Contextual Studies Assignment 1

Technology

VR and AR technology have influenced the development of games by allowing developers to create new experiences where the user can “truly immerse themselves in a digital environment.” Experiences such as Batman Arkham VR and Star Trek: Bridge Crew bring a new sense of reality to the consumers love of these franchises by “being able to actually act within this world via hand controls [which] only further improves how “real” it can feel for the user.” [1]

The Internet and its involvement with gaming has revolutionised both the way in which people play games as well as the way in which companies are developing games. MMO’s (Massively Multiplayer Online game) such as World of Warcraft and others released in the early 2000s brought together millions of fans over the years from strategy and roleplaying games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer, selling 240,000 copies within its first 24 hours, making it more popular than any other PC game on the market at the time [2]. More recently, “Competitive and cooperative multiplayer games […]” such as Call of Duty and Rainbow Six Siege, developers are fully utilising the appeal of online social gaming more than ever before, “building fan bases by connecting players within the game world” [3].

Governing & Regulatory Bodies

PEGI set strict boundaries and regulations around the content in video games and who was allowed to view it. They were the first governing body solely for video games which introduced an age rating system that was enforced by the law. Publishers were now “liable for imprisonment or a fine” if they produced content which was “violent and unsuitable[.]” This meant that game developer were now a lot more aware and a lot more conscious of the type of content which they were releasing as well as who they were aiming their games at because of these strict new government policies.[4]

ESRB is another regulatory panel for video games founded on 16^th September 1994 in Canada. It has since moved headquarters to New York and has become “the most effective regulator of video game content” in the modern game development industry. According to US Federal Law, HR 5912 also known as the ‘Truth in Video Game Rating Act’ requires “any person or entity to review a game in its entirety before issuing a final rating.” In keeping with this piece of legislation, the ESRB has the power to “compel corrective actions and impose a wide range of sanctions, including monetary fines” for any publisher which submits a game for review or submits a game under the incorrect rating by the ESRB’s criteria.[5]

Commerce

Downloadable Content (DLC) allows developer to “expand the confines of an existing game” and is supposed to be an incentive for fans of a franchise to access more of the game they love which includes characters, skins, currency’s, maps, items etc. On the other hand, where DLC is meant to be unnecessary to finish a game, a lot of developers misused the concept of DLC in a phenomenon now known as ‘pay-to-play’ which is “the strategy wherein developers will grant players tremendous power in exchange for monetized items” and is “largely frowned upon.” [6] Perhaps the most famous example of this is with the initial release of StarWars: Battlefront by EA in late 2015 which made it almost impossible to unlock player favourite characters such as Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader however they could be unlocked immediately through Microtransactions.

Microtransactions have allowed developers to reach a wider range of players by crating games which are free to play and download, yet developers are still able to make a profit by marketing in-game currency’s and placing certain content behind pay walls. Riot, developers of League of Legends, “benefit tremendously from microtransactions.” Being a free-to-play game, it relies solely on these microtransactions to fund the game which appears to work as the game reached a revenue of 2.1 Billion U.S. dollars in 2017[7]. However, this staggering amount reportedly “come from a small amount of the player base since most gamers choose not to take part in microtransactions.” [8]

Culture

Esports have forced developers to continuously both ramp up the difficulty of their games as well as release more challenges and rewards. Games such as Rainbow 6: Siege and other competitive shooters continuously develop and release new maps, characters, skills and rewards as well as periodically releasing timed events so that their games can be a reliable source of competitive content for professional gamers. This is because “players gain a sense of accomplishment when they see themselves getting better and better. This is especially true with multiplayer games since it is very rewarding for players who continually improve their skills and are able to defeat other human players.”[9] Furthermore, can now take advantage of gaming conventions such as Gamescom to showcase their competition-based games to a large portion of their audience alongside their newest releases.

Streaming sites such as Twitch and recently YouTube allow professional gamers to livestream monetised gameplay and commentary to their fans. Such streaming sites have become major businesses with the success of video game streaming and are now worth millions. For example, Twitch, formerly named Justin.tv was bought by Amazon in the summer of 2014 for $970 million by Amazon [10] and he site and the content on it has since become a major factor in deciding which games become popular and which fall by the wayside. The most famous example of this is the overwhelming success of Fortnite, which has been streamed for a combined 79.1 million hours on Twitch and this massive amount of exposure and free advertisement is what many believe to be a large contributing factor to the game’s success.[11]

References

1. HeadStuff.org, VR Gaming and the Technology’s Impact on the World, Frankie Wallace, Oct 15^th 2018
2. Digital Trends, World of Warcraft Shatters Sales Records, Ian Bell, Dec 1st 2004
3. Xpert Technologies, How the Evolution of the Internet Has Affected Gaming, Xpert Technologies, Oct 26th 2017
4. The Guardian, PEGI video game ratings become law, Mark Sweney, 30th Jul 2021
5. howstuffworks, How the ESRB Works, Ed Grabianowski, 14th Sep 2005
6. Make Use Of, DLC: The Story of Gaming’s Three Most Expensive Letters, Christian Bonilla, 5th Oct 2017
7. statista, League of Legends revenue worldwide 2015-2018, Christina Gough, 9th Aug 2019
8. Investopedia, How Microtransactions Impact the Economics of Gaming, Mike Colagrossi, 17th Oct 2018
9. Game Designing, How eSports Have Changed Gaming, Unknown, 6th Sep 2019
10. Descrier, How livestreaming has changed the gaming industry, Olichel Adamovich, 25th June 2019
11. Business Insider, The 10 most popular games on Twitch, Kevin Webb, 10th Nov 2019

Comments

1. 

   what are the health risks regarding vr gaming? Is it worth the risk? https://www.vesttech.com/4-health-risks-from-using-virtual-reality-headsets/

2. 

   Make sure to discuss how VR and AR have or will impact games using research. This link might help:https://www.headstuff.org/entertainment/gaming/vr-technology-and-the-gaming-world/

3. 

   Good start here’s an article on VR that talks about how it impacts our live https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/how-does-it-affect-us.html

4. 

   Grate start I love the background image. You can improve this by talking about how existing games are becoming compatible…

5. 

   On top of talking about how VR has benefited pre-existing gaming audiences you could talk about how it’s reaching new…