Useful Media Links - Game Advertisement (The Design Stage)

During research into game advertising, I found a few very useful websites that could potentially help me in the design stage of my media production. I can refer to these websites to also aquire a more varied and general opinion on different aspects of design.

Codes and Conventions of Media: https://kohner.wikispaces.com/file/view/glossary_media_studies.pdf


Useful Tips on Storyboarding: http://www.ehow.com/how_5184299_design-game-storyboard.html


Independant Games within the Video Game Industry: http://www.gaslightgames.co.uk/?p=201

Video Game Synopsis

Steam, Swords and Sorcery is a forthcoming side-scrolling "beat 'em up" game that will be sure to wow all the nostalgic gaming fans, as it will be using a graphic style of the old animated sprite style. It will also please all the people who remember similar games like Double Dragon or Streets of Rage.

In the beginning, the main character, a young mage called 'Psy', starts off in a countryside field with his best friend, a young female knight called 'Trisha'. Everything is very calm and relaxing, but then a small town in the distance becomes covered in a layer of darkness. When they go to investigate, they find the town infested with mysterious monsters. The player then chooses to play as one of the two characters to play as (or if there are two players, they each select a character) and then they must fight through all the monsters to get to the center of the town. Here, they see the main antagonist, a man in a steam powered suit of armour calling himself 'Tekter'. He then escapes to the next area, leaving a strong boss monster for the player to fight.

Throughout the game, the player will gradually learn more about the three main characters of the game through cut-scenes. Firstly, the player learns that Psy was born in a small village in the mountains. He was an only child who was born with magic, making him to be considered a freak to everyone but his parents. Because of the ridicule, he became depressed and left home at only the age of eight. On his travels, he met a council of mages who took him in and train him more in the use of magic. When he learned all that he could, he left as a lone wanderer to help fight against the monsters that plagued the land.

Alongside this, we learn that Trisha was born into a rich family. For eleven years of her life, she lived in luxury with her parents and two older siblings, until a horde of dragons attack the city. Her mother died in a house fire, her father was carried away by one of the dragons and she was separated from her siblings. In her grief, she searched for shelter at a soldier training camp outside the ruined city, where they let her stay in return for cooking meals and helping to heal the wounded. A few years after, she requested to be trained in sword fighting, to which the training instructor agreed. Only half a year later, she became a near expert in swordsmanship. Because of this, she achieved the promotion to a Knight status.

At about the middle of the game, the player will see a cut-scene of how Psy and Trisha meet and become friends. In this cut-scene, it shows Psy traveling towards a city when he sees Trisha being cornered by monsters. He helps her to fight them off. After both of them return to this town, they become really good friends, to the joy of Psy, who has never had a friend before.

Just before the last level, a cut-scene will play which shows the origins of the mysterious Tekter. In this cut-scene, it turns out that Tekter is Trisha's father, a man originally called 'Carter' who was a famous engineer in steam powered technology. He was presumed dead after being taken away by one of the dragons who attacked his home city. However, when the dragon was flying low over a desert, he slipped from the dragon’s talons and landed on one of the sand dunes. He managed to escape the desert after several days, but both the grief of what he thought had happened to his family and the lack of food and water drove him near to insanity. Once he had crossed the desert, he stole food from a local town and hid away from civilization in a cave. Crazy as he was, he still had his knowledge of steam power. Using this knowledge, he built himself a suit of armour that would allow him to have incredible speed and strength. Also because of his crazed state, he attacked many different towns and cities under the alias of Tekter. His rampage was originally started as a search for his family, but turned once he discovered how powerful and feared he had become. He was also accompanied by steam powered monsters, which were designed to look like evil creatures. When confronted by Psy and Trisha, he does not recognize his own daughter by how much she had grown.

Survey Monkey - Gaming

This is a survey that I created. It will help me to build a general idea on what I should do for my project, as it will be influenced by the target audience.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

20 Iconic Video Game Characters

20 Iconic Video Game Characters (& date of creation) on Prezi

I may incorprate some of the base ideas used in the creation of these characters in my own work. For example, number eleven (Chell) in the presentation was a character made by scanning a woman's face into a computer, which is why she looks very realistic. Another example used a lot in video game character design is to get a real life animal/object and change it to give it different properties/abilities. For example, number 1 (Sonic) is a game character based on a hedgehog. However, he has been made so that he is anthromorphic, is coloured blue and has the ability to run at very fast speeds. Another example is number 15 (Spyro), who has been based on a fictional dragon, but been given a more 'child-friendly' cartoon look.

Analysing Game Adverts - 3

  

This is the final magazine advert that I analysed. The game advertised is a creative survival game called Spore.

This is another example of a game advert that favours visual aspects over raw text. This generally makes the advert more appealing to all target audiences, as not many people want to read a lot of information at once. However, this can make the advert appear too simplistic. This may also mean that the target audience might not be able to learn much about the product from this particular advertisement. This is why the imagery is so important towards the meaning of the advert, as the audience may have high expectations for a game that has promising imagery (i.e. pictures of gameplay with stunning graphics, etc.).

The different hands are holding different controllers from much older gaming consoles. This connotes to evolution of gaming, which is backed up with the flavour text "The Next Stage in Evolution". This can indicate that the new game is aimed to be much better than most other games. The connotation of the game controller growing out of a person's hand can indicate towards how important and large the gaming industry has become over the years. This can also show that this particular industry has become a big part of many people's lives.

Analysing Game Adverts - 2

This is the second advert I have analysed. This is advertising a Japanese fighting game called One Piece: Grand Battle.

This advert is also different from the first advert, as it favours to use imagery over information. This can make the advert look as if it is aimed at a younger audience. The use of bright colours and smooth edges on the pictures also makes the advert look like it is aimed at teenagers. The style of writing used is also less formal, with lines such as "Ahoy there mi' hearties!". This indicates towards a younger audience. This style of speech is also accosiated with pirates, which easily displays one of the game's aspects to the target audience.


In the background, there are two people fighting each other. This relates to the age rating of the game, as it would be unlikely to be aimed at younger children if it contained violence. The character at the front of the advert also has an angry expression, which again indicates that the violence would be aimed at an older audience. This is, however, counteracted by the cartoonish colours and art style. It shows that contrasting the two themes can display a very unique style, as not many games mix cartoonish art styles with a gritty gameplay style.

Analysing Game Adverts - 1

This is the first magazine advert I have analysed. This particular advert promotes a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS console called Brain Age.

First of all, the main thing that attracts the eye to this advert is the main picture, as the main text does not stand out much. The picture seems to denote intelligence, due to the fact that the man's head seems to be illuminated. This can symbolise the fact that he is thinking. Another aspect that backs up this idea is the title of the game. The title 'Brain Age' can also denote thinking, as a brain can be a symbol of intelligence. It can also denote the main age group, as the man in the picture shows that this can be a game adults will enjoy.

This advert also connotes a formal type of advertising, due to the text being plain and simple, as well as taking up the majority of the space. This can mean that the advert was aimed at older people. This advert also uses very dull colours, which also connotes formality. Another aspect is that the picture of the actual game packaging is very small and is not included in the main picture. This is not usually done, as most adverts show the game packaging as a main part. This is because the target audience can know what to expect by looking at the games cover (which may include game aspects like main characters, game scenery, enemies, etc).

“Can you use a video game to rewire your brain?” is not a catchphrase that is included in the game, but seems more like a headline of a newspaper article. This highly connotes that the advert is being formal, as most newspapers are written very formally for the general public. It could also be considered that the game is being addressed to the majority of people through this advert, as many people can relate the style of writing used in the advert to that of a newspaper article, which will be something familiar to them. This could greatly expand the target audience that the advert is aimed at.

Legal Affairs concerning the Gaming Industry

When it comes to the gaming industry, all companies must obey specific laws and legal issues that can dramatically affect both their advertising and actual game products. One main example of a limitation can be the age rating. If a company wishes to produce a game, they must first decide on a target age range. Choosing a target audience can alter the end results, as aspects such as age rating can affect the final product. For example, if a game is aimed at ages 12 – 16, it will not likely contain any childish themes, but will most likely not contain strong horror and gory themes either. Another example of a fairly big limitation is the target audience. If a company wants to produce a game to the masses, they will have to design the game so that many different people will enjoy it. For example, the company may wish to avoid making a game that is designed solely for women, as this means that men will probably not buy the product.

When making the advertisements for these games, many more different aspects must be taken into account. An example of a main aspect is choosing the style of the advertisement. With games, it is better to create advertisements that relate to the game itself. Choosing a style that is unlike the product may confuse the audience. For example, it is not a good idea to make an advertisement to a horror genre game that contains content that looks more suitable for a much younger audience. Another aspect that needs to be taken into account when it comes to advertising is iconography. When looking into advertising for a game, it is a good idea to use correct iconography that relates well to the game itself. For example, a picture of a game controller is a good iconographic symbol of gaming. It is important to choose the right type of iconographic images to use in adverts, as it can help to attract the correct target audience.

Institution Information in the Gaming Industry

For this project, I have been researching all about the gaming industry and from my findings, it seems that even though the gaming industry is very vast with many hundreds of gaming companies existing today, there appear to be only three main corporations that are leading ahead of all the other companies. These companies are:

• Sony – a Japanese conglomerate company that was founded in 1946, meaning that it has been running for over 50 years. Sony has become very successful in the games industry with the success of their highest selling games console, the Sony Playstation 3.

• Microsoft – an American multinational company that was founded in 1975, meaning that it has been operational for over 30 years. Microsoft have become very famous and successful not only for their computing software, but also for their highest grossing games console, the Xbox 360.

• Nintendo – another Japanese multinational company that was founded in 1889, making it the oldest running company of the three. Nintendo have become world famous, making both games and consoles for many years, including their most successful console today, the Nintendo Wii.

These three companies are the most recognisable when it comes to gaming consoles, but there are many other companies that make a profit in the games industry by only selling games for the consoles. For example, Ubisoft is a major French games company (recorded as the third largest in 2008) that only makes computer games and not actual consoles. This means that they have to release the games on other company's consoles.

There are also developers who create games, but not on a very large scale. These game developers also make up the majority of game companies in the world, as they are small companies, but very vast in numbers. They are called 'independent game developers'. These companies are called independent game developers because they make all of their games through their own funding, unlike larger mainstream companies who are usually paid/funded by other companies to make their games. The games made by these independent companies are usually called 'indie games', which seems to discriminate them from other games. Because they are independently made, they games made may not be as good or detailed as a mainstream game, but are used to help get an independent developer and his team (if any) noticed by other companies. For example, an independent game production company called SuperGiant Games created a very good indie game called The Bastion, which was a 2-D open world game that was critically acclaimed for it's amazing story over it's gameplay. Many larger companies like Nintendo and Sony probably also started off as independent developers, as many other games companies do. This shows that by doing well in the video games industry, there can be a huge profit to obtain the more successful a company becomes.

Because my game company is designed by me and is not funded by any other company, I would be considered an indie game developer. This can affect sales, as many people want to solely buy games from mainstream companies that they already know. I will need to take this into consideration when deciding on a target audience to aim for.

A2 Media Presentation - Advertising in Gaming

This is a presentation I created that shows my resarch into advertising. This presentation also covers the term 'advergaming' and how it affects the games industry.

A2 Media Presentation - Advertising in Gaming

View more presentations from PsyMeserim

A2 Media Project Brief

For my project, I will produce a promotional package for a new computer/video game. This has to include two TV advertisements and two of the following:

·     The cover of the game’s package,

·     Two hyperlinked pages from the game’s website,

·     A magazine advertisement for the game.

I have chosen this brief because I am very interested in the fundaments of game design and I hope that I am able to study further into the subject of game development in higher education.

As a starting point for this project, I will be analyzing three different magazine advertisements related to gaming, as this will help me learn about the advertising used for game promoting. Then, I will analyse three different game trailers. This will help me to brainstorm ideas about how to make the TV advertisements. Finally, I will analyse three different video game box covers, as this will help me to brainstorm ideas for my own game packaging.