Video game Visual Styles week 3



Visual Styles Sam Bizley

Photorealistic style

This style is the most demanding and time consuming style to produce. The idea of Photorealism is to depict real life objects with 3d graphics. It brings a very “cinematic” experience to the game and can be uses to give a realistic depiction of events or a lifestyle the player would not normally encounter. To create this style you would need many highly skilled artists to create the textures and models used in the engine. You will also need more powerful hardware to render the finished product due to the higher poly count and level of detail over other styles. A game that uses Photorealism is The Last of Us from Naughty Dog. The game utilises in an in-game engine and an engine developed by company Havok for physics.

Here is a screenshot from the game The Last of Us.

You can clearly see the realistic level of detail and real size proportions. The style is used to create a level of immersion and realism in a post apocalyptic fantasy world. This heightens the tension of the game and allows the player to become absorbed in its world by allowing a connection between real life and the game, in the visual style. With a realistic visual style I find that the player's level of empathy and attachment to the characters is greater than in any other style. Other examples of Photorealistic visual styles are LA Noire, Grand Theft Auto 5.


This screenshot from the game LA Noire shows the photorealistic style of the game. It uses this style to recreate a period of history (the 1920s) and add a fantasy element to it (serial killer murder mystery).

Cel-Shaded style

This visual style uses a hand drawn style to make 3d shapes appear 2d. It is fairly new visual style used a lot in Japanese Video games. It is often used to mimic the visual style of Comic books and Graphic Novels. It uses sharp lines to exaggerate things such as emotions and expressions on characters so it is very clear. The Walking Dead is a game made my Telltale Games in a creation tool called Telltale Tool. They use a cel shaded style to draw comparisons to the Walking Dead comic series. It is quite a simplistic style to use and allows for more story content to be created, while not sacrificing the ability to create recognisable characters and emotions. Some examples of this style are Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, Borderlands, The Wolf Among us.

Here is a screenshot from the game The Walking Dead.

You can see the facial features are clearly drawn in black so that it is very obvious what the character is displaying emotionally. This ties in very well to the games theme of consequential actions and managing character's emotions. It creates a distinctly "cartoon like" theme but still resembles real life people and objects.

This is a screenshot from the game Borderlands from Gearbox Software. It uses the same cel shaded, cartoon style to depict a very different universe. It uses the exaggerated proportions and strong facial features to create a fantastical, futuristic universe.

Abstract

This style is a very unique style and is not based on any real life references. It usually uses vector drawn geometric shapes and is much more cost and time effective style to create. This style doesn't require a great deal of skill to make. Some abstract games use bright and vivid colours to capture the player's attention and create a sense of urgency. The original Space Invaders game could be considered an abstract art style game. It uses very simple shapes to depict unusual alien like images. It uses very bright colours and a black background to create a space theme and it compliments the very fast paced, arcade gameplay.

Another example of an abstract style game is Geometry Wars

As you can see there are a lot of bright polygons on the screen. This creates a feeling of urgent, reflex, moment to moment gameplay. The game is very fast paced and exciting which matches the vibrant style.

Exaggerated style

This style is more or less based around photorealism. It takes real life characters and objects and exaggerates and enhances them. Many Japanese games utilise this style to create almost "god like" protagonists and characters that are way beyond any realistic depiction. Tekken is a fighting game that's characters are all overly muscular with wacky hair cuts and striking clothes and Final Fantasy is a game that has similar overly muscular characters with gravity defying hair cuts and giant weapons. These games are examples of the very distinct Japanese style of many games. A good example of a more western game that uses exaggerated style is Rocksteady's Batman games. Here is a screenshot from the first game in the series, Arkham Asylum.

The characters in this screenshot are depictions of real people but massively exaggerated. Batman is literally meant to appear twice the size of another human being and even against this overly muscular enemy he is still the more muscular. All of his features including his facial features are enhanced to make him look more like the stereotypical protagonist.

Here is a screenshot of the game Tekken.

The male characters muscularity is exaggerated and they have profoundly masculine facial features whereas the women have very symmetrical feminine features and are somewhat overly sexualized.

Fluid Artwork style

The game Okami broke new ground by having a style that aimed to mimic real life paintings and Japanese calligraphy. It uses a distinctive cel shaded type style that uses a dynamic called the "Celestial Brush" where the player draws objects into the world which uses a calligraphy brush animation. The games visuals are very much inspired by Japanese folklore and history. The main character, that the player controls, is Amaterasu the Japanese sun god in wolf's form. The game aims to keep fluidity when playing the game and drawing in objects very much how real Japanese calligraphy is done. This contributes to a very sleek and flowing experience in both visual style and gameplay.



Notice the "brush stroke" textures making it appear like a painting.

Braid is a small indie game that was developed by Jonathan Blow and artists Mike Corriero and David Hellman. The games initial artwork took a year to complete and looks just like illustrations from a book. It is similar to Okami in that it attempts to recreate the feeling of a fluid painting, but does so in a slightly different way. Since the game is 2D rather than 3D it uses real artwork for animations and backgrounds.



As you can see from the screenshot it has a profoundly watercolour painting feel to the aesthetics.
This style could be considered a completely separate visual style than Okami but it is essentially the same idea with different visual planes. However it shows how vastly different the same style is when comparing 2D to 3D.

Rotoscope Animation

Rotoscoping is an animation technique where animators draw over live footage frame by frame. This technique is used in live action films and animated films. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is a point and click puzzla game where the cutscenes are animated using Rotoscope animation. It is realistic art style that gives the illusion of looking like a pencil line drawing that has come to life and is a very interesting way of displaying characters.

You can see from this screenshot the distinctive pencil drawn style of rotoscoping. It gives a personality to the game and requires the artist to find different, more subtle ways of representing characters movements and emotions

Pixel Art



Pixel art is an artistic style characterised by editing images on a pixel level. It is a type of digital art that is created through using Raster image software. The modern use of this style aims to emulate the art from older games created in the 1980's and 1990's that was prevalent because of the limitations at that time. A fairly popular game that uses modern day pixel art is Fez by Polytron. Here you can see the deliberate use of very small square blocks(pixels) to give the game a retro feel. Fez uses pixel art to give the feeling of being inside a video game, while still retaining beautiful aesthetics.



Another example of modern day pixel art is the game Gods Will Be Watching by Deconstructeam.

Prince of Persia + original assassins creed + ico + shadow of the collossus

computer game graphics
-pixel art, 2d graphics, sprites
-concept art, weapons, characters, backgrounds
-texture art, materials such as stone, wood, gravel,
-background graphics, eg walls, forest, clouds
-in game interface, ie heads up display
-Print media art, eg game packaging, box cover, game manual, label, poster, advertisements

pixel

types of digital graphics
-Raster: BMP, GIF, TIFF, JPG
-Vector: PSD, WMF, FLA, AI

file extensions
compression
image capture
optimizing
storage of image assets

use subject terminology
add pictures, videos, examples
Perspective visual styles ie 2d, 3d, fps, platformer, top down.   
http://jahmelcoleman.wordpress.com/games-development/200-2/







Pre-Production Techniques in the Creative Media Industry Unit 1

Unit 1 Task 1

Pre-Production techniques in the creative media industry Sam Bizley

Pre-production is a vital part of many different creative industries, not just the gaming industry. Proper planning and pre-production is absolutely imperative to the success of any given project. The main areas of preproduction are Finance, Time, Personnel, Facilities, Materials, Contributors, Locations, Codes of Practise. There are various types of media production that require pre-production techniques. Examples of these are Film, Television, Advertising, Video Games, Internet, Radio, etc.

The type of production will influence your pre-production techniques. For instance, certain projects such as Film, the budget may be bigger than any other type of media. Pre production techniques must then change to fit whatever type of production is being undertaken.

Finance

Finance is a very important thing to consider. Many projects have failed before completion by going over their budget. In pre-production a company would try to project how much money that will be spent, which is their expenditure, and how much money they will receive both during the project and after, sources of income.

·         Sources of income include:

Sponsorship – money given to you by a company for a return of the profit or advertising benefits. Many large publishers in recent times have committed all of the project’s funding but maintain “god like” creative control over the project.

Sales – money received from commercial sale of the product

Donations – with the growing use of companies such as Kickstarter, crowd funding is becoming more popular. So the game in question may be partly or entirely financed by people’s donations. Faster Than Light is an example of a game that was conceived entirely on Kickstarter by user donations. It is one of the most popular Kickstarter projects and its target for fund raising was £10,000 which they ended up smashing with £200,000 donated towards it.

This is the game FTL Faster Than Light and a link to its Kickstarter page where it was crowdfunded

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64409699/ftl-faster-than-light

Self funded – with video games becoming both cheaper to create and to release because of the rise of open market places such as Steam, many small companies or even individuals decide to fund everything out of their own pocket and rely on the commercial success of the product to sustain their livelihood. An example of a game that was self funded was Super Meat Boy by Team Meat. Team Meat is just two guys and apart from some promotion from Microsoft for their indie games showcase, they financed it all from their own pocket.

·         Requirements/Expenditure:

Equipment – how much does it cost to rent or buy the equipment to complete your project? In video games this might mean the cost of things like; the computers to write the code, artist tools for concept art, or motion capture equipment, etc.

Personnel – what kind of employees will you need, and how much will it cost to pay them? In creative media there are often a wide range of professionals and so you must think about how much it costs to employ them.

Advertising – most companies will need some sort of advertising to make their audience aware to what you are trying to sell. Sometimes this may come from having a publisher who will organise various events to showcase your media and the people behind it.

Housing and Transport – your company will need to be based somewhere to complete its work. What is the cost of renting or buying the space required? Also what travel requirements for your staff will there be? To work or to advertising events.

Time

Deadline – Every project in media has an estimated release date. It is essential to work towards a deadline so as not to run out of money or have staff become unavailable due to other commitments. This is especially so when working under a publisher as often in the games industry you will void whatever contract you are under if you fail to meet a certain deadline.

Personnel and Equipment Hire – Your media project is planned for a certain amount of time. So the personnel you hire may not be available to work outside that time period. Also the equipment required may be unavailable. It is therefore very important to adhere to the time contract.

Clearances – when working under a publisher you may be required to meet certain levels of progress by a certain time as you are developing your project.

Personnel

What kind of team of people will you require for your project? Things to think about are; the size and diversity of your team. Where you will find this team could be from a variety of areas. They might be a large team of industry professionals of worldwide renown, each with their own specific area. They might also be friends that happen to have the skills required to create the media and there might only be a handful of you, juggling different jobs on a shoe string budget.

·        -First find out what experience and skills your current team has.

·        -Find out what requirements the task and using the equipment to create your project has.

·        -Identify any areas that you need to strengthen.

      GTA 4 reportedly had 1000 people work on the game. This would include people such as programmers, artists, designers, PR people, producers, writers etc. It was developed by a studio called Rockstar which is one of the largest video game studios today and there are several iterations of Rockstar all around the world. There are lots of different ways to go about recruiting staff. Artists and the like may present you with a portfolio of their previous work which you will then assess and decide to bring them in for an interview. There are forums and communities online that many reputable freelance professionals use to reach out to a wide variety of employers. Indie games are often made by people with programming experience who work with a freelance artist to create their game.

Facilities



What equipment will you need to produce the media? And where will you keep and use this equipment? In film development you will likely need the use of a lot of equipment. Cameras, motion capture gear, green screens may all be things you require. The Last of Us video game used entirely motion capture for its cut scenes. This system was set up in a huge warehouse like building and this would have been one of the things they had to consider when producing the game.

Many studios especially small low budget ones will use the outsourcing of freelancers to produce their media. Team Meat is two guys and they produced Super Meat Boy from miles away as one of them lived in California and the other in North Carolina. They had to consider how difficult it would be to work together and launch their game effectively so far apart.

Motion capture from The Last Of Us, featuring Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson

Materials

All types of creative media require raw materials to produce the project. There are various ways of gathering these materials and producing original content might only be a small part of the content used.

When producing original content, it is usually prudent to organise preliminary photo shoots or recordings to gain more insight on what and how much original content you will use. Creating original content is the most expensive way of gathering materials so extra care is needed.

For example if you are trying to create sound effects of traffic in the middle of a city, you might travel into London at rush hour. You might then find that the sound of the traffic recorded is not quite what you would like to use and you feel New York traffic may be better suited. However you are based in the UK and it is very expensive to fly all the way to the US. Instead you may decide to use copyright free recordings that have been uploaded to the internet. You are sacrificing the specificity of the recordings for your budgets sake. You might also decide to use copyrighted materials that would require you to gain permission from the creator of the content. This would usually involve paying the original creator depending on how much of their content you plan to use.

Contributors

What are the people outside of development who are going to propel your media forward? Whether as a special consultant or with advertising. Many big budget video games today are turning to people who are already in the public eye. For example the music artist Eminem wrote a song called “Survival” that debuted in a trailer for the game Call of Duty: Ghosts. This was in fact the third time that an Eminem song had been uses to promote a Call of Duty game. Clearly the series has a large fan base of teenage to adult males and the same can be said of Eminem so it is makes sense to combine the two.

Beyond Two Souls is a very cinematic, big budget game for the Playstation 3. The creator of the game, David Cage, attempted to create a game that is more like an interactive movie. To do this he incorporated motion capture of A-list actors from the film industry. The game stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. The game is very accessible to people of all skill ranges and so the transition from watching film to interactive fiction has been made easy.

The game received generally positive reviews even though the game itself wasn't particularly captivating the performance of the actors was exemplary.

This is a short trailer featuring Eminem and Pink's song Won't Back Down promoting Call of Duty Black Ops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrQOcE_osjE

Motion Capture of Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page in Beyond Two Souls

Locations

In creative media, inspiration from real world environments are often used and finding appropriate locations in the pre-production stage can save time and money during the production stage. Bringing employees and equipment to a location, especially if your location is a large distance away, can be very expensive. To counter this you need to know exactly what you want to accomplish and in how much time. You also need to find out the availability of the location, ie travel requirements, whether you have permission and any risk or health and safety issues you might need to think about.

A location reconnaissance or “recce” is a visit to a potential location to find out any information needed and suitability of the site. You will try to find out things such as, travel requirements, access, weather issues, cost and health and safety requirements. All these things will inform the decisions you make during the production phase and help you plan out each aspect of your work on location.

So for example if you want to take photographs of a jungle, where will you have to go? First you would go about finding a site, either from places people have shot before or somewhere completely unique. You would then go out and find information on this chosen site by travelling there. How are you going to get to the site? In rainforest areas the climate will probably mean a lot of rain, how will this affect your shooting?
The game Skyrim developed by Bethesda Softworks takes heavy inspiration from Nordic and Scandinavian culture.

(top) image of an Inn in Skyrim.
(bottom) recreation of a Nordic household

Codes of Practise

One very important reason to do pre-production in the media industry is to make sure everything that you plan to do adheres to the law and the relevant codes of practise. In other topics I have mentioned the need to gain permission to use copyrighted materials and to make sure health and safety regulations are met.

Public liability is another consideration that those working in the media industry have to make. Public liability insurance protects you from legal action if someone is injured on your site. This is particularly relevant when working in areas where there is a risk to the public because of your production activities. Companies will have a range of other insurance that will protect against things such as equipment damage, personnel injury and completion insurance.

You also need to be aware of the rules and regulations of the body that governs your area of work. These rules and regulations can vary considerably between different media types, so you may need to do some in depth research on exactly what is allowed and recommended in your area. Some examples of these bodies are; Pan European Game Information, Entertainment Software Rating Board. These two governing bodies are responsible for age ratings on games and content warnings. When creating media you must be careful that the content is deemed appropriate for mass consumption and that your target audience is not alienated by a different age rating. The ASA or Advertising Standards Authority is a group that helps to regulate media and advertising and make sure it adheres to the advertising standards codes. Ofcom or the Office of Communications is a government approved regulatory and competitive body. Its job is to represent the interests of its citizens by promoting competition in the industry and protecting people from harmful content. It mainly governs over television, radio and the postal service.

Trade Unions can also be important to your project. Trade unions were set up by the people in the industry to protect themselves and others from the government and larger corporations. If you were to become involved in some kind of legal struggle any trade union you are a member of would try to help you win the case. It would help to negotiate with any company you may be working under to try and reach fair pay and employment. Also it may provide support such as sickness benefits if for some reason you are unable to work.

Some age ratings and warnings from PEGI

Some content ratings from ESRB

Wayne's Game

I have been assigned the task of creating a simple 2D maze game that must feature at least 5 levels of increasing difficulty. It must have collectables that are required to reach the next level and enemies that will kill you should they catch you. The player must avoid these enemies while collecting the items and reaching the end of the stage at a specific point. Ideally I want to include things such as a “score calculator” and background music for each stage. This may be subject to how much time and assets I have left.

For Wayne's video game project I will have to consider certain pre-production requirements. Financially I will have to set myself an overall budget for the game production and think about exactly what aspects I will spend this money on. The game will be made in Game Maker which is available on the college computers, but if I want to continue work at home, I may have to buy a copy for myself. Game Maker professional is $99.99 and the Game Maker Master edition is $799.99. The computer I currently own cost around £600 and this is another cost I have to consider. If I was in the position of a paid games developer I would be earning something around $48,000 with under 3 years experience, $62,000 with 3-6 years experience and $78,000 with 6+ years of experience. This information is from (http://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/video-game-designer-salary/). So unless I am given a separate budget this would be how much I have to spend. Also what resources will I need to complete the project? It is very time consuming to create all resources such as sprites and sounds from scratch so I may decide to purchase copyright free material for my game, which is a cost I have to consider. Also while I am working on this project I am unavailable to work so I am in fact losing potential income.

 It should take around 3-4 weeks continuous work to complete this project as I am fairly unfamiliar with the software being used. We do not yet know the deadline for this project but I will have to plan my time into several segments of work and complete the work in the allotted time. Also if I need any other software or equipment to complete the work I will have to consider when, for how long, and how much it will cost, when hiring this equipment.

Game Maker has several free sprites and sounds that can be downloaded and used copyright free, however we have been asked to use mainly original content so I will have to devote a good portion of my time creating sounds and sprites with tools such as Photoshop. I may also have to create unique sounds and music for my game which I will create in software such as Audacity. Again this software is available on the college computers, but if I decide to continue work at home I will have to consider buying things such as Photoshop. This software is not very cheap and will take a considerable amount of money away from other potential aspects. If I was to release my game commercially I would have to obtain the correct license for Photoshop and Audacity to use content created in this software.

Since I don't have a large budget I will not be looking for contributors to improve or advertise my product and except for inspiration as contributors are usually very expensive to hire. Also it is a very small production that will not be released commercially so contributors would be unnecessary. If it was a bigger production I would perhaps think of hiring celebrities to advertise my game on the television to help increase sales. Any locations that I decide to use for my project will have to be local and be free to use since I don’t have a substantial budget. The characters and backgrounds in Wayne’s game are going to be fairly abstract so real life inspiration will be difficult to incorporate. Since the game will be created with fairly simple 2D sprites the internet will provide any images and inspiration that I would need.

There are not many Codes of Practise I must consider since I am not releasing my game commercially. However I still have to consider the codes of the college, for instance, I must not plagiarize another student’s work or a source from the internet and I must not use Wikipedia for any references. If I was to release my game commercially I would have to make sure I have permission to use the assets in my game and I would have to pay the creators of Game Maker an amount of money to be allowed to release the game after using their software to create the game. If I replicate any locations within my game world I may face legal action if I do not have permission to shoot there or recreate that area. I would also have to adhere to the guidelines of PEGI (http://www.pegi.info/en/index/) who would give my game an age rating and content warnings. If you look back at my research for Task 1a PEGI have a 12+ and a 7+ age rating and these would be the ratings I would aim to get. I may have to adjust my game’s content to get a particular rating as it is ideal to get an age rating similar to your target audience age as you don’t want it to be illegal for you target audience to play your game. The ASA or Advertising Standards Authority will monitor my game and make sure it adheres to the advertising standards code and this is something I will have to be aware of.

Ethics of Computer Games Week 1

Ethics of Computer Games       Samuel Bizley

There are clearly many potential impacts of video games on society and individuals. There are both positive and negative effects that have been suggested, some with evidence behind them and some are more speculative. It has been claimed that video games can influence us positively with things such as increased hand eye co-ordination and better critical thinking skills. However video games have also been linked with problems with addiction, social isolation and separation from reality. In this post I will be looking at both positive and negative effects.

Games in Society

Excessive game playing - With really hardcore gamers there are concerns that gaming actually distracts the user from other activities in their life. When someone is extremely immersed in a gaming experience they can often forget to eat properly, exercise and interact with others. This begs the question should gaming be treated the same as any other addiction, such as addiction to drugs, because it can have similar life damaging effects. People have reported losing their jobs, their marriages and their entire lives over being addicted to video games.

This clip is a documentary showing video game addiction in South Korea


Games can cost you a lot. A lot of money can be spent buying hardware to play the games and on the games themselves, but they can also distract from things you wish to accomplish in life. It is easy to be absorbed in a video game that simulates real life achievements, but it does not give the same satisfaction as in real life. Gaming, like anything else in life, needs to be moderated.

Social Isolation - Excessive game playing may link in to this second point. As spending all your time playing video games may make it difficult to socially interact with others. Social Isolation is the near or complete lack of social contact with other individuals and certainly some video games are very isolated. However not all video games are and some video games can be played with friends or other people through the internet, thus increasing the amount of social interaction a person has.





 "...a study by researchers at the North Carolina State University, New York and the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology points out that gamers usually do not replace their offline social lives with online game playing, but rather it expands them. In fact, among gamers, being a loner is not the norm."   



source: http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/34-the-good-and-bad-effects-of-video-games

World of Warcraft has many reported addiction problems associated with it.

This next clip is a short documentary on one person's struggle with WOW addiction and they stunted life that it leaves you with.

In games such as World of Warcraft, it attempts to hook the player by giving fast and direct rewards for progress, in the form of levels. It can be very difficult to pull yourself away from a game if the next progress milestone is right around the corner. There is a concept in psychology and video games called "Flow". This is the complete immersion of someone in performing an activity where they are almost unaware of any other stimuli. Games like World of Warcraft try to bring this idea to the players of the game and essentially addict the player to the fun they are having.

Separation from Reality - Some people theorise that video games, especially the more realistic ones, can confuse the player's perception of reality. Citing such games as the infamous "Manhunt" as having directly inspired killings. There are incidents of people reporting after extremely long gaming sessions that the individual wasn't able to distinguish between the game, and the real world. Some countries such as Australia have a much stricter policy on what video games they allow into their country and go so far as to ban certain games that they deem inappropriate.

Here is a link to a famous incident that lead to the banning of the game "Manhunt" in several countries including the UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3934277.stm

Benefits to Cognitive Skills - There are many cases of researchers reporting that playing video games regularly can improve hand eye co-ordination, reflex response time and thinking and problem solving skills. Some games are even created for the exact purpose of improving certain cognitive skills, Brain Training is an example.

In this game the player engages in several tasks that are designed to improve things like, memory, problem solving, mathematics, etc.

Here is a link to an article that talks about the several benefits to thinking and the brain that video games can provide.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/video-games-good-for-us_n_4164723.html

Playing certain video games has been linked with slowing down the onset of such mental disorders as Alzheimer's. Because of the mental stimulation linked with video games, players can gain similar benefits as regularly reading and writing and so it is a astute tactic for giving someone with Alzheimer's a fighting chance. Puzzle based games are the most linked with these cognitive benefits and there are now games used for educational benefits. Games like Brain Training can be used to teach basic skills such as maths, pattern recognition, memory but there are also games out there developed specifically for education. The Magic school bus and Dora the Explorer games are prime examples of this. They are arguably much more engaging, because of the interactivity, than watching educational films or listening to a teacher. And they give children who have issues such as ADHD a more pragmatic activity to engage in.

Future Impact - With the rise of virtual reality and the Oculus Rift being bought by Facebook it is natural to wonder how we might all interact with one another in 10 years time. Facebook is primarily a company that deals with helping social interaction through their website and it seems that their plans for Oculus Rift will fit into this mantra. So if in 10 years we are all communicated and playing games together using a virtual reality headset what impacts will this have on society? Will people become further removed from physical interaction with other humans? Or will it increase contact with those people that we simply cannot meet in person?

 

The Oculus Rift player view (left) and the headset itself (right)

Another thing to think about is the ease of access of video games these days. Mobile gaming is very cheap and very accessible to nearly everyone in society. But with something like a VR headset suddenly gaming becomes much more expensive and those people who have issues such as being prone to motion sickness may not be able to participate.

Gaming consoles are becoming more and more expensive in today's society and there is a certain amount of pressure from both peers and the companies themselves to upgrade to "next gen". If video games and their consoles continue the way that they are, the market may in fact alienate their consumers and find that only the more wealthy consumers will be able to participate. Companies such as Sony and Microsoft have considered ways of completely disbanding the "second hand" market with one person only DRM. But one has to wonder that if video games continue to become more expensive the "second hand" market will surely head in the other direction and grow dramatically.

Impact on Mainstream Development - Video games are now considered a part of society, a part of culture even. As with film, video games can affect the society that we live in and make us re-evaluate our moral code and what we allow younger people to consume. A great example of this is the court cases that surrounded Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2's "Airport Massacre" scene. The scene is where you as the player are an undercover agent and so as to not blow your cover you must participate in the killing of a large group of civilian unarmed people at an airport in what is a terrorist attack. The scene encouraged huge amounts of controversy and the developers of the game had to add a warning and an option to opt in or out of the content. Although you do not have to kill anyone yourself on this mission nor do you have to play the mission at all. It is the medium of games, where you are able to take control of a character and experience immersion more than any other media, that people find uncomfortable. It encourages a responsibility for what you do in a game and there are clearly many people who take issue with engaging in the airport scene.


                        An image of the "Airport Massacre" scene

Video game marketplaces have also changed the way media is viewed. Steam, the open marketplace where games can be downloaded straight from the internet have changed the way we purchase and play video games. Stores such as Blockbluster have been declining in popularity because of the sheer ease of access to media using sites such as Steam and Netflix. And the second hand market for games has become less used in recent times with only console games, as opposed to pc games, regularly being exchanged.

Piracy is also more common these days, and popular sites such as Pirate Bay make it fairly safe and easy to partake. It has influenced the production of many different games as we see cases such as EA's rebooted SimCity, where EA tried to enforce a system of "only online play". This is where the player must been connected to the EA servers to even play the game at all. In theory it is quite a clever way of combating widespread PC piracy because they can easily check if the player had a legitimate version of the game. However in practise it was very difficult to run effectively, especially around the initial release of the game when player traffic was at its peak, and backfired on EA causing many players to speak out against the system.

Psychological Effects

As time goes by, games are forever raising the quality of the experience. Game immersion is always improving with better, more realistic graphics and sounds. This heightened level of realism has a profound effect on players. Some argue that it makes it much harder to distinguish between the virtual and the real world. This may or may not be true but there are much more obvious symptoms of playing video games. If you have ever played games like Outlast, Amnesia: the dark descent, Penumbra or Five Nights at Freddie's I would recommend you do. These games use sound and visual themes to create a level of tension that is truly terrifying.

If you don't wish to try these games here is a short clip that demonstrates the terror that great game and sound design can have on people.



Sound does not only induce fear though, and games such as Skyrim are great examples of games that use orchestral music to bring out other strong emotions such as a sense of freedom and adventure. Some video game studios now have the budget to employ talented musicians and orchestras to create their music.

This is the main theme music to Skyrim and is a very powerful piece of music

In the early arcade era games did not have an in depth narrative and you would usually play the game continuously until you reached a game over. At which point you would then be left with the score you got in that game and were able to write initials to signify it was you that got this score. Most arcade cabinets only displayed say the top 10 highest scores. This inevitably lead to competition of who among the players could get the best score? This person would then have the bragging rights over everyone else. This culture created a kind of indirect peer pressure to play the games more to get better at them. This meant that people would be pressured into spending more and more money on these arcade cabinets.

Gaming has evolved quite a bit since then. However in the last decade we have seen the growing popularity of achievements and gamer score in video games. This concept is that you have an online avatar that collects points and trophies depending on how well and what you do in a game. This perpetuates the competition of casual gaming and Xbox live profiles show your gamer score clearly to anyone and everyone. Some people are so devoted to gaining these achievements that they cannot play a game unless they will get every single achievement available in said game. Achievement Hunter is a part of the online company Rooster Teeth that's entire purpose is to show viewers how to complete difficult or interesting Xbox achievements.

This is very popular internet show, so its shows the mass interest in achievements.

This links in to another concept, which is truly Competitive gaming. Certain games like Starcraft, League of Legends, Street Fighter, Counter Strike, etc, have a large competitive fanbase and have been elevated to professional levels. Esports is a term for competitions held where professional video gamers and teams compete to win a cash prize. In South Korea the national sport is video gaming and stars of Esports are treated like the stars of professional football in Britain. You only need to see the screaming fan girls in the crowd of said events to realise how serious some people take pro-gaming. This culture has a very strong affect on people as it is changing our ideas of what an "athlete" is. The perception of the average gamer is very different to the average sports athlete, but comparisons have to be drawn between Esports and professional mainstream sport. 

here is an in depth article on pro-gaming, the first two paragraphs summarise the point very well.
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/04/09/the-reality-behind-the-pro-gaming-scene

The Escapists (Alpha Review)

The Escapists is a small indie game that is currently in Alpha state. It is available on Steam for £7.00 which reflects the size and scope of the game. This game is clearly not one of those triple A commercial monsters and is very much a niche title. However this is somewhat a positive trait because there are very little games out there that cater to the "Prison Escape" genre and that's what this game does.

In The Escapists you are a single prisoner in a maximum security prison and you're objective is to escape by any means possible. The game uses a bird's eye view and distinctive and quite attractive "Pokémon style" sprites.



 

 

Most of the early part of the game consists of the player learning the daily prison routine and improving some essential stats in a very "grindy" fashion, which can become very tiring. Once the player has raised these stats somewhat they should then start collecting tools for their escape plan. This is where the fun begins. This could mean they try and do favours for other inmates, such as finding a specific item, to gain money as a reward and then buy tools from those same inmates. It could also mean picking fights with inmates and even guards and stealing and stashing their valuables.

 

 

 

Many useful objects in the game are obtained from crafting certain items together which is a very satisfying and fun thing to do. There is something incredibly satisfying about making a duplicate jail cell key by pouring molten plastic into a putty mould and then using it to break out of your cell at night.




Of course your objective is to break out of the one prison map available so far in the game. But I found myself spending hours just improving my stats, getting important items and exploring the prison. Which has lead to me being shot by the guards several times but that only means a quick trip to the infirmary to patch up those fatal wounds. I so far have managed to use a screwdriver to unscrew and explore the vents above my cell and my next step is to try and make an outer door key duplicate, from one of the guards, to make my break for freedom!

In summary The Escapists scratches a very specific itch with the prison break genre. And although it isn't a very large project nor is it very far along in its development. It still provides a very enjoyable and addictive experience. Worth checking out if the concept excites you and you don't mind waiting until 2015 for a finished product.