players to press down on the smooth buttons while holding down the lipped ones often seen in application, for example in Mario Bros. games it allows you to jump while running with ease.
Meanwhile Sega had developed its controller for the Sega Genesis which had 3 action buttons on the right and a D-pad on the left, it could be said it was trying to one up the original NES controller and it even had an ergonomic design that was less sharp on its edges however it only had one menu button. The SNES encouraged Sega to up their controller game with its strong push forward in controller design so Sega released a new model of the Genesis controller but with 6 action buttons instead of Nintendo’s 4 but it still lacked the shoulder buttons Nintendo’s controller had and it only supported games that came out after its production that used the total 6, whereas the SNES controller was supported for all games released on its console from the start.
By the time the Sega caught up to the various features the SNES had with the Sega Saturn controller also having shoulder buttons, Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 and with it, the respective controller. The controller for the Nintendo 64 had innovative features in many new ways, to start with, it was one of the first to apply the use of an analogue thumb stick which implemented near 360 degree movement in games on the console. The analogue stick was however said to be quite flimsy and uncomfortable at times and had sometimes lost its functionality after continuous use. Another new introduction was the expansion slot which could have memory packs inserted into it or extra modules such as a pack which made the controller rumble in the players hands at times. Last of all being the trigger button on the back was an interesting new feature that was similar to the shoulder buttons but as the name suggests it felt more like a trigger. The main problem with the N64’s controller was the very visible fact that it had three handles on it and only two could be used at one time, limiting it’s potential, but it still made use of each handle as different games would usually have a control scheme that decided which 2 handles you would be using throughout playing the game. Once again Sega has to compete with Nintendo after the release of the N64 by adding an analogue stick to their controller.
I covered how well Sony did when developing it’s first few consoles in general but in terms of the controller design for these productions there was success too, Sony must have believed this too as they kept its model the same all the way to today, with a few additional gimmicks. Sony first released the PS1 with it’s controller which, based on the basic button configuration of the SNES, it was similar in layout and had an extra set of shoulder buttons for use with the middle finger and also a hand grip to help keep it in the player’s hands since less fingers are used to hold it. Three years after the initial release of the PS1 Sony released the Dual Analogue controller which introduced two analogue sticks on either side of the controller and another half-year after this Sony released the DualShock controller, one with varying levels of vibration capabilities, softer grips on the joysticks and another input by depressing the stick into the controller. The DualShock controller received 3 upgrades leading to the DualShock 4 controller for the PlayStation 4 in the current generation where in versions 1 – 3 minor design changes were received such as the general re-colour to black, a majority of digital buttons becoming pressure sensitive, then wireless Bluetooth coming to the controller, the addition of motion sensitivity to a limited degree, a set of shoulder buttons changing to triggers and a PS button used as a home button. The DualShock 4 was the first to give off a different feel from the original PlayStation controller, it had a design re-work on some of its features like the sticks and shoulder buttons while also having the implementation of a touch pad and RGB LED light bar as well as updated specs like more accurate gyro technology.
Microsoft also entered the gaming industry with the Xbox and started competing directly with Sony’s PlayStation 2, The Xbox controller used the standard button configuration with a couple extra action buttons and approached the shoulder buttons in the same way the N64 did the Z button as a trigger. Nintendo brought forward the GameCube controller which had a unique layout of action buttons following the intuition that the big button is for main inputs and all the other buttons orbit it as they have less significance. Sega also experimented with the Dreamcast controller, it featured two expansion slots one of which was popularly used with the Visual Memory Unit produced by Sega to work with the Dreamcast controller. The VMU could store data for some games and also show information on the small LCD screen relevant to the game being played on the Dreamcast, it could be used separate from the controller to play mini-games using the buttons and D-pad built into the extension itself. The other expansion slot could then contain a rumble pack or microphone and headset connection to communicate online.
Immersion
Many modern controllers are similar to each other and be a strong factor showing that the evolution has reached a good point, especially as there is much less dissatisfaction with the way controllers are now than there was in the past. The way controllers are now designed not only for purpose of functionality but also comfort shows the push towards more immersive experiences in gaming. Immersion has become more valued within games as the developments in the field are seen to be progressing swiftly into the likes of the virtual reality headsets or augmented reality technology. VR originated as entertainment with the 4 sense theatre “Sensorama” in 1960 then was used in many serious activities like jet propulsion simulators for NASA in 1977 or other tasks like medical or flight simulations. Some game companies looked towards VR research and towards the present headsets have been created which have haptic feedback technology and motion control providing an experience of a simulated reality directed for play.
The industry may be affected in some ways to not change such as the point that we may no longer see the future Playstation or Xbox iterations looking to innovate their controllers with exciting new designs, however some companies like Nintendo are still exploring new ways to play with the Nintendo Switch and in general VR and AR is likely to affect the whole of gaming with interesting new gimmicks to allow people to have unique experiences and a fun time in another reality.
Customisation
Another interesting development of tech marketing has been the customise-ability of certain pieces of modern tech. For example gamers who play on PC may do special case modifications to make their PC look like a certain theme or opt for the option growing in popularity of RGB board and system component lighting. There are also RGB mice, keyboards and headphones to make a “Personal Computer” actually personal and show off fancy colours while you play. You can also get custom skins for consoles and their controllers now to give your setup some personal style and differentiate it from others.
Task 2
How the World Informs Video Games
The game development industry now has connections to uses other than just entertainment purposes, as well as this audience reception of games has changed how the general public eye perceives them as they have their effect on media and society.
The term “gamification” covers the wide array of medium being turned into a form of game through the use of common techniques found in games to make them fun eg. score systems, competition or other rule sets. An example of this is in education you can now find many games dedicated to teaching math in fun ways such as blasting away the correct numbers and gaining points. By these methods it can appeal to children but children are not the only ones who do lots of learning through games, they inspire the production of game like simulators in fields such as flight or medical education and can provide a pseudo real situation virtually to a user in order to provide them practice through practical work.
There are many advantages to the usage of simulations in the common workplace and one of which is that it provides a risk free environment during normally risky situations. In an actual event such as piloting a plane solo for the first time the risk of failure remains and the consequences of such risk can be devastating, by taking this situation into a virtual simulation you can remove the risks entirely and still partake in a similar event. In this aspect of simulation it can quite decently allow for the development of decision making with the wrong or inefficient decisions having no consequence. It not only removes risks from the learning of a skill, but can be implemented as the stimuli for learning one or a method of assessment for employers to distinguish the competence of any candidates.
Kids on Games
For the benefit of future generations, sometimes games are not only designed with the premise to educate youths but can incorporate it into an already existing formula of enjoyable play with can help ingrain knowledge into it’s players without realizing it. Even then, most games which have no intention at all towards learning can develop a young child as a person if used correctly. Some video games teach problem solving skills to people who play them, games of the puzzle genre can help teach someone how they can plan a situation and search or experiment to find different results. They can also inspire a passion into certain subjects such as history or culture or spike an interest in wanting to know more about such things, games like Civilization might make children want to learn about world history or national geography to understand their world. When mythology is turned into an adventure children can go on to learn complex language or discover new things through museums and when games provide a platform for custom content or the exchange of things like personal maps it influences creative learning.
For the children of our generation, expanding technology and broadening of concepts within games provides many opportunities to experience new things. Games are a great way for kids to make friends, due to the unsafe environment of the web online is not the best case here, however a majority of young boys state that “making new friends” is a reason for playing games and within schools many within a group of friends play in the same room or online with each other exclusively. Due to the wild adventures that playing a game can take you on, going through the experience with another can develop a relationship between the two and create trust between them.
Some players of sport games talk about learning new moves that their game characters performed and saying that in the respective sport if they try and practice enough they might be able to get better and be able to perform to a greater ability. For those that don’t undertake sports as much, competitive video games provide them with a chance to “compete with other people and win”, video games provide a safe platform to excel and work hard towards achievement and in some cases develop teamwork skills. With teamwork elements in games teens may play online they may find themselves mediating disputes or leading a group of people towards a common goal to victory. Through many other difficulties that games can offer, certain kids who can overcome said tasks often develop teaching skills by gaining the reputation of the go-to guy/girl for beating “X” game and having people approach them with requests on how to get past something tough, this results in the person gaining social and communication skills in order to explain something at get it across to another party.
Brain Benefits
There are also many studies on the effect of games on our brain, for people who play games it can develop their manual skills in everyday life. By playing games which rely on text to convey the majority of the story or features such as rules the ability of your readings skills will go up just like if you were reading a book, making it a brief alternative. Anything with a need for precision timing or a sensitive input develops a person’s hand-eye coordination. With the introduction of motion control games which are played by moving your whole body and especially sports simulations are great at creating a gateway into the active world of sport and in this way can boost motive towards fitness. Video games are also being recognised as a rehabilitation setting, particularly in children with movement disorders, game consoles such as the Wii keep the player moving in a therapeutic setting and has even been dubbed Wii-habilitation.
More on the topic of brain and cognition sciences, some studies show a correlation between games and learning capabilities. Research shows that people playing games not only improve from the skills taught directly from the game but also mental work is being done to develop the mind. Action games help our brains to develop more precise “templates” as the study calls them and these perceptual templates are our brain’s predictions of the current scene that are constantly being calculated to help us deal with any upcoming tasks. Although the precision of action-gamer’s compared to non-gamer’s is indifferent when approached by a task, the action-gamer’s have the ability to learn faster and reach a heightened level of accuracy in a shorter space of time, meaning that when given the same task in the future they can handle it better than the latter.
Brain Problems
However, there are opposing studies that state the negative effects that video games have to our brains, society, learning or more. By playing the same video games that can increase our eye to hand coordination or processing skills, our brains have been monitored to decrease the amount of grey matter within them while we play, a lack in grey matter often results in the development of neuropsychiatric illnesses, examples of which being depression, schizophrenia, PTSD or Alzheimer’s disease. While most action games shrink the hippocampus region of our brain and grey matter a study showed that people who instead spent controlled time playing platform games gained grey matter in their hippocampus region. This meaning that in order to measure the effects of games on our brain, genre would need to be controlled and with different games there are different brains.
Due to prominent reward systems in video games it can often influence addiction onto its users just as gambling may to someone at a casino, emotional components of addiction play a part in both cases and can in someways be considered an important role that leads to such effect. The addiction to video games is not entirely based on the amount of time played and rather the impulsive and perseverative errors in a persons actions. Professional gamers who spend a great deal of time playing video games display very different neural patterns to video game addicts and is more of an indicator that unbalanced reward systems in games over time spent playing causes it.
With video game addiction it can lead to many health problems due to possible prolonged play and out of game mental effects. One simple matter is that by playing video games you are taking the choice to not exercise your body by otherwise partaking within sport or other physical activity, this can lead to weight gain towards obesity and in correspondence the many negative effects of obesity such as heart problems or diabetes. Long hours of play when stretched across time can lead to difficulty sleeping and further into insomnia or drowsiness as well as back pains developing as the addiction progresses further. Other than physical health problems other psychological problems include the social isolation of game addicts as they spend most of their time playing games instead of developing social skills and especially when young they can confuse fiction in games with reality so they may interact as they would within a game.
With violent content in video games there has long been the debate of exposure causing aggressive behaviour, players may experience less empathy towards violent situations and possibly a lowered threshold for the acts of aggressiveness behaviour when adapting to situations, it is however dependant and more prone to happen to individuals with certain personality profiles.
Advertising through Games
We have established that games are being used for work simulations or learning purposes, but there are also games being used to promote products through something called advergaming. This process involves the company behind the product either approaching the development of their own game based on that item or featuring it promotionally displayed within another game already in production. Advergaming usually increases brand awareness because when people talk about the main game, the topic of the product can crop up in conversation too. One form of advergaming can be as minimal as a game character drinking a certain brand of drink in the game or a sign in the background with an advertisement poster on it, but it can be as big as an entire game with distinguished gameplay and/or story elements of which people can become a direct fan of and in turn support the product related to the game.
Since advergaming can be associated with any advertisement that uses video game theory or elements you can find it in many different forms, with technology becoming more advanced there are mobile game advertisements which themselves are short snippets of a certain game. 1 demo level optimised down to be used in place of a video advertisement or image could pop up on your screen while playing a game and then tell you to download the full game if you want to play more. On this note, mobile advertisements themselves even if they are traditional video promotions are sometimes implemented as a gameplay feature where if you watch a few advertisements you can earn some in-game cash or other major incentive. This method drives people into watching an ad as they are being rewarded for it and it opens the idea of maybe checking out the products they see as they earn stuff.
Some examples of advergames developed with a brand in mind are Cool Spot and it’s sequel Spot Goes to Hollywood which represented 7-up the pop drink, Pepsi-man to represent Pepsi, Chipotle Scarecrow representing Chipotle Mexican Grill and many of the variants of Lego apps which would represent the Lego toy people know and love. Some notable innovations are Chipotle’s free to play approach going by the thoughts that nobody wants to pay for an ad leading them to just aim for a well developed game instead. Also the way that most modern lego apps link together their real product and virtual world through the use of augmented reality makes their product incredibly engaging for kids.
Story Development and Flow
Games are becoming more immersive as society desires and in some cases now the story is valued more than the game-play or action, of course when both are good it makes a great game but story and world building also helps with immersion into the game world for the player just as much as flowing game-play can. A good balance that allows the maximum ability to escape from reality into a game is found often with the games of the current generation, for example small things like how in No Man’s Sky the loading screen is replaced with a scene that makes you believe you are flying to another planet as you watch your spaceship fly through the void. Better implementations of seamless play are like God of War and how it is constantly loading parts of the level you can’t see either when you are climbing a cliff or traversing a tunnel, by using clever structuring of its world it was able to achieve such game-play.
Video Game Culture
By the increase in popularity of video games a “culture” has been born and nurtured, Video Game Culture. The e-Sports of today would have been the high score system in a single arcade machine 30 years ago, the sheer scale is so different and this is due to the lack of internet and worldwide communications that we take for granted today. The local arcade house would have customers that would input the 3 alphabetic characters they choose to represent them and it would be shown on a leaderboard for only those others who visit that same arcade, this meant that somewhere else in the world there could be a better player but it would never be known until years into the explosion of Video Game Culture.
After the era of arcade, games did come to homes allowing for them to have more depth and segmented gameplay but from then on they stretched into the mainstream by inspiring other media outlets such as movies. One of the first big name movies inspired by video gaming was TRON as it incorporated game features as the entire premise for the movie world and adapted a story between characters into it. The technical and computer inspired theme appealed to gamers and intrigued non-gamers about the gaming world. Films relating to games then became more frequent, some would be centred around a specific game concept designed for the movie like TRON, whereas some would be based on an actual existing game where the company behind the game decided to push forward a film on it.
From websites that critique films such as the website Metaccritic, there has not been a film based on a game that has received a higher rating than 60% which shows that in terms of quality the films have not appealed to the public as much as main releases do such as recent marvel series movies or Disney/Pixar animations do generally. However due to the fan base from the games they come from audience size may increase and result in large worldwide box office values, for example, the movie Warcraft only had a rating of 32% from Metacritic but a massive $430 million worldwide box office gain.
Gaming culture becomes a big thing online in the 2000s, competitive games were hindered by the lack of high speed internet at the time but online game communities and popular MMORPGs like EverQuest and World of Warcraft grew immensely attracting more and more people to spend lots of time online to escape the real world into a fantasy setting. Then you also have games becoming slightly more socially acceptable within certain communities as events such as cosplay conventions incorporate the permission of game characters on top of movie and tv characters to be dressed up as and competitions are held in categories of “best dressed game character” commonly.
E-Sports
You then have the expanse of e-Sports and the insanely high viewer-base, some events number 50,000 people watching live alongside 20 million online. In 2014 alone, 12 million people attended live e-Sports events in US and Western EU, in 2016, there were 71 million live and it was predicted 145 total million in 2017. Some surveys had also concluded at events that up to 40% of viewers don’t even play the games themselves but still watch the champions. An example of an event prize pool was the call of duty world championship in 2015 which had a 1 million dollar pool with about $400,000 going to the top team. This rise of “Professional Computer Gamer” involves those who have quick thinking, lightning reaction times and teamwork in the example of league of legends and strategy with eye to hand coordination for games like CS:GO.
The teams that compete for the first place prize are all run just like football franchises, with related roles of manages, agents and coaches all working towards bringing their team to victory. The teams or events even have sponsors that support and invest into the industry with large sums of money that go towards the prize pot and organisation of the events, player’s branded t-shirts have sponsor logos printed all over them and banners are often found on broadcasts or on the walls to advertise their product/service. People often debate whether e-Sport is a sport, with many arguments for and against the subject, the obvious starting point relates to how we define sport or what an athlete actually is. e-Sports are less about competing in the physical ability of your body on a large scale which immediately brings the question “How is it a sport or how are they athletes if they are not even moving their bodies?”. It would seem weird classing Footballers with Video Gamers and it is as plain as day to note the differences, but their are some similarities which have merit to this decision.
You could say that playing video games is simply just a game and no further than that, that it is a form of entertainment and play and what it is stops there, many news media and non-gamers agree with this and mock the thought of competitive games. However games can and are perceived in other ways in cases like e-Sport. Ex-NBA athlete Rick Fox acts as a voice for the industry by comparing his past efforts as an athlete to those who he calls “Digital Athletes”. He looks at his past and what it took him to become a champion in his field and he then looks at the champions of e-Sport today and lists the similarities; he states it took him training, concentration, dedication, practice, preparation, stamina and intellect to reach the top and that these skills are also needed in e-Sport too in order to succeed, they too, partake in training camps and like settings such as SCRIMS (Playing competitive games against other teams of similar skill level in order to practice and distinguish optimal tactics). As some governments have already acknowledged pro gamers as athletes, competitors can apply for sports visas such as the P1A visa which is reserved for exceptional travelling athletes going to the US, and this starts to show the way sport is evolving and that it may look very digital in the future.
Content Creation
Gamers started to build up internet followings and become online personalities through the use of content creation and publication on the popular and growing site YouTube. By recording their gameplay and showcasing either funny situations or cool actions within games, people started to gain internet fame as many people would spend their free time watching these various clips of gameplay and subscribe to their favourite content creators so that they would be notified on the upload of any new videos. With these people who gain large followings they naturally gain an influence on their viewers as they express their opinions and act in-front of their audience. This influence can especially make younger audiences see certain things as being okay such as excessive swearing which is commonly found in some content, this is why it is also important for access to online content should be restricted by parents. While it has its effects on youths that gain access to it the influence can also result in some content creators turning their following into a number of people that enforce their opinion on others, there have been cases where people with “power” have in some way caused their viewer-base to post hate towards others creating an extremely toxic environment.
Content creators have been moving to streaming their gameplay for live audiences, e-Sports is becoming bigger than ever and online communities grow and grow, the future for the culture of gaming holds many possibilities, we could see virtual reality so interactive that it almost becomes a perfect simulation of reality and people could pay off their real world bills with virtual “work”.
How Audience Expectations Relate to Product Development
Often game franchises or developers gain a reputation from their respective games that are already out so people tend to expect future releases to be of the same quality, in turn, games companies try to work towards this by setting a standard of quality for their next release in order to satisfy audience expectations.
Establishing Expectations
Through varied methods developers of games portray what they want a user to expect from the game experience they are offering. In this post about professionally speaking and managing expectations of your presentation there are some points that relate to how game developers can manage expectations for their game.
Games are usually announced and then later comes a trailer which is in place to provide a summary of the overall product, the trailer gives the company a chance to set the expectations for the game through summary. From the trailers critique will usually come to the developers and enable them to respond to feedback on any game mechanics or concepts but by creating a trailer that covers clearly what will be included the lack of clarity is removed from viewers. The game then goes through testing and marketing processes to make it discoverable to the target audience and it is finally released. In most cases, during the testing of the game there may be public testing phases that allow a limit number of fans or critiques to try an early version of the game, the players can state how it relates to what they expected and game developers can take from it what users expect of the game and cater to those expectations. In situations where research shows that people expect more than what is within realistic bounds or any plans to do so then companies may consider conveying that they are committed to satisfying such audience needs by looking at options for updates or DLC content production.
The advertisement and marketing of both No Mans Sky and Anthem generated a large amount of hype towards their respective games and in turn people began to expect great things from the release of these games, people were looking forward to discovering giant mythical beasts on uncharted planets in No Mans Sky or experiencing an action packed and beautiful immersive story and gameplay combination in Anthem but upon release the results were unsatisfactory to some. It was rare if at all possible to find cool creatures or gameplay was repetitive and grind like in the respective games. Because of Anthems false claims through it’s marketing it gained a bad reputation and mob mentality meant that lots of people agreed that it was bad and deserved bad reviews, which goes to show that it is better to set low expectations and exceed them than set impossible ones (For example Rocket League was known to just be football but with cars which didn’t appeal to many at first but with minigames and fast paced action it exceeding these expectations greatly which produced positive reception).
Additionally, expectations are formed for games where the developer behind them or precedent entries to the franchise are to a specific standard, with certain brands maintaining a guarantee of luxury quality games such as Nintendo, they have to manage their releases so that they meet the expectations of the company. For franchise games, a sequel to a series is expected to be an improvement to the previous game(s) or similar in most aspects of gameplay. In an example case with Dark Souls II, people who played and loved the first Dark Souls game had troubles accepting the sequel as it was not directed by the initial creator of the series. Discussions about whether it was a “Real” Dark Souls franchise game arose as the new edition of the game felt slower, had a lower quality of level design and slightly altered mechanics while it still improved on PvP content as it was less exploitable than before and more balanced.
Product Development
The global producer of the game Dark Souls 2, Atsuo Yoshimura describes how they tackled audience expectations and feedback from fans of Dark Souls 2 with the Scholar of the First Sin DLC. Yoshimura states that they were always on the lookout on online forums for any suggestions and questions that popped up in the community, the team would reflect as many suggestions as they could in the game DLC as long as they were not against the philosophy they had in place for the game. In order to meet expectations for the initial and core game mechanics they made sure to keep the indirect communication element of multiplayer in place and the difficulty level of the game the same. No Mans Sky received a bulk of updates adding more gameplay features and mechanics to make up for the feeling of being cheated for money that players were left with when they could not do much in their game, bases were added and the live multiplayer was implemented as users expected it from the beginning.
This is the general method for product development in relation to audience reception and expectations, it can be done in earlier stages through open public testing as well as within DLC. Due to events in the past within game franchise histories or through trial and error with commercial failures games are being adapted to be developed into what the community expects and wants.
Audience expectations are always being altered, these expectations often have impacts on games. Developments to tackle any expectations are taken and the examples above show such ways.
Task 3
Looking at one Specific Game
The game League of Legends is informed by social factors and other inputs such as the usage of promotional cinematic movies or music, feedback for design changes, inclusion of LGBT characters and the popularity of its competitive scene. I have chosen this game because it is a good example of a game where cultural context and changing society have a moderate impact towards the design and where we can spot it in our everyday lives.
Society & Culture for League of Legends
Company Origins
The origin of League of Legends was when two friends (Brandon “Ryze” Beck and Marc “Tryndamere”) as business students bonded over video games together, and came to the shared expression of frustration that game developers would not develop games further after launch, instead leaving behind passionate communities. They wanted to have their own company that would change a game for what the community wanted and proceeded to found riot games on the 31st August, 2006 in Los Angeles California.
After founding the company their first recruitment was of Steve Guinsoo Feak, a developer on the DotA Allstars team who then helped refine their idea of League of Legends (LoL) as it was also a multiplayer online battle arena like his previous work. Riot Games encouraged investors with the plan of a video game company rooted in e-commerce and received total funding of about $8 million. League of Legends was released as a free to play game on the 27th October, 2009 and continued to develop as they planned by allowing players to offer impact-full feedback. Employed designers and executives participated on online forums in order to readjust community ideas to suit the game. In 2010 Riot Games announced that they would take over the distribution roles within the EU for LoL and the Chinese holding company Tencent bought 93% of riot games stakes in February, 2011, who would later buy the remaining 7% on the 16th December, 2015.
Society Affecting LoL Design
The in-game community of LoL was notably aggressive and unsportsmanlike at times and in order to combat this toxicity, in 2012 Riot Games launched a “player behaviour team” of psychologists who would tackle harassment on the platform, they introduced tactics such as the option to opt in or out of cross team chat and warning players for reasons of bans, resulting in a 30% reported drop in harassment behaviour. Beforehand they only took the traditional approach as Beck and Merrill knew of bad behaviour from games they had played in the past, the method those games would use to remove racism and general bigotry was just to ban them and move on. Riot Games introduced “The Tribunal” in 2011 which was a service where players could log on and “judge” players who had been reported by assessing the chat logs of their games for punishable actions. The results of this experimental service showed riot that the staff was more strict on player bans and that players themselves were actively in desire of dealing with the problem themselves, the further study of cognition of these players is what lead to the decision to actually employ their player behaviour team. They even stated that the doctors in cognition sciences were avid gamers themselves as Riot had the goal of making their company a player focused one. Riot conducted many experiments to understand the player behaviour such as a small one where they set the default option for all chat (cross team chat) to be off meaning that if players wanted to say negative stuff to their opponent they would manually have to turn the option on. Results of this showed that even though the same amount of people in total used all chat negativity dropped and positivity rose.
Culture Having Influence
Society kept on informing Riot Games how they should develop the game through the results of experiments, honour rewards were added for players that would be commended by others, long temporary bans came into place and more were all discouraging bad behaviour. But when society and gaming culture popularised the world of e-Sports more and more, Riot Games looked towards making League of Legends even better suited for it than it already was. Live Balance teams under game design were brought in in order to equalise each team’s playing field and reduce exploitation of overly strong champions, there have even been controversies about riot only balancing their game for the e-Sport scene as it attracts so much attention. After 6 years LoL filled a stadium with 40,000 live viewers and 27 million online viewers, more than that same year’s athletic sport NBA’s finals and it kept growing and growing as one of the leading e-Sport games. I have discussed e-Sports under Video Game Culture and League played a big role in its growth.
When the american pair first came up with the initial idea for this big game they were also heavily inspired by the Asian video game designers who were offering games for free yet charging for additional perks. They took the idea from the Asian culture of free-to-play gaming and yet decided never to sell upgrades to the players while still making money. The alternative to selling items to give players’ champions an edge in battle was to sell purely cosmetic content as they believed it was anti-gamer to be able to obtain the victories that others obtained through skill. Like small key-chains to personalise your belongings, Riot Games offered a way to personalise your game with special clothes, particle effects and re-models for entire characters. Like never before you could choose your play-style and show off your looks while you do it
Game Promotion and Context
Advertising in More Ways than One
Like any other game, Riot Games has to tackle the marketing process in order to get people to buy them, however in LoL’s case, get people to play it. By increasing it’s player-base inevitably the total in-game purchases go up as people buy cosmetics for their champions. The question is, how does Riot Games get word out about their game League of Legends?
Initially LoL would be found in advertisement banners on download sites, blog sites and forums and people may watch the release trailer for the game online after seeing advertisement. This was effective because the game was entirely free and there was no harm to anyone trying it out, all it required was a computer and an internet connection so you could download and play it. From here on promotion kept evolving in new ways, it introduced a referral system, supplying those who got other people to sign up with rewards depending on how many new players they got into the game, success was produced from this as LoL could be played socially so people wanted to tell their friends to join them, and why wouldn’t they, its free. Much bigger rewards for those who promoted the game to not just friends but a large audience were given out to people like content creators on YouTube, these rewards included items being named after them in the game or full content unlocks on your account so that all the champions or skins were available for use.
In general lots of people ended up on this MoBA game as word was spread by fans about the free, low entry barrier and competitive action that made the gameplay re-playable over and over as players would climb the rankings to reach the top. League released it’s first action cinematic on the 12th Jul 2010 it it was the birth of the promotion people see and talk about today, the cinematic immersed the viewer into the world of LoL and expressed the intense fights that go on in the game as you play. On the 8th of October, 2013, the champion trailer for the new playable character “Jinx” was an entire music video, embracing the culture of music in it’s fullest as people spoke about it to others, and spread their passion for the music and the game combined. This act showed a relationship between the promotion of LoL and the social and cultural contexts around it at the time with pop culture music and games flowing together.
There became a trend where Riot Games would work in collaboration with popular music artists to create music videos to represent each year’s World Championships (Worlds). They would feature face paced animation of high quality in harmony with the sounds of music and the reception of these special forms of art encouraged Riot to create more for other occasions like other champion releases or events. One of which quite recently, published on the 3rd of November 2018 went viral and consisted of completely virtual pop-stars as skins of characters from the game who were dubbed by professional singers. The fan-base went wild over it and not only did this attract attention of other music artists/producers to potential of the world of gaming and non-gamers too, but it made people want to buy the cosmetics for that theme even more. The public body view video games in new ways because of the advancement in promotional techniques and rising popularity.
“KDA – Popstars is a phenomenal music video because it breaks the grounds of reality.” “They took elements that you would use for a real music video, they just animated it.” – Form of Therapy
Application of Real World Social and Cultural Contexts
Other exciting champion trailers or Worlds animations and cinematics have been constantly released up until today, and other actions were taken to promote towards the growing diversity of society. Riot Greatly expresses its support towards the LGBT community and within the narrative world of League of Legends characters are portrayed as canonically homosexual which attracts that certain audience as it shows that they are not only accepted but are part of the story because it works.
Riot has launched a campaign in order to be “Building a Riot where everyone can thrive.”. The company exaggerates that it wants to be focusing on “Diversity, Inclusion & Riot Culture” and is looking into research on the advantages that diversity brings to both their workplaces and professional teams by showing things such as how leadership roles can result in automatic racial prejudice. By understanding what they want to become they re-assess their values and use techniques such as third party evaluation in their work-space to scout out any unconscious bias.
Evaluation
Overall the industry has developed by gaining more consumers, resulting in higher demand for producers and such requests being carried out. Also technology has been advancing and the metaphorical “cap on the bottle” of games content “popped off” and caused catastrophic developments in the industry like total data storage capacity and so forth. It is becoming widely accepted among other medium of entertainment or at least making its way to this point as movies or TV shows can relate to games and vise versa. This means other elements of society start to develop in respect to games (such as the next new sport being e-Sport).
This places it somewhere accessible to all people due to the different types of games, the vast ability of a games potential and how games are growing their way into the physical world rather than virtual, which is developing nicely alongside other creative and cultural sectors like music or theatre.
Promotion of video games now involves videos and music due to the broad acceptance of media convergence meaning that many companies do it. Games can be formatted across many genres and sub-genres. These are sometimes affected by external factors as described before in ways like social and cultural context relation. Through examples like League of Legends we can see the relation between video game development and cultural/other movements but there are many more that I did not cover. Honourable mentions go to Overwatch for similar reasons to LoL, and games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution/Mankind Divided which both cover the ethical problems that could rise with the development of augmentation technology. In my opinion I think that it is important that entertainment medium cover ethical issues as it can make a situation feel more real and immersive however it can result in the opposite level of immersion for players who use games as a means of escapism from reality.
Leading on from that previous point I have mixed feelings about how the public have influenced further meaning into games as some now address real world problems such as ethical issues in either sciences or across different race. I understand that some people do not need a heavy and meaningful story to enjoy a game experience since they can have plenty of fun exploding the head of a demon that travelled through a rift in space. I also understand that a well developed story can provide a lot of satisfaction to the user just like a book or movie may, while in a game it can be much more interactive and the player can effect the final outcome in some cases.
VR and AR are advancing and a current popular use is with the game VRChat, it basically puts players in a social chat room and that makes the gameplay how it is, the community makes every time you play into a different experience and I find that an interesting approach to games. The technology that goes into the games we play is truly outstanding and I look forward to any innovative ways companies like Nintendo may tackle their next big home console, controller ergonomic technology seems to have reached it’s peak with our current day button layout but we can only expect the unexpected from the future, there have been wacky attempts like the Sega Dreamcast controller in the past as an example.
Chay Kimberley Games Art 