Gears of war

Production

Who made it?

Gears of war was developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft.

How did they make it?

They made the game from the third person perspective of resident evil 4, the tactical cover system of kill switch and a influence of Bionic Commander too.

What technologies were used to make it?

Epic games used new high graphical technology to make it and there was so much graphical content focused on gore a content filter to block the levels of gore was included on the game.

What console was it made on?

it was made on, Xbox 360 and PC

Marketing

Who is target audience?

The target audience for gears of war is defiantly 18 - 50 because the age rating of the game is 18 so you have to be at least 18 to play it and the main characters are quite old people which shows why it goes up from 18 - 50.

What strategies were used?

The strategies used to market Gears of war were putting adverts on the t.v such as this famous advert that used the song 'Mad World' in it to represent the game had chaos in it and this is the link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voOX7vCjOCo, the advert used represents the genre of the game which is a third person shooter.

Epic games Cliff Bleszinski was a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Falcon to promote the game too.

Viral? Conventional methods?

Gears of war used viral marketing of advertising because when people saw the advertisement that used cut scenes for it to make the graphics look better people started talking about it and the word spread around about a new game called gears of war which everybody started to pre order due to the excitement of the release.

Distribution

How was it distributed?

Gears of War was distributed in retail in such shops as Game and Gamestation and GAMETRON. And it was also distributed online on the game websites which enabled people to pre order the game too. On xbox 360 you can also download the game straight from the marketplace which allows people to not even move from there seat to buy a great game.

Exhibition

The game can be exhibited in peoples homes on the XBOX 360 and demos which can be downloaded for free off the xbox 360 marketplace or where exhibited in stores such as HMV. There were demos shown on youtube showing the gameplay features of the game.

Consumption

How was it played?

The game Gears of War was exclusive to the Microsoft XBOX 360 and PC and this meant that people had to buy a xbox 360 or a new pc to play the games and it can be played with an xbox controller where you control the main character in the game or you can use a keyboard and a mouse on the PC.

Can the consumer modify the experience?

The consumer can modify the experience of Gears of war by enabling xbox live or playing online on the PC so consumers can play gears of war all over the world together, there is also a 2 player local version on the xbox 360 so you can do campaign mode with a friend.

What is the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in the production, distribution and marketing of Gears Of War?

Synergy

• When gears of war was released they had a lot of adverts on the television to ensure that Gears Of War got the attention of millions of people to make sure that the game sold.
• Gears of war also teamed up with youtube and near the time of release teasers started coming around youtube which were featured and this shows that Gears Of War would have payed youtube to have there game highlighted.
• Gears Of War also worked with facebook by putting adverts on to make sure the tens of millions of people who go on facebook see the advertisement and start looking to buy the game.
• Gears Of War also worked with game shops in order to sell games and Gears Of War would not have payed for this because by having Gears Of War posters in a game shop would attract people to come and buy the game

Cross media convergence

• A way in which old technology was used with new technology is that Gears of war made there own website which allowed people to go on the forum and post general things about Gears Of War
• Fan sites were also made and on these sites were links from youtube telling people how to do glitches on the game and they also share tips on the game too.
• Another way in which Gears Of War used cross media convergence was that the consumers liked the game so much and it was so popular it made the Gears Of War producers Epic Games decide to make a sequeal to the game.

Gears of war links to GTA 4 because it is a 3rd person game, but the target audience is different because it is aimed more at the likes of people who want to play gory shooting games unlike GTA has far less gore and a different story line which is doing missions while Gears of war missions are going around killing a 'Locust Horde' which sounds completley different tot GTA 4 already.

In GTA you can drive cars and do what ever you like but Gears Of War restricts to you just doing campaign and playing online with friends however due to the violence in both games they are both rated 18 which shows they are partially similiar.