Resident Evil

Resident Evil is a series of video games, novels, comics and films developed by Capcom and created by a japanese man called Shinji Mikami. As of may 2009, the series has sold over 40 million games.

Production

The first game of the series, titled Resident Evil was originally released in 1996 on the Sony Playstation. This was one of the first games that started off the trend of "survival horror" and has been called "one of the most important games of all time" since then, over 20 games have been released ranging in platforms from Playstation to mobile phones.

Resident Evil 4 was developed by Capcom Production studio 4 and used several publishers including Capcom, Ubisoft, Nintendo, THQ and Red Ant Enterprises. The game was originally released on january 11 in 2005. The game was originally going to be exclusive to the Nintendo Game Cube however, a Playstation 2 version was announced and released before the Game Cube version was even released. soon after, the game was then released on other platforms in the PC and Wii.

the first attempt at developing Resident evil 4, was origianlly in 1998 after Resident evil 2 was released. the production company tested out several different prototype versions of the game, however these proved to be to much of a radical change from the already established Resident Evil formula and the survival horror genre. so rather than abandoning the project entirely, the production company descided to change the game slightly and this then became Devil May Cry.

the development for Resident Evil 4 then started in 2001.

Marketing

marketing for resident evil 5 was much different to any of the other games in the series due to the fact that the technology available has been allot more available. trailers where released on the Xbox 360 in july of 2007. in march of 2008 dvd footage was realesed containing a preview of the game. a demo was released in 2009 for playstation 3 and xbox 360 which allowed the player to play part of a level from the game. this demo was downloaded over 4 million times wolrdwideduring the time that it was released on the playstaion store and the xbox live services with more than 1.8 million dowloads within the first three days.

distribution

the game was available for download aswell as being a physical copy. Resident Evil 5 quickly became the fastest selling game in the franchise, selling over 5.3 million copies of the game worldwide and easily making it the best selling resident evil game ever. in france, the game sold 110,555 copies of the game during the first week of it's release, which was half of the stock in the country.

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Mario Kart case study

Mario Kart case study:
Notes:
• Mario Kart is a series of driving games using fictional characters.
• All 8 Mario Kart games have been produced on Nintendo consoles.
• First game in 1992 on the ‘SNES’
• 8 playable characters in 1992. 25 in the latest version released in 2008.
• A very different audience to the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Aimed at children, the view is if children play a game exclusive to Nintendo they might sway towards buying Nintendo products and consoles in later life.
• First game was in 2D with a basic SNES controller.
• Latest game is in full 3D boasting impressive graphics. Also a ‘wii remote’ is used. Moving the remote in a certain direction moves the ‘kart’. This new innovative controller system is what makes Nintendo so unique.
• The image of the character was a result of the technology when the first Mario Kart game was made in 1992. The hair, hat and clothing all contrast so it was clear on the low graphics SNES system.
• Mario is widely considered the most iconic character in the gaming world.
• Because of the tremendous success of the Mario Kart franchise, Guinness World Records awarded the series with 5 world records in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008. These awards include, "First Console Kart Racing Game", "Best Selling Handheld Racing Game", and a mention of Mario Kart Arcade GP as the only Mario Kart game to feature guest appearances by non-Nintendo characters, with Pac-Man, Blinky, and Ms. Pac-Man available as playable characters. Guinness World Records also named the original Super Mario Kart number 1 on the list of top 50 console games of all time based on initial impact and lasting legacy.
• GTA was widely controversial, Mario Kart was at a child-based audience and was not controversial in the slightest, the strange characters, Mario (an Italian Plumber), attracted the children to the game.

Production:
• Who made it? Nintendo EAD Designer(s) Shigeru Miyamoto (general producer) Hideki Konno (producer) Satoru Iwata (executive producer)
• How was it funded? It was not the first game in the Nintendo/Mario franchise. SuperMarioWorld on the NES and SNES were first released. And the revenue created from these funded the manufacturing of MarioKart.
• For what console, why? Only Nintendo consoles and handheld consoles (GameBoy Advance, Nintendo DS) These consoles aim the majority of their games at children.
• What technologies were used:


Marketing:
• What strategy was used: Aim at a different target audience to the xBox and PS3 consoles. This was because they didn’t want to compete with these consoles as a result of inferior graphics etc.
• What sort of audience did they want to attract: Child based audiences, however the new games appeal to adults and families.
• Analyse adverts for game, what aspects did they cover: Showed images of families together as well as clear visuals of the characters which the children may find entertaining.


Distribution:
• How could you get hold of the game: In retail shops such as ‘Game’ and ‘Gamestation’
• How did you pay for it? With money at a retail store.
• Any downloadable content: New racecourses and game modes are available via wii wi-fi connection.


Consumption:
• Online: Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Mode also includes a "friends roster" which allows a player to play with a group of people he or she knows. Wi-Fi gameplay follows the same scoring as multiplayer VS matches, except with a limit of 4 players instead of 8. Also, only half of the courses available in vs matches are available in Wi-fi.Mario Kart Wii also makes use of the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, in which up to twelve people can race online via Wi-Fi.
• Multiplayer: One of the main selling points in the adverts shown for this game was the multiplayer aspect. Families together playing it. It showed an image of families bonding over playing this game.
• User created content: There is none available.

Exhibition: The demo's were played in shops whereas the full game was played in households.

GTA is very different however similar in one way, both games involve driving as this may be a reason for why they are so popular with young audiences, young audiences who are not allowed to drive so they do it on there.

Super Mario 64

Production

The development of Mario took two years to complete and was conceived by director and producer Shigeru Miyamoto. It first came out in Japan in 1996 He developed most of the concepts for the game during the era of the Super Nintendo. He first started by developing the characters and camera system. The original concept was to have a single path throughout the game but then decided to make the game a free roam 3d game.

Marketing

The target audience for the Super Mario Game was mainly aimed at children to teenagers. The genre of the game was aimed towards boys but a lot of girls were interested to play the game as well. The game was first advertised in Japan where it was created it then started spreading across the world

Distribution
When the game first came out it was in all the game shops around the country however now you can only buy it second hand in certain games shops. You can also buy it on ebay but it is a lot cheaper than it was when it first came out. A lot of people had to wait for special occasions such as birthdays or Christmas as the game was quite expensive to buy when it came out.

Consumption
The game was not an online game when it first game out as online game play had not been created yet. The game is not available to play online as it is a free roaming game. The game is only a single player game they did try to make it but they couldn't develop it.

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.