Content: Grand Theft Auto font is big, bold and kind of graffiti like because it is all joined up but the colour of the font is quite dull, the lettering it white and the colour of the background is black. I personally think this font shows a bit of 'gangster' like writing, it honestly looks like someone has just gone up to a wall and decided to graffiti on it. But in some way the colouring of the font compliments the 'graffiti' and makes it looks bubblier as in happy, fun and adventures. The music in Grand Theft Auto can variety, during the game it allows you to switch over the 'radio' etc. So I think rock star has made that a huge advantage because it means that the audience won't have to sit there and listen to music they cannot stand. They kind of have a choice on what song genre they want to listen to.
Construction:
The main construction of Grand Theft Auto is that it’s built to have a wide freedom range but also has the same character-spanning narrative making the story more in depth but also allowing the player to choose when to follow the story line; it takes place in the same gigantic open world of Los Santos. And for the first time ever you can play the game in a first-person perspective.
Codes and conventions:Grand Theft Auto is an action adventure game including weapons, missions, violence, swearing and so much more. It also provides a lot of running about and exploring while having objectives and completing quest.
Modes of address: Grand Theft Auto is addressed as informal and allows us to control the game easily.
Target audience: They are targeting male and female around 18.
Content: The Assassin's Creed title is kind of like a fancy but rough font, the assassins is in black thin font so it kind of represents that the assassins are black and sneaky while the 'creed' writing is red so it could be representing as blood.
Construction: The main construction of Assassin's Creed is that it’s built to have a wide freedom range but also has the same narrative making the story more in depth but also allowing the player to choose when to follow the story line; it takes place in a gigantic open world.
Codes and Conventions: Assassin's Creed is an action adventure game including weapons, missions, violence, history and so much more. It also provides a lot of running about and exploring while having objectives and completing quest which are in past history.
Modes of address:Assassin's Creed is addressed as informal and allows us to control the game easily.
Taget Audience:18 male and female
Constraints:They need to be careful with the violence and is restricted on what they can do.
Content: The Oblivion title is kind of like a fancy but rough font, it looks like it is made out of like rock or as if it is carved in to a wall. This gives it an effect of Stone Age so you know it is based in the past etc.
Construction: The main construction of Oblivionis that its built to have a wide freedom range but also has the same story narrative making the story more in depth but also allowing the player to choose which character they want to play and allow them to build the character they want to be and then the decisions they make in the game effects their reputation and the quest they can do in the game.
Codes and Conventions: Oblivion is an action adventure game including weapons, missions, violence, a lot of freedom and so much more. It also provides a lot of running about and exploring while having objectives and completing quest.
Modes of address: Oblivion is addressed informal and allows us to control the game as if we were the 'god' or 'puppet' mast of the game.
Target audience: Making their target audience wider because their pg. rating is rated M for maturity.
Constraints: have to make sure their aspects are appropriate enough for 15 year's old because of their PG rating.
Action and adventure games are usually targeting ages around the age of 18.
As you can see this diagram, is explaining how popular each genre is for example action and adventure is 23% popular which is 13% more popular than virtual life games. Also the chart shows us which gender is playing the genre the most. In action and adventure male audience is more popular than female audience within that genre however within fitness/puzzle genres the female plays it the most.
However in Assassin's creed it was initially targeting for ages 15+ but their more recent assassin's creed series is targeting for ages around of 18+ because of how violent the game is getting. Even though you would expect assassin's creed target audience to be mainly teenage boys its more popular for an middle-aged man or girls to play it because of the 'freedom' assassins creed gives you allowing it to have a wider range of target audience.
In fact According to the latest data from The Entertainment Software Association, the group that represents the video game industries, 48 percent of gamer's in the United States are women. In addition, women aged 18 or older make up a much larger portion of gamer's (36 percent) than boys age 18 or younger (17 percent).
The PG rating is considered at 18 because even though it doesn't have a high amount of sex and nudity, alcohol and drugs, smoking etc. It is still considered an 18 due to the amount of violence in the game; it allows the players to commit whatever violence whenever they want to.
Unlike in grand theft auto where the PG rating is restricted for ages 18 and upwards because of its drug references, sex, extreme violence and so much more aspects that should only be viewed by mature audiences who understand that the game is just for entertainment purposes and can play the game appropriately so it would be illegal for rock star to target younger audiences such as young teenagers and be classed as a bad influences towards children. So it is very important that PG ratings are considered carefully for each different game especially in the action and adventure genre due to the amount of games that include violence etc. In grand theft auto Players have the option to get their characters drunk whenever they like causing more profanity and the player can always cause disruption to the grand theft auto's city in many, many ways. So Grand theft auto Target audience is supposed to target people aged 18 but studies show that 47 % of the audience is female and that it is 33% more likely for a middle aged parent who is married to sit down and play grand theft auto.
Oblivion is rated an M which means that the audience who play's 'The elder scrolls IV: Oblivion' have to be mature so it is not appropriate to little kids. Even though it has hardly any sex/nudity and profanity. It still has quite a high rating of drinking, drugs, smoking and violence/gore. Oblivion has a wide range map which you can explore which seems to be appealing to everyone. Making their target audience wider, however they still have to make sure their aspects are appropriate enough for 15 year's old because of their PG rating.
Action and adventure genre is a game is combined to have sections of action and adventure such as a game which involves needing skills e.g. shooting, puzzling. But it also offers a good story line and a wide range of free running, numerous characters making it very diverse in a large number amount of games. I have chosen 3 games that I personally like and have the same game genre as action and adventure. The first game I have decided to talk about is Assassins Creed. Assassins creed is one of my favourites game to play I love how the game allows you to do free running basically parkour around the Assassins creed city but it isn't just a day to day city, it is based on past events. For example in Assassins creed 2 it is based on near the time 1452-1519 allowing you to jump through time while roaming free around the city renaissance-era Italy while playing through events that happened in real life and meet people such as Leonardo da Vinci. Assassin’s creed also allows you to master skills and experience fighting enemies in realistic sword fights. If you get bored of exploring the map you could always go and do the objectives/missions which are mostly based on real events making it more interesting to follow the story line.
second game i am going to choose is grand theft auto. Grand theft auto series is mostly based around violence and completing missions to unlock more of a map to be able to free run and have an overall story as well as involving activities such as third person shooting with a wide range of weapons, stealth, occasional role playing, driving and much more. In the latest grand theft auto it allows the player to play online so in additional it also creates a great way to socialize with people around the world while playing co-op online. In grand theft auto San Andrea's it allows you to play 2 player after finding the 2 player icon located some where in the map, However in San Andrea's it makes it unable to play online but you do get to play multiplier The story and characters in the game are mostly based around protagonist with a found for violence and adult scenes making it Suitable for over 18s only.
Oblivion
Third game is Oblivion. Oblivion is one of the elder scrolls IV series game after skyrim. It is created to be an open-ended game so it allows the gamer to decide how they want to end their game allowing them to have a wide range of free running because the character can explore and travel anywhere in the province of Cyrodiil at any time while playing the game and being able to follow side-quest, Improve their character and kill creatures/monsters so basically the game never ends even after completing the main quest's. The game is built around trying to develop your characters skills such as stealth, combat and magic and much more. this can be done by doing puzzles such as pick locking or running around for a certain amount of time and killing creatures etc to improve stealth and weapon quality.
Genre-the genre of the last of us is a action/adventure which includes simulated horror and survival. Content-The last of us font is big, bold and worn down font. Its in dark colours and is very gloomy, disgusting and negative font this tributes to the horror genre. Also the last of us is set in a city which is full of a virus so it has been abandoned which has made it extremely uninhabitable because of how grim and realistic the city is. The music in it is very emotional making the last of us more tense by adding more jumpy/scary music as you can see in the video below.
Construction- The main construction of the last of us is that its built to follow a linear narrative making the story more in depth. It is played in a complex 3rd person having to survive an infection. Codes and conventions- The last of us is a violent game including weapons, ammo, zombies and basically having to be an hero of the game. It also provides an wide variety of freedom and allows a lot of running about and exploring while having objectives and completing quest. Modes of address-The last of us is addressed informal and allows us to control the game as if we were the 'god' or 'puppet' mast of the game. Target Audience- They are targeting for male and female aged around 16-25 years old. Constraints- However because of the violence in this game it is restricted for 18 years old or older.
Genre : Just dance is a simulator which allows you to party to rhythm and provide fitness and entertainment. Content: The content in just dance is very vibrant , vivid and colorful its easily eye catching. Just dance content shows to be fun and good at pleasing groups. Construction: You can tell just dance is made to be interesting and fun just by the 'A' in the logo which is customized like an leg and not just a boring basic 'A'. In just dance you have to mimic and copy the dance moves to popular fun songs. The playlist is located at the top of the blogger. This playlist is examples of the songs that are in the new Just dance game on Wii U. Codes and conventions: Its made to interact with an animated avatar in repetition and on demand. Its informative and doing physical dance movies allows you to gain XP when successfully done. Modes of address:Its informed controlled, you have to dance. Target Audience: Its for all ages and everyone can play it making it a good communal game which brings everyone together. Constraints: Its for people aged 3 and upwards so it has to be family friendly without offensive language or inappropriate dance moves.
For quantitative research i decided to do a chart asking questions about GTA V such as what is your sex, age, have you played GTA V before, where do you live etc. resulting me getting closed questions which i then gathered up and made into percentages.
Afterwards i put the percentages into pie charts and Graphs making it more easier to understand the results.
this pie graph shows that the large amount of people who plays GTA is 13-17 years old while the other amount is 18-24 years old. This would help game design industry know that their target audience is for teenagers&mostly young adults.
This is another pie chart asking if GTA V is a great game and it shows that a large amount of their audience is on neutral while a small percent strongly disagrees. This is the other examples of the questions and results i got.
Qualitative research
I decided to do a questionnaire which i handed out to five Male's and five females all aged between 16-20 years old who have all played GTA V to get a fair result. Here is my results,
Do you like the look/style
of the game?
Yes, it looks good and
has a nice stage.
Yes it has a large free
room style that allows the user to continue having fun even after the amazing
stories. The design is beautiful because of all the different places on the
map and the graphics are spectacular.
Yes, it suits the style
of the game play and makes it easy for the user to explore
The graphics are pretty
good compared to the other games
Yes the graphics are
great. You can tell how much they focused on the aesthetics side of the game.
No, its for boys.
Yeah because its awesome
everything looks really real and the cars are amazing
Yes, it has good graphics
and it gives you a lot of freedom
I love it, it has superb
graphics, the controls are simple and so smooth that it makes it a fast
game play which is also enjoyable
What aspects of the
game play do you enjoy most?
The on line multiplayer
with friends the most
The free room- is an
aspect that all games should try to add because it gives the user freedom and
endless fun
The driving as it is very
well designed the controls are intestine, and it is made fun by police chases
The graphics are pretty
good compared to the other games
I like different cars
that you can get but that’s it
I enjoy the size of the
map. It’s hard to get bored for me.
Shooting men
Customising the cars,
robbing from corner shops and killing the police
The violence and that you
can pick when you want to do the missions
The best thing is they
use 3 protagonists instead of just 1. They each have their own thing that
they bring to the game. The calm Franklin, Midlife crisis, Suffering Michael and
extreme Trevor. The each has a special ability that helps you.
Which is your favourite
protagonist, Trevor, Franklin or Michael and why?
Trevor as he is the
funniest
Trevor- it gives you the
ability to be a bit crazy and he is funny yet badass. Too bad he (can) die.
Trevor, he is crazy in
the way that makes him hilarious
Trevor, he’s the funniest
Franklin because he is
the most relatable
Michael because he’s rich
Trevor, I think deep down
he might be a nice man but things that happened send him loopy and crazy
Trevor, he’s always the
funniest when he’s drunk
Trevor, because he is
just crazy and unpredictable he just leaves you thinking what he’ll do next
all throughout the story mode
What would you do to
improve the game?
Release all the promise
features on time
I would hold events so
that there are always quest to do
I would add more
fallout/Elder scrolls style quest
Delete it
I would make sure the
updates are up to date
Every thing
Make story mode so that
you can play with a friend and more cars
The on line, give more
activities etc. so it won’t get boring
Better organised on line,
Matching people with the similar game play styles. Maybe have a different lobby
for people who are going to do different things
Conclusion
What did you find out from
the exercise?
I found out that Gta is mostly played on an Xbox 360 than the ps3 And that the game gta 5 is mostly played by males than it is by females. When I did the survey for qualitative research, most of my feed back game back explaining how they mostly like the game GTA 5 for the violence and freedom. Improvement for the game is to make sure the game, keeps up to date. Were you surprised by any of your findings or did they turn out
as you thought they would? I wasn't very surprised by the researched i gathered. I thought that GTA V would be popular because of the violence and the freedom. However I am surprised on how many people do agree that GTA V being a good game. In my opinion I thought that most people would strongly agree that GTA V is a great game to play however only a quarter think that and a higher percentage are neutral with the game GTA.
Would you have changed the way you worked if you were to do it all again?
If I had to do my work all again I would ask more questions, while doing quantitative research. Because I don't think that the results came back as specific as I wanted them to be. For example I would ask "How often do you play GTA V ." and then give options such as "1-3 times a week" "Few times a month." "A lot." "Not at all." etc.
What is quantitative research and how is it produced? Quantitative
research is finding out information by asking closed specific questions which
normally result in getting statics or number' as the result. The
researcher analyses the data and statics, this is normally suited for finding
out questions such as who, where, what etc. Finding out information like
that can help a media industry find out if it’s more female or male who are
buying there games.
How is quantitative
research useful to games publishers and developers?
This shows an video game stats, it shows that 51% of
men and only 49% of women play video games and that seven out of ten 16-65 year
old game players regularly use a gaming device at least 3 times a week.
Information like this is useful for game publishers and developers
because it helps them understand who uses their game and how much they use
it etc. This will help them have a better understanding on who their target is
or who else they might want to start targeting. For example the game design
company might think that they also want women to become more interested
in playing their games to bring their gaming stats up higher,
they can do this by doing groups with the women and see what they would
be interested in playing as well.
Qualitative research
What is it and how is it
produced?
Qualitative research is measure more by the quality of something rather than the quantity and asking open questions such as 'why questions' which result in receiving more word data as information from the participants. Qualitative research is used by the researcher finding themes within the answers for example Rock star might ask questions such as "Why do you like Grand theft auto?" and get answers back like "Well I like the missions because..." After Rock star get a certain amount of similar answers then rock star will know that the missions are attracting some audience to buy the game and know that its important for them to be in grand theft auto to keep them interested.
Qualitative research is more about finding peoples opinions. This can be done by researchers doing 1 to 1 this is where the researcher basically ask's questions to one participant. An advantage of doing this is that they can see the participants body language/Facial expression's, however a disadvantage is that a 1 to 1 can be time consuming. Also this can be done by phone interviews, this is where the researcher calls the participants up and ask them questions. An advantage of doing this is that it's quick and easier to get in contact however the participant could hang up on the phone or be too busy to answer. Another way to do qualitative research is focus groups; Focus groups are usually preferred in groups of 10 or fewer individuals. The group will gather to discuss a game or an idea, once they are asked a variety of questions/statements the participants can then share their opinions, ideas or reactions. During focus groups they might also get asked to watch the game and get studied to see how they react for example,
This is a reaction of a mum while watching dead space 3 by EA sports. Dead space 3 is supposed to be 'scavenge the violent wilderness, build devastating weapons and take down the terror together.' The way the mum reacts while watching dead space 3 supports that the game is going to be violent and make the gamer's want to buy the game them self.
Audience profiling
what
is audience profiling?
Audience profiling is finding out your audiences profile beforehand. This can
include information like ages, sex, education, work experience, financial
background, Hobbies, Orientation, religious etc. Finding out details about your
audience will help the research realize who their target audience is, this will
help your message be put across in the most effective way and to the right
people. Benefits of doing audience profiling is that it helps the media company
know more about who their customers are and what they are interested in. Making
it easier for the media industry's to understand what genre their audience
would like.
Demographics- describeswho the customers are e.g.
Age, gender, Occupation, Location, Income, education level, nationality. This
is more of a traditional and common way of doing audience profiling. The
results are then compared to this table
This table is the population broken down into 6
different groups based on their income etc.
❇ Class A -upper middle class
this is for professionals etc.
❈ Class B- middle class this is managers etc.
❇ Class C1-lower middle class this is for supervisors
❈Class C2-skilled
workers e.g. manual workers such as builders etc.
❇ Class D -working class for
unskilled manual workers
❈ Class E-This class is called
lowest grade workers for people who are unemployed, pensioners etc.
Class A is basically for people who have a lot of
money and Class E is for people who only have enough money to survive and
depend on the welfare state for their income.
This is helpful because if the audience profile
states that their job is a fireman, police officer, cleaner etc. means that
their audience is mainly working class (class C2) this means that they
aren't exactly struggling financially but they aren't the richest either.
Psychographics-Why your customers act the way they
do. By looking at the audiences behaviour and personality traits the research
will be able to use phsycographics to
label what the type of person their audiences is and be able to view what their
habits and their audiences viewing.
This
picture shows how they put their audience into different groups with labels
that suggest their position into the society.
Geodmorgraphics is analysing
people by where they live. Doing this will help the researchers discover which groups their audiences fall into.
This is based on two of the different principals People who live in the same neighbourhood are more likely to have similar
characteristics than are two people chosen at random.
Neighbourhoods can be
categorised in terms of the characteristics of the population which they
contain. Any two neighbourhoods can be placed in the same category, i.e., they
contain similar types of people, even though they are widely separated.
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