As a child I would always find time to the play with my friends our favorite video game, Super Smash Bros. This game was played on a console referred to as a game cube, which was made by Nintendo, as was Super Smash Bros. My friends and I would always sway into playing this game rather than others because it was a multiplayer, fighting, and action packed game that did not show gruesome and violent killings, but friendly cartoonist fights. We would refer to this game as our favorite game since it was quick and always fun as it dealt with many characters that we were fond of from different games and it would be put into this game as a character that can be used. This game caused much friendly competitiveness with each other, which created much fun every time we played, the game was never the same as there was always a new fight or funny aspect of the game being portrayed. Also, it was easy to set up and use when we were children because it was played on a game cube, which was very simple to use and set up, as it just had cords to connect to the television and an on/off button.
Change of age from younger to older tends to make the user play different video games such more graphically inclined or shooting and violent games
As I got older I tended to sway away from games such as Super Smash bros or cartoonist games like Pokemon as well, and started to play more shooting and "Mature" rated games. This is because my friends started to play other games than the ones that we had played before. Also, the game consoles changed overtime and technology started to become more infused into the internet and online play rather than multiplayer play with mutual friends. Since more games started to use online play with strangers there would be more players online rather than a couple mutual players, and it created more fun and interesting play. Also, since I got older my friends and I tended to sway away from friendly violent games to more realistic and shooting games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. When we started to get older we started to understand the realistic world more and understand the facts on what would happen to people in these violent activities. Therefore, we then started to play more "Mature" rated games since we knew and understood the "real world" outcomes. Since, more games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto have an older age group playing online, it makes for more people to play online, which caused for my friends and I to sway over to more shooter and "M" rated games.
The use of technology is able to bring an older age group to video games due to the online play
As technology started to get better as time went on the greater percentage of people started to play on the internet and online based games or computer games, stated in the
article by the MarketingCharts staff. Also, stated in that article is that most of the gamers are from ages 18-29 started to play games on mostly consoles and any device such as on a touch screen tablet. This was another reason why my friends and I tended to play other games or stopped playing Super Smash Bros because due to the new technology and devices being made, more and more people started to play games on apps and cell phones. Since more technology was being created this made my friends and I move away from our childhood games and start to use the newest devices being portrayed to society such as online shooting games or playing apps on tablets which also used more of a social media aspect that was able to bring about an older age crowd of young adults. Then, due to the better creation of graphics and images being used in later video games, it allowed for an older audience rather than just children, which also allowed me to sway to different video games and stop playing the game that I did as a child. Therefore, from our textbook, "Converging Media" from question six on page 184, I was able to explain a video game that I loved to play as a child and explained reasons why I tended to stray away from that video game overtime.
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From this chart you can see the different ages of people who play online
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From my reasons of why I tended to stray away from my childhood video games to other games, as I got older was from the aspect of how the video-game industry was able to appeal to that certain age group. Since gaming started to become stronger in the technological world, more people started to like the aspect of socializing within games and use the online aspect of video games. Therefore, as you can see in the chart above that video games when I was a child did not have online play and as I got older, online play was appealing due to the many players playing that game at once. Thus, I started to play more online games since the video game industry emphasized that aspect and created a larger margin of younger adults playing online video games. Also, within the textbook it explained that since there are a lot of people who use Facebook, therefore, a good amount of people will use online video games. With regards to social play in video games due to the user interface of video games, people tend to like to use more communication devices, which allows them to play more online play, and play more games that involve communication with other strangers either on an app or on a console. Therefore, technology with easier user interface is able to connect to the audience better, and will allow them want and use a product such as a console or tablet product as explained on this
website about the new "Android" cell phone. The use of communication and easier video game access with the use of apps on cell phones is able to give the audience an easier user interface and stray them away from childhood video games as it did for more. Overall, as I grew older I tended to change the types of video games that I played because of the increase of technology, social gaming, such as the way the video game industry portrayed games overtime, and better graphics or images as this was able to appeal to older audiences and allow for a change in gaming from one age to the next.
I have many issues with the structure of this post. I'll start with the title.
ReplyDeleteThe title isn't explanatory for the following two reasons:
1. I'm not entirely sure what the title is trying to say. I got that video game industry trends are affected by player age and evolving user interfaces, but I'm not sure what "nature of the video game industry" means.
2. The title didn't tell me how the trends change. All I got was that trends change because of reasons, which isn't explanatory.
Next, I have some issues with the pictures you used. The first picture isn't explanatory, and is misleading. This is because:
1. It doesn't show the cartoony multiplayer violence described in the first paragraph, so I'm left wondering what that might look like.
2. The picture used depicts the most recent game in the Super Smash Bros. series, not the game you described. This is a problem because the game in the picture has high definition graphics and online multiplayer capabilities, even though you said you moved away from the series because it was missing these features among others. I would suggest using a picture from Super Smash Bros. Melee (on the GameCube) that depicts the fighting, like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Smash_Bros._Melee#/media/File:SpecialMelee.jpg (from Wikipedia).
The second picture isn't explanatory because you it's just the box art for Call of Duty Black Ops. It tells me nothing about how violent and "realistic" the game is, or how it plays. Use a screenshot from the game rather than the box art, like http://images.g4tv.com/rimg_606x0/ImageDb3/259289_l/cod-black-ops-first-strike-dlc-screenshots.jpg .
The third picture is misleading because it's a graph of the number of people who go online in any form, not a graph of the number of people who play video games online.
I also had an issue with your first citation. The first article you cited doesn't show trends in video gamer profiles, it just shows how many gamers there are today. I would find an article that shows a change in gamers' preferences to make this point better.
This post is very wordy and repetitive too. Try to say what you need to say more clearly and succinctly.
As for the content:
ReplyDeleteOverall, you're right: The video game industry is pushing more mature content now than it did 15 years ago, mobile games are on the rise, and online multiplayer is a huge selling point for games today, but many of the sentences in this post are confusing to read, and many of the points you make are sweeping generalizations about the whole industry based mostly on your own personal experience.
The title doesn't accurately reflect the content in the post. The post itself is very much anecdotal; it's about your experience with video games. According to Sony in 2001 (the same year Super Smash Bros. on GameCube released), when the Playstation 2 was the overwhelmingly dominant console at the time, 60% of gamers on Playstation 2 were 18 years old or older and the best selling game that year was Grand Theft Auto 3. This means the industry trend of a maturing audience wanting mature content was happening before you may have noticed or cared about it, without the need for online gameplay or high definition graphics or smart devices. You should change your title to make that clear, and remove any sentences that make it sound like the video game industry's trends towards appealing to an older audience is a relatively recent one. Yes, the internet and smartphones brought more people into video games, but it's not true that most of the gamers when you were younger were also kids ("...due to the better creation of graphics and images being used in later video games, it allowed for an older audience rather than just children...").
Your post also made it sound like you gravitated towards mature games because you got older, but you didn't explain why. You said you moved to other games because they had better graphics and online capabilities, but these weren't fighting games, these were shooters, an entirely different genre. Why shooters? Fighting games are still around, and these have online components, better graphics, and mature content, so what made you change genres? Was it because there were more people who played shooters than fighting games when you switched? Is gaming really about socialization, and not about the game itself for you? I'm interested to know more about your perspective.
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