OWNERSHIP VIDEO GAMES BY AMIN AHMAD CONGLOMERATE COMPANIESThe
OWNERSHIP – VIDEO GAMES BY AMIN AHMAD
CONGLOMERATE COMPANIESThe video gaming industry is one of the most competitive businesses in the world. Major video game companies like Sony and Microsoft are backed by decades of profit making in other electronics and computers. Other companies have strength of strong sales for historically popular games. The newer players – mostly companies outside the US – are players in the mobile gaming divisions. The entire industry is on course be worth $135 billion in 2018 and made over £ 35 billion in revenue in 2018 according to Forbes Online. The top five 7 companies made most of that profit, these being: 1. Sony Computer Entertainment 2. Tencent Games 3. Microsoft (Xbox Games) 4. Nintendo Company 5. Activision Blizzard 6. Electronic Arts (EA) 7. Namco Bandai
INDEPENDENT COMPANIES - Independent video game production companies are corporately seen as less lucrative due to the overall production teams of projects being smaller causing for the production process to be a lot more time consuming. In the gaming industry currently online multiplayer gamers are at the peak of popularity also meaning that they are the most lucrative but unfortunately independent video games companies usually don’t choose to produce online multiplayer games due to the costly duty of maintaining servers and usually choose to go the route of producing games which are story, puzzle, platformer, oriented. The indie games genre has been struggling to gain mainstream attention, rarely bringing games to longterm relevance. The reason for this is due to consumers unwilling nature to spend money on unknown titles with no compelling selling points, in addition AAA game titles usually take priority over indie games for most consumers in this industry.
SYNERGY/CROSS-MEDIA COMPANIES Some major Video Games Companies are in partnership or owned by parent companies which oversee the creation and distribution of titles to insure the synergy ( usually from cross advertising), for example Sony incorporating their smartphone, their music, and their games console (PS 3) into Skyfall (James Bond). Another example of synergy is through Sony Electronics cross promoting their smartphones with Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Spiderman game showing the main character using a Sony smartphone, this is a showcase of synergy will result in additional sales of the smartphone due to being promoted by Spiderman. Video games have been made adapted into movies to further capitalise on the game titles e. g. Assassins Creed, Warcraft, The Angary birds movie etc.
DIFFERENT JOBS WITHIN THE INDUSTRY • Animator - Collaborating with teams of artists, designers and programmers, responsible for animating the characters and other elements of the in-game environment in a way that matches the overall visual style of the product. • Audio engineer - Music, sound effects and character voices all play a key role in immersing players in the game world • Game programmer - The role of the programmer is to take the ideas of the designers and write the code required to build a playable game. • Artist - to create concept art, storyboards, and designs for packaging and marketing materials. • Game designer - a senior role that involves coming up with original ideas for games and overseeing the creative process. • Game producer - responsible for project management from a business and financial perspective. • Writer - to write scripts, in-game text and instruction manuals • Translator - to localise scripts, in-game text and documentation for sale in international markets
EXAMPLES OF FINANCIAL SUCCESSES AND FAILURES Financial Successes – Financial Failures – • Minecraft • E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial • Tetris • No Man’s Sky • GTA V • Superman Game • Wii Sports • Duke Nukem Forever • PUBG • Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness • Super Mario Bros. • Pokémon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow • Def Jam Rapstar • Driver 3 (Driv 3 r)
EXAMPLES OF CRITICAL SUCCESSES AND FAILURES Financial Successes – Criticall Failures – • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time • Aliens Colonial Marines • Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 • Bomberman Act Zero • Grand Theft Auto V • Custer's Revenge • Soul. Calibur • Daikatana • Goldeneye 007 • Red Dead Redemption 2 • Duke Nukem Forever • Tekken 3 • Haze • Uncharted 2: Among Thieves • Hatred
EXAMPLES OF VERTICAL INTEGRATION (STRETCH AND CHALLENGE) In the video game industry Horizontal Integration is not very common due to publishers desiring to maximize profit by have their games available on most consoles to have a wider reach of customers. Due to this fact most Video Game Companies do not fully control the distribution of their product. Examples : • Sony interactive Entertainment create games (Play. Station exclusive) which are then distributed physically and digitally, horizontal integration can be seen when games produced by Sony interactive Entertainment are distributed on the Play. Station Digital Store which is owned by Sony Entertainment Network, the reason that this can be considered as horizontal integration is because Sony (Play. Station) owns the production and distribution process (the entire supply chain) with no middle men or subsidiaries distributing for them. • Another example of vertical integration in the video games industry is XBOX exclusive games undertaking the same process of being sold on a digital store where Microsoft Corporation owns the overall supply chain of the games.
EXAMPLES OF HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION (STRETCH AND CHALLENGE) • Sony Corporation acqired game developer Insomniac Games to help with assistance in making Play. Station exclusive video games of better quality, by the two companies sharing resources they are both mutually benefital with Sony recieving exclusive video games of better quality and Insomniac recieving the resources needed to continue making satisfatory games. • Tencent (��) - A multinational conglomerate company also invests heavily and fully acquires many video game developers. For example – Tencent had fully acquired Riot Games (Developers of League of Legends) in December 2015 - Tencent also owns 40% of Epic Games (Developers of Fortnite)
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