Video games are a specialised Industury

Two main different questions are asked about video games:

Industry questions
These focus on how the videogame industry is structured, and how it is a specialised industry and differs from other media industries. These kind of questions are asking for cold, hard facts, and in-depth knowledge and understanding of the industry. 

An example of an industry question is In what ways does the videogame industry use specialised forms of production? Make reference to the Assassin's Creed franchise [12]

Audience questions
These questions will either focus on how producers target and position audiences, or how audiences can respond to media products.

An example of an audience question is In what ways do the producers of videogames address the needs of both mass and specialised audiences? Make reference to the Assassin's Creed franchise [12]

In both instances, you will have an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of how the industry works, and this post/lesson will give you the means to include this.

What makes games a specialised industry?

Videogames, like any form of media, are totally different from any other industry. They are a specialised industry, and they exist to make money in the most effective manner possible.

Video games differ from other media products in many ways. Almost every video games are interactive, they interact with the audience. Each button on the controller allows the character on the screen to react. For instance, a button might make the character punch something or shoot something. Which may relate to the point that video games are violent and solve things with violence. From the start page of the game, they're asking the audience to interact with them, for example, the 'press to start button'. This allows the audience to feel like they're in control of what is happening, it also breaks the fourth wall with the character and the audience. It offers the audience many uses and gratification and pleasures. 

Another way it is specialised is a huge expenditure of specialised resources.  For example, the Ubi-Soft's Ivory Tower contains a vast amount of equipment and talent to make a triple big-budget video game. There are numerous amount of desktops and people working on a singular video game. Although they all collaborate together, each person has a singular specialised role that they play in the making of the game. All of these require a lot of money to make it happen, for the equipment to hiring the best of best staffs. 

Video games tend to have higher RRP, so the price that is sold in retail, they give the shops the price they want the product to sell at but if they do for less then they risk losing that money. When video games are first released the RRP is extremely high, approximately around £50 which compared to other media products may seem a bit much. Considering media products such as Netflix gives a wider range of products. The pricing, however, does vary wildly,  so it may be after a few weeks the price might have gone down by 10 or 20 pounds. The justification for the high price is for the development as well as this, the content they offer, their more options for the audience and they spent more time with this. 

Video games are much longer in length than other media products such as films and TV shows. A prestige TV show averagely would be for 10 hrs, a Film varies from 1hr 30mins to 4hrs, Video games, on the other hand, maybe drastically more longer. Someone may spend 698 on Team Fortress 2. 

Video games players are a specialised and distinct group of audiences. There's assumption that video games are nerdy, hardcore, and you need to be good at video games in order to play it which is a big stereotype which video game makers even play on in their advertisement. 

Specific hardware with the main two being PlayStation and Xbox. You can't play a PlayStation game on an Xbox console. Which creates a division amongst the audience. We also have that on streaming sites such as Netflix where they release a Netflix which only available on that platform. But you can easily buy the subscription for that streaming site in order to watch it. However, in video games it is more specific in the way that you need to have the console in order to play that game. There are also games that are multi-platform games where it is available on various platform. 

E3 and the role of trade shows in the videogames industry

The Electronics Entertainment Expo is perhaps the most famous and arguably the most important mainstream videogame exposition in the world. This highly coordinated event allows publishers to show off new games to crowds of journalists and other industry professionals. These trade shows are extensively covered on videogame websites and streamed live on to YouTube and other streaming services.

Normal Media have three main stages of production, 

• Pre-production
• Production 
• Post-production 

In video game production they're pretty much rolled into one, and there are fewer ways of distinguishing them, However, there are some distinct phrases in the production. 

In the pre-production of a video game, the concept of art is produced. The concept artist draws and sketches out what the game will essentially look like. Most concept artist sketches include watercolour and bright setting which the final game isn't going to include. But is done for the designers of the gamers so they get inspired and use some of the sketches. Nowadays the concept art and the final design of the game are fairly similar due the advance in technology. There is often a thing called the development book, where it includes sketches of certain characters and locations with their description. It also includes a brief description of the narrative from start to finish. Which is almost like a rule book for everyone working on the video game, so no one goes off track and do their own thing, as there is many people working on a video game together. After the design has been put forward, the video game needs to be coded. 

In order to code the video game, you need to utilise numbers and utilise coding, so for that, you would need to use things such as hexadecimal numbers. It is a specialised industry which requires specialised people to do this job, coders. They will use forms of machine languages and computer to put together what we see on our screens. Studios such as DMA, who made grand theft auto, now are one of the biggest video games studio. Essentially Video games are made by people spending hours and hours behind a computer, using high-end mathematical techniques in order to make things work. Things are being coded, characters are put in place as well as the menus. 

One of the final stages of video games are to test the product. The producers need a 'fresh set of eyes' to look at the work, so they can notice any mistake in video games. So they hire people to play and test their game for them. They're looking for bugs and glitches in the game so that the coder can go back and fix it. 

There are two types of builds Alpha builds and Beta Builds. Alpha build, a rough cut of a video game so there issues with the game it isn't quite polished. The bugs and glitches are identified and the builders can then work from that and build it better. The other type of build is a beta build where the issues and glitches are solved and it is usually the product that gets sent out to the journalist and trade shows. Usually the beta product also a product that gets leaked on to the internet which is bad for the production as it does not reflect the final product. 

Finally Post production, due to modern technology the developers are able to patch the video game even after it is released. For example, if the video is too hard then they are able to change that. Marketing and Promoting the game is essential for games. E3 is a massive event which is held in American and allows the developers to showcase the development, which gets a review written on it. Which plays on the Henery Jenkins Theory of a Fan theory, of seeing a trailer and getting hyped over it and talking about it to each other.