Facts and Figures

Useful Facts and Figures for exam essays..

Essay terminology and phrases:
blanket bomb, cross-media convergence, technological convergence, financial backing, synergy, piracy, viral, diverse, franchise, crowd-funding, strategies, audiences, however, therefore, in contrast, in addition to, for example, overall, particularly, strengths and weaknesses, which shows that, I think that, whereas, to conclude..

General facts

• 2/5 Gamers are women
• Average age of gamer is 32
• 65% households own a console, 75% own a computer device, in the UK
• 33% of time on wii spent video streaming, 15% PS3, 14% Xbox 360
• Chains of production:

Assassin's Creed 3

• Created by Ubisoft
• Made on engine AnvilNext
• Target audience 18-40
• Certificate 18
• Platforms - Xbox 360, Wii U, PS3, PSP, digital download.
• Protagonist is a girl on PSP
• Fifth installment of the franchise
• 1300 strong workforce
• 3 months planning and 2 1/2 years production
• Multi genre: action, adventure, sandbox, stealth
• New setting, character, storyline, weapons, actions, graphics
• Most pre-ordered game in history
• Started making just after AC2
• The franchise have lost money rather than making profit
• £4 million spent on marketing in the UK
• $52 million spent on marketing
• Advertised: TV ads, youtube videos and documentaries, posters, magazines, buses
• Distributed: Supermarkets, HMV, Game, amazon, play.com
• Sold 3.5 million units in the first week
• Released in time for Christmas and the end of the world
• 3-D ever-improving graphics

Double Fine Adventure

• 87,142 backers
• Needed $400,000 and achieved this in under 8 hours
• Got $3,336,371 in under a month
• 2-D simple graphics, old-fashioned point-and-click genre, adventure
• Tim Schafer runs the project
• Backed using Kickstarter
• Backers are rewarded with access to documentaries, t-shirts, artwork and 'gay lunch'
• Currently in production
• Being released on PC, Mac, digital download, android
• Free Marketing - youtube, kickstarter and word-of-mouth
• Over 100,000 youtube hits
• More money meant better graphics, voices and music
• Not aiming for profit - game isn't expected success of AC3
• Not a big team of creators
• Suitable for all ages
• Audience are the capital and are very much involved in the production of the game

Wii/Wii U

• Wii original price £179, considerably less than PS3 and Xbox 360
• Wii U £249.99
• Mario Kart and Wii Sports best selling games
• Wii fastest selling games console
• Wii U released November 30th 2012
• Wii released 2006
• Wii 97.18 million units shipped worldwide
• Most of sales through supermarkets and Amazon
• Not as much 'pre-hype' for Wii U as Wii
• Took off the new generation of emersive by use of sensors for interaction, but the '2nd world' effect wasn't as obvious as with original PS3 and Xbox games
• Released by Nintendo
• Smallest home console
• Includes more child-friendly games
• Games like Just Dance are family orientated but aimed stereotypically at females
• Games like Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games use convergence of franchises
• 512mb internal memory
• Inspired by Playstation iToy
• Developer Nintendo manufacturer Foxcon
• Mario Kart originally on SNEZ

Independent games

• Most successful include Farmville and Minecraft
• A lot of genres include Sandbox, Survival or Adventure
• Mostly free or really cheap
• Online game websites, social networking sites, android apps, PC and Mac
• Exception like Minecraft now released on Xbox 360
• Usually no marketing costs
• 241,920,000 logins to Minecraft a month.
• 8 million copies sold on PC, 3 million on others