Game Industry

Game industry

Characteristics of mainstream productions/Independent and Niche  

Production

• The way game are manufactured is certainly very complex and similar to how a Hollywood film would be made. The first thing is coming up of a storyline and the best planned way to get that is creating a storyboard.  You would need to know the type of game for example the platform is going to be on like PlayStation or Xbox and whether it is a sport or shooter.
• You will need to be aware of the budget (costs) and the variety of the game meaning whether it is long or short and also of the plot meaning what is going to happen in the game and also the level of skill required e.g. rookie-world class

Distribution

• Games can be accessed from, Game, HMV, Xbox Marketplace, Play.com, Amazon, games station, PlayStation Store, ITunes, Stream, IPhone apps store, Miniclips.com and EBay
• Distribution method have changed over a period of time. Before you could only access game in local stores with a limited amount of stock. Today you can now access games online on platforms like PlayStation network, Xbox store and App store IPhone/Android.
   

Audience

• Statistics- 82% of 8-65 year olds play games
• Over 27.6 million adults play games
• Over 5 million8-15 year old play games
• Games are appealing to all sorts of audiences and it is not just male dominant as 49% of gamers are Female and 51% of gamers are male, fairly even.
   

Exhibition

• The art of video games is one of the first exhibitions to be part of the phenomenal 40 year evolution of gaming.
• This involves the interplay of graphics, technology and storytelling.

Marketing

• There is a variety of different ways of video marketing, print advertisements, merchandise, large posters/bill boards, and trailers.
• When gaming was at its starting points, it was not really eye catching in the market as its graphics wasn’t really looked at.
• Today gaming is very eye catching in its trailers as it graphics are looked at more now in this day and age. Games are usually distributed through viral marketing and guerrilla marketing.