The Computer Game's Industry

The computer games industry came in to business around the 1970's with the release of the arcade game 'computer space'. Initially targeting focused markets, gradually becoming more popular and appealing to wider audiences over the years,up to present day. This was then followed by Atari's release of 'pong' allowing people to buy consoles they could play at home rather than on arcade cabinets. Around the mid 70's Atari's consoles VCS quadrupled console sales.

Computer space was the first computer game created. Its creators were Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney who would later found Atari,inc. The game was played by controlling a rocket ship with various arrows, the game became extremely popular and was even featured in the 1975 Jaws.

The industry itself is huge, and growing. The industry employs thousands of people worldwide to cover various jobs, some include:
producers, animators, engineers, designers, programmers, artists and marketing. According to the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) took in approx 11.7 billion US dollars in 2008 and $25.1 billion in 2010. It is now also estimated that the industry revenue is $81.5 billion which is more than double the film industry revenue for 2013. 

Key milestones for the industry came around the 1990's with the advancement in technology, this included CD based storage, Microsoft, 3D graphics, the internet, mobile gaming, and multi play competitive gaming. 

In 2000's social media was gaining popularity and through sites like Facebook games such as Farmville were introduced. In addition, IOS and Android devices made mobile gaming a more convenient option and games could also be downloaded for free on the App Store for example.

From 2010 computer gaming is not as popular, console gaming is developing however not as fast as mobile gaming with games like Candy Crush and Flappy Bird. Consoles have also developed from Nintendo and Atari with popular consoles now being PS3 and Xbox 360. These computer games are now much more developed in that voice recognition and motion detection is now common. 





Narrative, Representation and Audience:

Different games follow different narratives and because of this they target different audiences. 


For example Fifa 12 is the 19th game in the Fifa series. Developed by EA Canada released in 2011 for play on Xbox, Playstation and Xperia play amongst others. The narrative of the game is to select a player and play. Team selection, success and salary all comes into play and can help individuals progress in the game. 

Fifa's target audience is teenage to young adult males. The game is aimed at sports fans, in particular football supporters, with the majority of consumers being male. The game fails to have the option to play as a women and all front covers of the game, through the whole series, fail to feature a women on the front cover. Race is focused on in Fifa as players can have the option to choose their race and so racial discrimination in the game is not a problem.

Personally I think Fifa need to look expand their target audience as the game is not dominated by male players anymore. On doing a survey around college for the class presentations, we found that more males than female playthe game, however some females still did. Everyone agreed that race was not a problem as you could personalise players. The majority of people we asked said that they would play as a female if they had the option and agreed that Fifa fail to recognise that female players should be an option.