Guild Wars 2

Guild wars 2 is a fantasy game that involves you exploring the world of tyria. when you start you pick one of the characters out of a combination of five races and eight professions, the five races are the humans and charr, the asura and norn, and the sylvari, a race exclusive to Guild Wars 2. The professions, three of them are new to guild wars 2 and did not appear in Guild Wars, are divided into Armour classes: "scholars" with light Armour, "adventurers" with medium Armour, and "soldiers" with heavy Armour.

Guild wars 2 is sold in 3 different packages:

1. £49.99 for just the game
2. £64.99 for the digital deluxe edition, this includes the game and some in game add ons
3. £129.99 for the collector edition, this includes the game, in game add ons, a collector figures of in game characters, making of guild wars booklet and a few other things

The developers behind the Guild wars series are ArenaNet, this is a video game developer  founded in 2000 by Mike O'Brien, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain and located in Bellevue, Washington. the publisher of Guild wars is NCsoft, a South Korea video game development they have produced games such as Lineage, City of Heroes, WildStar, Guild Wars and Aion.

The main plot of guild wars 2 is to the members of the disbanded Destiny's Edge, a multi-racial adventuring guild whose members' struggles and eventual reunion,whose combined strength is needed to effectively combat Zhaitan, the undead Elder Dragon.

Guild wars 2 is different from console games as the decisions that you make in game decide which path you follow during the story whereas on console games you follow a set story and you cannot change how that story plays out and how it ends. this is similar to console games as this does not require a membership fee to play online similar to console mmorpg's such as borderlands.

 

Guild wars 2 has a main website, the guilds wars 2 forum, this includes info on the in game game play, prices and much more such as a a news board that shows all new events or add ons that are being released.

 

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/community/community-news/

 

 

GTA V trailer analysis

rockstar released the second GTA V trailer on 14/11/12 this trailer involves many different pieces of information about the game and the characters that are involved in the game. Before the trailer even begins there is a standard age warning that shows that this trailer is only allowed to be viewed by people aged 18+. this also warns how the trailer will contain violenc and bad language which is typical for GTA games.
as the first part of the trailer begins it uses an establishing shot of the GTA world of los santos, they have also made it so you cannot see way off into the distance, they have done this to show the sheer size of the GTA world by showing that you cannot see all the way across the world. this would not be in the actual game as the graphics would be able to handle this, so it is purely to show the size of the city of los santos.
throughout the trailer they use the song Skeleton by Stevie wonder this is used heavily during the first frames but is then is used as a sort of background music during the frames which involve the character speaking, this song involves the words 'skeletons in your closet' this meaning that there may be a history of the characters that is not so pleasant. the trailer then switches to a low angle shot of a Mercedes, this showing wealth and fortune which may represent rockstar itself. they have used this cinematic type shot in this part as it gives a sense of luxury and realism as the car is seen as desirable. we are then introduced to our first protagonist. he is shown to be a man of luxury and comfort, but they also show two women fighting in his house which shows that his family maybe having problems.
we are then introduced to our second protagonist, this character is a complete binary opposite to the first as he is shown  in the poorer regions of los santos, he is also shown as violent as the entire frame is full of drunk people and fights. he is then shown throwing a Molotov cocktail into a house which is then shown blowing up as the character walks away. this showing the chaos that is involved in all GTA games. there is then a voice over from the character that then leads to more of a press filming of the character which makes the character seem less like a fictional character and more like a real person.
the third character is presented when he is asking were somebody is this may fit in with the violent side of GTA as he may be looking for them to beat them up, he is also shown to have family problems when he is shown having an argument with his possible wife.
we then see the first character again in which he is told that his son is a good kid, it then cuts to a clip of his son dangling from the barrel of a tank going along the road. this shows the chaos surrounding GTA as a whole as it is full of these crazy things that would never happen in the real world, it also shows the humerus side to GTA as it is showing what his family think hes like and what he is really like, which may create a more realistic atmosphere as teenagers will act different around their parents rather than when they are with their friends etc.
the trailer goes on to show possible in game missions as it shows a bank robbery which may be part of the story. it also goes on to show the crazy things included in GTA as it shows one of the characters driving a jeep out of a plane then jumping out of it, this showing the dangerous and action packed atmosphere created in GTA games.
it then shows the three characters together shaking hands which may show that they may have only just met. they are then showing the phrase see no evil speak no evil hear no evil. this showing a philosophical element to GTA. it then cuts to the end GTA V emblem with the release date of spring 2013.

GTA V so far

Grand theft auto 5 (GTA V) is the newest addition to the Grand theft auto series. It has been developed by Rockstar North and is published by Rockstar Games. The first GTA game in the series was published in 1997, this was the original Grand theft auto. The first GTA game is a lot different to GTA V as it did not have a third person view point it was a birds eye view, but the same atmosphere has been carried through the series even though the game play may have changed. GTA V is one of the most anticipated games of 2012, as the audience we have been drip fed pieces of information regarding the release and game play involved in the game itself. The information that they have released may be small but alot can be taken from it, this is a tactic by Rockstar to make the game build up a hype that will linger until the game is finally released in April/May 2012.
Grand theft auto is a third person shooter that involves an atmosphere of gang warfare and the life of criminals. It is a free roam game that involves a main story line as well as small side missions that are irrelevant to the main story line. This GTA is said to be the largest of them all with the world being the size of GTA IV, GTA San Andreas and red dead redemption worlds combined. GTA V is played in the fictional city of los Santos in the state of San Andreas, which is based on the American city of los Angeles in south California.
From announcments made by rockstar we have found out small parts of the in game features such as vehicles and the characters that you play as. The single player has changed from other GTA games as you can now play as three separate characters that have entwined story lines which you can switch between, these will all contribute to the main story line and play differnet roles. These characters are Michael, Trevor and Franklin, they have also added the feature that when you are playing as one of the characters the others dont just freeze they carry on normally as if they a civillians, they have also made it so they take part in activities such as yoga and tennis to fill the time. They have also added new vehicles and will have a larger variety than any other, this will include; BMXs, mountain bikes, road bikes, dirt bikes, huge variety of cars and trucks, helicopters, planes, All TerrainVehicles (eg quad bikes), Jet Skis and Fighter jets.
Rockstar have also brought out a cinematic like trailer. This trailer gives us little clues on were the game is set and what the game involves and the story line.cross media convergence is used here as it uses a cinema/film like trailer to promote a game. they have done this to appeal to more people who aren't necessarily into games and by doing this it shows them that GTA is not like a normal game and that it has a sum what film type feel to it. cross media convergence is used alot in the GTA series as the game is not meant to be a normal game it is meant to shop a real life aspect that relates to the real world. also they have produced merchandise for other games in the GTA series such as with GTA IV they have released merchandise such as t-shirts posters and much more, this will mean alot more publicity and advertisment will come out as people will use these products and which will promote the game to even more people.
Rockstar have also released some screanshots of cinematic versions of ingame events, such as they relleased a picture of a man riding a jet ski while holding a gun. this small screen shot that does not give much away to the first glanse can have deep in depth meaning to them that show the setting, story line, weapon types in game and many more. this creates a feeling of excitmient as people can find out so much more about the game that they havent been allowed to know easily, so they could potentially find something out that they are not meant to.
at the moment shops and other companies that will distribute GTA V will be the usual places such as amazon, game, blockbusters etc. from amazon GTA V will cost £39.99, this is quite a cheap price for the anticipation that the game is being sold for, also this may be a cheap price as they have kept many secrets about the game that they will not release until the game actualy hits the shelves. games such as the new Call of duty black ops 2 are sold for a price of £47.99 in blockbusters and the yrelease many secrets about the game months before release so people basically know the game inside out and it will not be as anticipated whereas people will be pulling their hair out to get a hold of the new grand theft auto as they have only seen very small snipits of the game and the only way to find out what is in the game is to buy it, so they could sell it for more as they will most definately get a larger amount of sales and have an ever increasing profit. call of duty could be sold less than GTA aswell because they have events in which the public can play the game before release whereas GTA do nothing like this.
in conclusion i think GTA will be the biggest selling game of 2013 as it has alot of patriotic and devoted fans that will pay anything for it. It is a good tactic by Rockstar to sell it for cheaper as it means more people can afford it therefore resulting in an increase in sales numbers.

Symbiosis - Mountain dew

This mountain dew stand is a perfect example of symbiosis as they are promoting the same game but with different formats such as this mountain dew stand which is promoting halo 4.
Also from this i can see that they have based the colour of the drink to look like something from halo, in game, this makes you feel like it is more to do with the actual game than what it seems. also by linking it to an energy drink would link more to a video game as they are exciting, whereas if it was advertised on washing up liquid it would not have the same effect.

Top 20 Games Analysis

from the top 20 list of games at the moment i can see that it is the typical games such as Fifa and WWE are at the top, this is expected from games such as these, as they are released every year and have a huge audience that are expecting what the game will be like and as they are already fans they will want to buy it.  games such asFifa are alsofirst party games   which means it is directly owned by the developer, this may make it more popular as it is available to more people as it has the potential to be published on all consoles. 

Also from this chart i can see that new IP such as dishonoured are not as popular as it is 10th in the chart, this may be because people do not know what this game is like so people may refrain from buying it as it may be a waste of money. Where as established franchise such as EA are expected to be good so they will be more popular.all of the top games apart from dishonoured are established franchises this therefore showing that established franchises are more likely to sell, but new IPs that get through have the potential to be successful as dishonoured is 10th which shows that it is still quite popular.

From the list there is  a PC game football manager that has come third this is showing that sport games are popular on console a PC. Also games that are published by Activision are games aimed at children, this therefore showing that in today's market games for children are becoming more popular.
from the chart you can also see that FIFA 13 is still available on the playstation 2, this is because of countries such as brazil which is a bit behind  in the gaming world. This is showing that EA are generating a larger audience as they are still appealing to the people who have not caught up to the more modern consoles.

GTA 4/5 Conglomerate map

Skylanders conglomerate map