Video Games Revision

Component One Section B - Industry / Audience

Video Games - 12/15 marks in this section - One text.

Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation

This section can also be advertising, newspaper industries, video games, radio, and film.

How Does Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation Attract / Target Its Audiences? How Does It Construct An Audience?

Knee jerk reaction: 

Attracts a mass audience - the game is part of a franchise, but also attracts a more niche audience due to its historical context, and the representation of a black female protagonist. 

Mass Audience

Niche Audience

Story about slavery

Female protag

Released on the PSVita, portability and ease of access - game / console is also cheaper this way

Pre-release content - Marketing features different items you can get if you pre-order, more of an incentive to buy the game

Marketing - Trailer for the game, shown at expos like E3

Sponsored content in places like YouTube, people doing letsplays

Ubisoft is a large company, has the potential to attract a loyal fanbase

Challenges typical gender roles, the assassin protagonist, in every other games is a male, they are a strong female in this game

Assassin's Creed is a franchised game, 10+ games - this also means that there is a retained loyal fanbase

Trailer plays out like a cinematic movie - many proairetic codes, like a film trailer, this attracts many different people - appealing to a mass audience

Ubisoft makes the Tom Clancy, Far Cry series - both big titles

Subversive stereotypes - The main character is a woman, she is portrayed as powerful and strong, and leads a rebellion within the game

Links to the PS4 through synergy

Microtransactions

Henry Jenkins fandom - online communities making trailers and mashups, online forums etc

Convergence of gaming - linked media products

18 certificate - more attractive because it features things that you cannot do in real life (Albert Bandura hypodermic needle)

18 cert can also attract younger audiences who want to be more mature

Marketing and promotion (billboards etc)

Argument:

Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation targets both a mass and a niche audience through implementing subversive and challenging techniques and styles which allow them to access a varied - and larger audience. This is essential to make profit and retain power and customers within such a competitive industry.

Context:
Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation is part of the very successful games franchise, was developed bt Ubisoft and released October 30th, 2012, alongside Assassin's Creed 3.

The game was originally exclusive to the PS Vita but was later re-released in 2014 with a HD remaster to PS3, Xbox 360, and PC storefronts. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation offers familiar pleasures to existing fans (Narrative situation of the Assassins vs the Templars, open world sandbox gameplay) alongside new elements to target a a wider audience (Such as the use of a female protagonist)

Social and Cultural Contexts:

Considering video games in relation to gender issues may be a useful way to explore them in terms of social and cultural significance. The representation of female characters, under-representation of women in video game development and an assumed minority of female video games players are areas that could be explore. This challenges hegemony as it shows how women are usually misrepresented. The game has a female protagonist and it is useful to consider whether she subverts or reinforces expectations of female characters in games and how audiences may respond to this.

PSVita:

There are many aspects of the game that are significant in relation to audience targeting and construction. The game is for a hand held device. This may imply that it is aimed at a more casual or mobile gamer (a discussion here about "on the go" gamers playing mobile games vs traditional console and PC gamers may be useful).

The game is linked to a more traditional console version and which was simultaneously released with this game. This might be considered as an attempt to draw gamers from different platforms to purchase additional hardware and adopt new gaming habits. The two versions of the game are also linked in terms of DLC and special features. This relates to changing patterns of consumption. Gamers might be being encouraged to have a more complete or satisfying experience by using a range of interlinked products that offer exclusive DLC. This is only made possible through convergent technology and gamer buy-in to the values of the exclusive content.

Henry Jenkins:

Fan culture (specifically online fan communities) are a huge way that audiences are constructed. Video games have evolved alongside the internet, and as a cause of this, offer many social experiences, such as online multiplayer and social media accounts, as well as this, communities outside of the core game experience. Fans may be passionate exponents of a game or the harshest critics and can often impact the development of games directly. Forums, fan made content and textual poaching can help to construct and audience. The Assassin's Creed franchise has a strong well developed fanbase that could be researched and discussed in relation to Jenkin's ideas.

Textual analysis through the Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation trailer. 

Referential Codes - Mass audience through the preexisting loyal fanbase, features parts of previous games which have a lot of popularity, leap of faith and parkour.

Subversive and challenging narrative - the challenging of hegemony

Fast and slow motion in the trailer - typical things seen in suspenseful movie trailers, appeals to a mass audience

Fast cuts, high tempo and fast-paced, much like an action film

Dramatic and non-digetic music 

Trailer is shot like they are actors in a movie

Canted and low angles, establishing shots, close ups

Tense and orchestral movie

'Refined Gameplay' 'A True HD Experience' < more for hardcore fans that are consistent gamers, a niche audience. Lexis reinforces the appeal of the game

Response:

Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation targets both a mass and a niche audience through implementing subversive and challenging techniques and styles which allow them to access a varied - and larger audience. This is essential to make profit and retain power and customers within such a competitive industry. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation (AC3L) is a game developed and released by Ubisoft on October 30th, 2012, and later remastered and released in 2014 for the current platforms of the time.

A mass audience is both constructed and targeted through appealing to as much of a varied and mixed audience as possible. This is achieved through using different marketing tactics, such as the use of a trailer, in order to create a familiar experience for the audience. In the trailer for AC3L, there are many stylised shots that reflect the cinematography of a modern film trailer; There are panning shots, many shots at low and canted angles in order to represent an uprising and rebellion as well as a strong sense of tension, the non-diegetic music seen within the trailer is orchestral, and is very representative of many different film trailers of the time that the game was released, the music is intertextual to many different fantasy movies, such as Lord Of The Rings, which use similar styles of music within their trailers. Furthermore, the use of fast and slow motion, as well as the jarring cuts, help to cement this game as an action / adventure game, as the audience already recognises the signs and gestures of the action / adventure genre as a whole, and can apply it to this game and its trailer. 

Another way that the AC3L appeals to a mass audience is through its subversive and challenging representation of women in video games. Traditionally, hegemonic values are reinforced by the roles of women in video games being a 'Damsel in Distress' character, or a hyper-sexualised, power-fantasy fighter. In this game however, the protagonist, Aveline, has a deftly woven background, and most importantly, is a black female character, which, considering the time of release (2012), would be quite a subversive representation. This appeals to a mass audience because it quite clearly represents an underrepresented minority audience in video games - as it is usually assumed that girls don't play games, and therefore there is not much representation in that specific genre. The mass audience is constructed through the wide and varied representation, people like to see change in games, and a well known publisher such as Ubisoft (famous for its releases and development of series such as Rayman, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy), has the potential marketing power to fully release this game to a wide range of people. Another way that a mass audience is targeted is through the release of this game on the PSVita. The idea behind this being that a portable console that could be widely available due to its lower cost and ability to be portable - allowing gamers to play while on the go. With the video game being released on the PSVita, Ubisoft had hoped to appeal to more people as the case with handheld console is that they are more for casual gamers, a wide target audience that usually sticks to mobile games - at the time essentially untapped for video game developers. 

Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation also targets and appeals to a niche audience, this is through the use of the remastered edition - the lexis present in the trailer: 'A True HD Experience', ' Refined Gameplay' etc all appeals to hardcore gamers and loyal fans of the series. There is also the potential appeal to the loyal fanbase because of how the game is part of the Assassin's Creed franchise, a large and successful franchise spanning many games - and producing many loyal and hardcore customers, who are entirely dedicated to the series and are more likely to buy each subsequent release. Furthermore, there is also the appeal of the 'Fandom', calling into question the Henry Jenkins Fandom theory, in which people who are dedicated to the game often hijack the meaning, also known as 'textual poaching'. There are many different online forums in which people discuss the game and theories behind it, making a niche and loyal fanbase for the game and fanbase as a whole.