Production,Consumption and Exchange

Task One: Production

The 'tent pole' business model is when a company rely on a big main stream game to pay for the development of a niche game. For example EA rely on FIFA to pay for other games that they decide to develop. In 2008 EA spent $372 million on research and development. Xbox 360 games can cost up to $30 million to make.

The 'hollywood' model is when a company hire out people to produce games so that they don't have to pay them for the whole year that they are there. They do this by using less people to develop the game so that they get more from the profit at the end of the production stage.

Normally, a publisher will be hired to publish a game after the developer has created the game but recently developers have been beginning a project without a publisher at hand. This could cause the game never to be released but when the game does get released this gives the company more freedom and no pressure from the publisher in terms of deadlines.

Recently, games developments were very much high in cost and cost the business alot of money to develop a game, but nowadays there is a growing 'Indie Game' market thanks to online companies buying the games, for example there are things like the Apple App Store and Xbox Live Marketplace, where people can buy and exchange the games.

Task Two Consumption

The Old Hardware:

Xbox 360
Wii
PS3
Mobile Phones (Iphone, blackberry and HTC)
The Software:
Xbox- Kinect new technology is designed for the xbox 360 which picks up your bodie's movements so the whole body is used to play.
Wii- Wii remote plus is the new technology which is added to the end of the wii remote which means that the wii remote doesn't need to be pointing at the tv all the time.

PlayStation- Playstation Move and EyeCamera is motion sensing game controlled platform for the PS3 is based on a handheld motion controller the Playstation Move uses. The eyecamera uses to track the wands movements and position.

Task Three

We found that, there are many different ways to exchange for games. The main ways that people pay for games is either cash, card or debit card. The games that were discussed were games like Call Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, this may be because they are mainstream games that everyone can get hold of and play. We asked in the interview about mobile phone apps and only one person has brought these sort of apps which is paid by Itunes using a debit card. Not many people pay for games with a voucher, which maybe because you only get vouchers when giving a gift to someone.