VIDEO GAMES

-been around since 1950s e.g. Pong, Spacewar
-games industry is one of success stories of past 2 decades
-gaming proved itself to be popular and profitable ($108bn in 2017)
-gaming has to adapt to technological changes in rise of emedia, threat of piracy & challenges offered by changing audience behaviours
-gaming seems able to respond to modern challenges

Blumler & Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory:
-why people consume media texts
*informed/ educated 
*identity with characters/ situations
*entertained
*escape stresses of daily life/ situations
*social interaction with others

Negative points with gaming:
-most demonised aspect of modern media
-often at centre of debates about certain games' influence on audience attitudes & behaviours  and images and content of some games are often criticised
-when watching film, we are 'passive' audience
-'Gamers' are active audiences, they create their own game within limitations provided by game itself

Ratings
-video games have age ratings
-in UK & Europe - rated by Games Rating Council using PEGI system

-PEGI (Pan-European Games Information)

-PEGI protects children
-games suitable for certain ages








suitable for everyone, no bad language, nothing that would scare a young child 







same as '3' but may contain some frightening scenes or images 





may contain mild bad language  some slightly more graphic violence towards fantasy characters and/ or non-graphic violence towards human-looking characters






depiction of violence or sex looks same as would be expected in real life, more extreme bad language, depictions of tobacco, alcohol, drugs, gambling & criminal activity may be seen
  





depictions of gross violence sufficient to make ordinary viewer feel a sense of disgust






Effects Theory
-PEGI - protect players from seeing violence until they are old enough to deal with it - based on effects theory
-theory says that people , especially vulnerable people (children and teenagers) may be over-influenced by violence they see on screen, may start to behave in violent way in real life
-Hypodermic needle theory - young are vulnerable 

Audience
-41% gamers are women
-average gamer - 30 years old & been playing for 12 years
-82% gamers - 18 years or older
-37% - today adult women represent greater proportion of game playing population vs 13% boys aged 17 or younger
-29% game players over 50
-55% play games on phone or other hand held device

Audiences, players or producers 
-audiences for video games don't just watch the game, they play it, interact with it & contribute to how it was developed 
-audiences for video games blur the line between audiences and producers, audiences becoming more 'active' rathe than 'passive'
-different to audiences for TV programmes & films who rarely interact with text or contribute to its making


Segmentation
-each genre of games tends to appeal to a different audience group: people who play 'Nintendo dogs' rarely play 'Halo'
-games designed & marketed to appeal to different types of people 
-producers 'segment' audience into different groups and aim their producer at one segment, this is their target market