Arcade gaming first became popular in the early 70's through to the 80's. Money was made through big boxes with purpose made games built-in. Money would be inserted through a coin slot and the player would gain a limited number of "plays".
In Japan, arcade gaming caused a coin shortage with the introduction of "Space Invaders", which proved that there was a profit to be made in this industry. Even today, arcade games are still popular within Japan, one example would be "Cardass" in which players can improve their stats within an arcade game via inserting a game related trading card.
80's, 90's and 00's - Box, ship, done!
After the successful Arcade era, the next step in gaming was to make the technology smaller, thus allowing the consumer to take their gaming experience home.
Gaming manufacturers began by creating the "consoles", small boxes which were mass-produced and sold to the every very day consumer in stores.
Instead of inserting a coin to play a single game, consoles allowed gamers to insert purchased games into their console in the form of cartridges, which in later years became CD's, then DVD's, and today even via download.
These days, there are 3 main gaming manufacturers who produce their own consoles, "The Gate keepers" Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, (Xbox, Playstation, Wii) These manufacturers don't actually make money on their consoles, as they rely on game sales to ensure a profit. In Sony's case, they actually lost money when selling their "Playstation 3" (PS3), despite it's initial hefty price tag of up to £500.
Each of "The Gate Keepers" have various companies working for them, who create exclusive games for their consoles. These are what we call "First party titles" the quality of these titles is almost completely assured. These are the games which "The Gate Keepers" use to bait in customers, Without these games, consumers would have no reason to choose one console over another. Popular examples of these titles/franchises would be "Halo" for the Xbox, "Uncharted" for Playstation and "Super Mario" for Nintendo.
00's to the present - Observe and Modify
In the modern day, downloadable titles are becoming even more popular. It has already happened within the film and music industry, where consumers can download their content directly to portable devices, in most cases, a phone, sometimes without charge.
It has begun to happen within the games industry in the form of apps, such as "Angry birds" and "Temple Run" These are only small scale games, but they are easily accessible and have ensured that almost anyone can play a game at any time.
These titles are often extremely cheap or free altogether which makes them ideal for long journeys, waiting for the start of a meeting or just burning off ten minutes of free time. They've become a common trend among gamers and non-gamers alike through their sheer accessibility and in-out fun factor, as you never feel the need to remain glued to the screen of your now 1cm smaller Iphone 5 (Truly the best thing to happen since the Iphone, literally..) in order to enjoy a quick game of "pong".
No comments:
Post a Comment