Just some last minute info on words that might come up in the question and might unnecessarily scare you.

 

If CONSUMPTION comes up in the question, what they want to know about is how audiences interact with the media products - USE THEM, so you could talk about:

Consumers becoming 'prosumers' (consumers now interacting with the products are creating their own stuff - convergence culture, fan culture,)

Trends in gaming types (mobile gaming (smartphone, iPads etc) becoming very popular, perhaps threatening the home gaming (console and TV market)
OR casual games just as important as the hardcore titles e.g. the game to spend the most time at no.1 last year in the charts was Zumba Fitness for the Wii.
OR in different countries. 

Exchange (how consumers pay for stuff)

Distribution (how consumers are receiving the products)

Some interesting articles here

 

 

 

If the word EXHIBITION comes up - don't panic. Games aren't 'exhibited' like, for instance, films are - but this is the point consumer get to see/consume the product - so for games you can talk about consumption, exchange and distribution. 

 

Here are some articles about the games industry that you MIGHT want to read to get your mind working for the exam.

Don't feel you have to read any of them as I'm sure you've enough to get through - but they're here if you want.

The above document is the exact wording from the OCR AS/A Media Studies specification outlining just what you need to be prepared for and need to know before sitting the Institutions and Audiences section of the G322. Have a read through, take a deep breath and then don't panic...

There's a lots of new words in there and complicated sounding stuff but all that is being asked is whether you understand how and why we get the wonderful media products we consume daily.

We've decided to study the magical world of videogames so it's asking us who made CoD: Black Ops? How did they? How did they advertise the game? Who is it designed to appeal to? How did we get hold of a copy? How do we play it?

Or if CoD: Black Ops isn't your thing just replace it with Sims 3, Red Dead Redemption, Angry Birds or even CityVille...

If we condense the above information we need to know about the following 4 main aspects of the videogames industry:

Then alongside this we have be able to understand key media concepts and industry strategies the identify where they have had an effect or have been used in the above aspects.

The idea of this blog is to introduce you all these new concepts, define them and put them into context where you can understand them. Use the labels on the side to navigate through the information and get what you need from the resources.

It's long, it's wordy, but it might be of some use to someone.

The presenter of this documentary doesn't half speak fast but if you can keep up this is really worth watching. It explains the state of the games industry at the moment and shows just what a turbulent time it really is for established players in the industry. As one talking head explains its a perfect storm of change - digital downloads, social gaming, mobile phone gaming - all changing simultaneously and so rapidly that the industry is finding it hard to keep up. And the reason why they are finding it hard to keep up is because they have no idea what the shape of the videogames industry will be in the next five years. It's an exciting time, but there's a reason why many of these industry figures look so pale and clammy - they're panicking.

 

Also of interest is this article on the marketing strategy for Portal 2 that encourage savy fans of the game to buy a series of independent games just to find out clues about Portal 2. The article suggests that the complexity of the viral marketing trail could have potentially annoyed some of the hardcore fans. See what you think.

Here's a review of the impact social network and media have had for marketing companies.