GTA V what we know so far

Rockstar like to keep the big details away from the public and give the smallest amount of satisfying information to people like us. GTA V is exactly like this. They gave their first piece of information on their twitter page which was "#GTAV". They included a link to a page of their website that displayed the game's new logo and the date of the release of the very first trailer. Very much like GTA IV, Rockstar love to taunt us and keep the information about their games to a minimum.

What we do know is that there GTA V 'evolves nearly every mechanic' found in the earlier GTA games. Grand Theft Auto 5's world will be much bigger than Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto IV combined. We also know that there will be three playable protagonists in the game, this is the first time Rockstar have done this for a Grand Theft Auto game. The characters are Michael, Trevor and Franklin who are all interconnected in each others lives somehow. According to the GTA VI wikipedia page,   Michael is a retired former bank robber in his early forties who lives with his dysfunctional family on the proceeds of his former life in the upper-class suburb of Rockford Hills, based on Beverley Hills. Trevor lives alone in a trailer in the desert of Blaine County, his reckless and psychopathic behaviors being fueled by a drug addiction. Franklin makes a living in Vespucci Beach — based on Venice Beach — as a repo man for an unscrupulous car dealership."

We now know for sure that the new GTA game will only be available on PS3 and Xbox, not the new Wii U. The more complicated controllers of the Playstation and Xbox consoles suggest that GTA V will be aimed at core gamers, and the violent content of the game (and also one of the cover art pieces showing a woman in a bikini) suggest a male target audience. Now available for gamers to pre order, it is for sale in the UK in shops such as GAME, Play.com, Zavvi, HMV, Amazon and Tesco. This may mean that Rockstar may have a place in the top 10 gaming charts several months before the game is even released.

Representation of Race

Mad Men is a TV show that aires on the AMC network. It explores the inner workings and complexities of several men and women who work at an advertising firm in New York City in the 1960s.
What is notable is that a number of African-Americans have weighed in on the “Mad Men” phenomenon. Earlier this summer, there was a piece of the popular website “Double X” entitled “Why Mad Men Is Afraid of Race?” written by cultural critic Latoya Peterson that took the 60s styled drama to task for being hesitant to address the history of American racial conflict. Several days later, another journalist, David Swerdlick, a frequent contributor to The Root web site responded to Peterson’s column arguing that the show was very realistic in how it addresses the marginalization of people of color.

PEGI Ratings System

PEGI (Pan European Game Information) is a rating system that advises European customers, mainly parents, to what is acceptable for a certain age range and content is included in a game. Here are the age ratings and their content:                                                

                                                       

Suitable for ages 3 and over. May contain some violence in a comical context (ie. very mild cartoon slapstick), but otherwise should be age-appropriate for young children.

Suitable for ages 7 and over. May contain occasional violence to non-realistic fantasy characters or elements that could frighten younger children.  

    

Suitable for ages 12 and over. May contain course language, violence in a fantasy setting, mild sex references and innuendos, or gambling.

Suitable for ages 16 and over. May contain explicit violence, strong language, sexual references or content, gambling, or drug use.

Suitable for ages 18 and over. May contain graphic violence towards defenseless people, scenes of a sexual nature, drug use, or gambling and discrimination.






For developers, the result of these changes is that they now know what age rating their game is likely to attain before they submit it for rating. This allows them to adjust or alter content accordingly. Also, in the past, retailers treated PEGI as if it was legally enforceable, – even though they were only advisory – but sometimes this presented problems for retail as an awkward customer who could demand a PEGI rated game be sold to him even though he might be under the age restriction on the packaging. With the new law, all the PEGI 12, 16 and 18 ratings become legally enforceable, which means those games must have a PEGI rating to be sold legally. And just like games that required a BBFC classification in the past, it remains illegal to sell those to someone younger than the rating indicates. That is not new, but it includes a larger group of games.

Game Distribution Task 1

1.Who will be the distributors for GTA V?
The distributors for GTA V will be Take Two Interactive which is an example of vertical intergration

2. Who are the distributors for Skylanders Giants?
XPEC Entertainment are the distributor for Skylanders Giants

3. Who were the distributors for the original Angry Birds game on iPhone?
Chillingo were the distributors for Angry Birds

Top 20 Game Chart

This chart shows the top 20 games platform games. As you can see, EA and Ubisoft dominate the chart with three games each, Activision, Nintendo and Bethesda Softworks have two games each whilst all the other publishers have one game. It shows the Ubisoft and EA rule the roost when it comes to gaming because they have 3 games between them in the top 5. Assassins Creed III has the top spot this week. I think part of the reason it is number one is because it is an established franchise and in result would sell more. 

Synergy and Symbiosis

Synergy is the merging of companies that work together to benefit each other rather than working individualy. The word is used quite often to mean that combining forces produces a better product.
The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects. Cooperative interaction among groups, especially among the acquired subsidiaries or merged parts of a corporation, that creates an enhanced combined effect.

Symbiosis is when companies work together to create different products for a lot more profit. For example, Rovio created Angry Birds for the Ipod and they would then distribute it to another company so they can make Angry Birds toys e.g. Hasbro. They would share profits.

A good example of symbiosis is the way Mountain Dew have brought out a design that coincides with the release of Halo 4. The bottles look like they belong in the Halo universe because of the luminous design. Here is a picture:

Skylanders Giants

Skylanders Giants is going to be the biggest kids game of the Christmas season because it has everything that a child ever wanted in a game. It has fun, excitement, cool and inventive characters and it has toys. Lots of toys. The way it works is that you buy the toys and then you import them into your console using a base that has an illumines circle in the middle. You put the toy on this and it has imported onto the game. It is a wholly original idea and a fantastic one too. 
Giants brings some new things to the party though. Firstly there are eight new Giant Skylander characters that are physically larger toys, light-up when on the Portal and offer new gameplay mechanics. There are eight new normal Skylanders that have a Wow-Pow and switchable upgrade paths. There are eight light-up Skylanders that glow like the Giants when on the portal and have a special Smart Bomb attack when brought into the game. Finally, there are 24 returning characters from the first game that also have a Wow-Pow and switchable upgrade paths.