Media Convergence, Technological convergence, Proliferation and Synergy

Media Convergence, Technical Convergence, Proliferation and Synergy

Technological Convergence:

Technological convergence is the blend of  two technologies that, together, bring a number of different media. The reason for technological convergnece is to make consoles more popular and to have more than one function to help with ease in consumers homes. For example, someone might want a blu-ray player but might get a PS3 which plays blu-ray discs but also can play games on them. It encourages family interaction as the console can be in a living room, with all of it’s it’s functions, and might persuade people to buy games and DVDs. A good thing about technological convergence is that all these consoles are online which let people play online, share ideas online and download new games and game content.

Media Convergence:

This is the combination of types of media e.g. online media, television, radio and video games industry. For example, television and online media  are almost becoming the same thing! Websites are now advertising games through videos (like television which obviously uses moving pictures). This enhances the advertisement of the product and the marketing of it. Another example of media convergence is the combination of games and social media. This produces games like farmville and cityville which people play on facebook. These can only exist because of media convergence as they are distributed, marketed and consumed on facebook (social media).

Synergy:

Synergy is two or more companies/agents/products working together on a video game to create a larger effect than if they were to work independantly. An example is a video game working with its marketers to release the game, and adverts on the same day. This would ensure that as soon as the game is adverised, consumers can get hold of the product.

The following example is of synergy in the marketing process: Related products, an example is spiderman. Spiderman is a popular superhero, so duvets and other merchandise are now available with his character on.

Proliferation:

This is making a game ‘playable’ on more than one type of console. It increase the amount of sales of the product. For example, a wii game might become very popular, and there for, the producer might change the script slightly and make the game to also be played on an xBox. The same is with online games; they might become popular and turned into an app for an iPod/  iPad.