GTA V character trailers

Franklin trailer;
Franklin is a black american who is involved in a gangster life who is shown taking part in police chases, heists and other criminal activity
You can see this as the music starts differently at the beginning and then changes to a more gangster rap type music. You can also see that at the beginning there is a setting of what type of area he is from and this is a more run down side of the city. You can also see that he wants to get out of the gangster life as he says he wants to get out.

Trevor trailer;
Trevor is described as a hill billy drug dealer at the start and made to look kind of crazy as he is howling at the moon in the beginning . he is also shown as a mugger as he is seen taking cars. He is also shown as crazy as he says he goes to a shrink each week. The music is also very western style and gives a more of a paced video which also could describe his mental state as he looks like he's set to his ways.

Michael trailer;
Michael is a wealthier man who has a nice house and a young wife and basically all you need to live a wealthy lifestyle, how ever he is also miserable and wants out of this life. He is also shown to have anger problems as he is shown acting out and cannot survive without chaos. He is also shown as going to a therapist and the therapist says you need a new therapist which shows how he is a lot to handle.

Sterotyped characters in TV drama

Tom Branson
Tom Branson is a character from Downton abbey, he is an Irish man who is stereotyped through the show. for instance when his brother comes to visit him they start to drink, when they are then drunk they are stereotyped as aggressive. he is also portrayed as working class and coming from a poorer background.

Dev- coronation street
Dev is of Indian background, he is stereotyped by owning a corner shop in the programme. He is also seen as arrogant and thinks alot of himself.

The Masood family
they are an Indian family from Easterners, they are stereotyped throughout this soap. for instance they own a Indian restaurant in the programme, called the Argee Bhajee. they are also portrayed as very religious and are very serious about their religion, this is shown when they disown their son due to him being a homosexual.

Audience localisation Essay

Audience localisation has brought out the debate whether a game developer should target an audience on a international level or on a localised level. a national audience being whole countries with them only really changing the language and localised being taking social issues into account before they are released into that specific country. i believe that developing a game for a localised audience would be a lot better than targeting on a national scale as it means that a lot of controversy will be avoided as they have taken the social issues into account that would have caused them problems, for example if a game was released in America that involved a plane crashing into a building it would not be very popular, therefore by targeting on a localised scale they will make a larger profit and have less problems surrounding the game on release.

When a new game is released it has to take in to account the social issues that the game may cause, to prevent these issues occurring they have to focus on the audience and were the game is being introduced. for example the game 'call of duty world at war' involved the Nazi party being main part of the game with a part of the game being Nazi zombies, this therefore resulted in this part of the game being banned from all copies in Germany. another example being that in the PC version of the game wolfenstein was withdrawn from circulation in Germany in 1994. this is due to the Nazi swastika being a large part of the game, with the Nazi anthem being the background music also. this was banned due to the social issues that the game may cause due to these offencive emblems. Another example is that in china all consoles are banned as they are thought to corrupt the minds of the youth. they have been banned in china since 2000, this is ironic as china are the largest manufacturer of games consoles such the xbox 360, PS3 and wii and they are not sold in china itself, whereas the government have allowed consoles that have games built in to be sold, as they are seen as not bad. even though game consoles are banned, online and mobile device gaming is permitted. Although Sony have found a way around this console ban and made a more =basic version of the PlayStation 3, this has been allowed into china and will potentially increase Sony's profits as they are the only platform holder allowed to sell in china. localisation can also create a lag time between release dates as if the game is being released nationally they may have to spend longer on a certain nationality, as of the in game content such as final fantasy VII which had a lag time of 7 months between its release in japan and in America.

games marketing also has to change if localisation has to happen, as such things like the Nazi swastika, this is illegal in Germany and is not allowed under any circumstance. this means that games such as call of duty world at war and wolfenstein posters will have to be edited so that they did not show this offensive emblem, that would cause social outrage to occur. game localisation also means that marketing has to be very specific to the certain nationality, for instance they may have to follow a certain lifestyle when creating game adverts or trailers. for example they may put different celebrities in trailers so they relate more to that country.

in conclusion i still stand with audience localisation as even though it may take longer it means that the audience will not be offended by the game and it will therefore attract a larger audience as it has been specifically designed for them. I also believe that it is needed in the sense of the Internet and digital download as anyone can download the game but without localisation and adaptations such as language they will not be able to play the game properly, so localisation is needed foe digital download to take place. I believe that in today's climate this is needed as there are many social issues in separate countries and if they aren't assessed properly they can cause huge social problems, so targeting on a local level is better than targeting a national level as it avoids social problems and it may bring in more profit due to this.

Distributors

Distribution in the games market

The distributors for GTAV will be Take-two interactive, this will be good as it is using vertical integration meaning thay will get all profit from the game sales, also as they own all aspects of the games development they will not have to pay other distributors etc which will cut the cost. Skylanders giants will be distributed by XPEC entertainment, they are a video games developer and publisher based in taiwan. they have distributed other games such as Hello kitty roller rescue. Going from the large well known established franchise of GTA, angry birds has been distributed on a smaller scale, they were originally distributed by chillingo. this is not using vertical integration as rovio are using a different distributer, this will therefore result in them not making as much of a profit.

GTA and Call of duty

In an interview  at the 2012 technology conference take two boss said that if rockstar released a game every year like call of duty it would not do very well in sales. he said that if they did the audience may fall out with the franchise. this may be true as a game such as GTA is a wildly anticipated game that builds up tension over the years, this keeps the game popular as they are not making GTA predictable which keeps people interested and when it comes to release more people will buy the game as they have been drip fed for years and the excitement and anticipation has built up. also games such as COD are very predictable and while GTA are  not releasing a yearly game activision are carrying on the game which reduces its popularity, this is caused by people not feeling this excitement about the game which will cause people to maybe put off buying the game. they have compared GTA sales numbers with COD numbers and have stated that they sold 125 units with GTA IV and that with each GTA this number grows. whereas with COD the sales number's from COD black ops 2 were not as high as its predecessor modern warfare 3 this therefore proving his sales tactics as it showing how people are falling out of love with the franchise.

UGC in the games market

User generated content, UGC is content created within the game that has been made by the audience/consumers rather than the game developers themselves. an example of this in the game industry is little big planet, this is because when playing LBP you create levels yourself, which can then be played by other players.
UGC can have some negative effects on the game industry as it may leave things such as DLC pointless as they will not be bought due to the amount of UGC that has been development meaning that people will not feel the need to purchase the dlc as they have everything they want from creating it themselves. also it may cause games such as call of duty that releases a game every year to become less popular as they don't follow this creative side which allows the player to get what they want from the game and not what is handed to them which cannot be changed. However this can have some positive impacts as it prolongs the games life as it makes it more popular also if a popular mod is created that requires the game to play it people may buy the game to play it therefore generating a bigger profit over time.

PEGI-Age Ratings

PEGI, Pan European game information, is a European game content rating system. It was produced to give European video game consumers information about whether the game is suitable for the age of the user, they do this by putting different age logos on different boxes. It was developed by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE) and came into use in April 2003. the PEGI system is now used in more then thirty countries and is based on a code of conduct. The PEGI system has 5 seperate age categories and 8 content discriptors that show if the game is suitable for a certain age, this is affevted by the in game content. these identify the age that the game is aimed at, they have been colour coded so they are easier to see and understand, this was introduced after 2009. the colours may represent green from friendly, orange representing getting more violent and red representing danger and theres alot of violence. As of December 2011, PEGI has rated more than 18,000 games, 50% of the games were rated 3, 10% were rated 7, 24% were rated 12, 12% were rated 16 and only 4% were 18.



Prior to pegi the majority of game ratings were made by the BBFC the british board of film classification. buit due to pegi now becoming legally enforced they do not have much influence over the age ratings for games in the present day.

For the developers of todays games this has had some negative impacts, for instrance it has resulted in the game developer not being allowed to put as much of something in to a agme that they wish such as violence being toned down. this is due to the game having to be able to fit into a certain category so it can fit clearly into a rating category. this may also have effects on their profit as it may cause peoploe to put off buying the game as it may not feel the same, such as if it was part of a series such as GTA. the publishers will also face problems such as because the game is now only permitable to a certain age group it means that the consumer cannot go and buy a game if they are to young, which may result in them not buying the game, also because people who are aged around 12/13 do not have a presentable form of identification they will be sold the game from what the person at5 the checkout thinks they look like and this may prevent the right aged person from buying a a game which can have a fine of £5,000, this sort of fine will put the retailer under alot of prerssure and may result in many consumers being refused when buying a game.

The PEGI system does have some problems for instanse there is nothing stopping the parent of the child from purchasing the game for them, this therefore meaning that the system is easily avoidable by the consumer. also with the introduction of digital download there is nothing stopping them from purchasing the game online which requires no form of ID. these are the problems that PEGI have to overcome.