Contextualising the Media Industry

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CONTEXTUALISING THE MEDIA INDUSTRY

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

CONTROL:

- 1: Brief history behind the Valve Corporation and Mojang Studio

- 2: Structure and Ownership of the Valve Corporation

- 3: Legal and Ethical constraints for the Valve Corporation.

- 4: How does Valve make their money?

- 5: Structure and Ownership of the Mojang Studio

- 6: Mojang's Famed creations

- 7: Mojang Studios: Legal and Ethical

- 8: How does Mojang make their money?

MARKETTING & DISTRIBUTION METHODS:

- 1: Valve's Distribution & Marketting methods

- 2: Mojang's Distribution & Marketting methods.

[1]: THE HISTORY BEHIND THE INDIE COMPANY MOJANG AND THE TRIPLE A CORPORATION VALVE

BRIEF HISTORY BEHIND MOJANG:

In the grand old year of 2009, an independent video game designer Markus Persson released a work in progress that would go on to break every industry rule for achieving success. The blocky, part creative building tool, Minecraft evolved from a cult classic into an all time survival hit, raking daily sales in by the thousands and possibly even the millions!!!. By the end of 2010, Markus was able to quit his day job and live the dream of founding his own development studio, Mojang.

BRIEF HISTORY BEHIND VALVE:

Valve founder, Gabe Newell got so built up over how Microsoft was running the Windows gaming ecosystem. So his company, the maker of the Steam digital game distribution service, the Valve Corporation, decided to break records by using the software company as a base for the Steam platform, a platform that has over sixty five million users buying, trading and playing games on the social platform, Gabe Newell had a past with Bill Gates and his company Microsoft they both worked together on developing Windows 95. Gabe Newell left to found his company that is known as Valve, a company that has won over one hundred awards for various categories and shattering sales.

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[2]: VALVE CORPORATION: STRUCTURE AND OWNERSHIP: Secondary Research

CONTROL:

SECONDARY RESEARCH:

The Valve corporation was founded in September of 1996 and the Corporation is wholly owned by Gabe Newell, founder and CEO of the Valve corporation.

Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996 and based in Bellevue, Washington, Formerly based in Seattle. The company’s best selling title, Half-Life, has won over fifty Game of the Year Awards and was proclaimed to be the "Best PC Game Ever" in November of 1999, October 2001, and April 2005 copies of PC Gamer, the world's best-selling PC games magazine to this day. Valve’s portfolio of entertainment titles also includes Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Counter-Strike:Global Offensive, Day of Defeat, and Team Fortress, Team Fortress 2. This portfolio of titles accounts for over 15 million retail units sold worldwide, and Valve games account for over 88% of the PC online market. Especially with their multi-platform service, Steam.

Half-Life, released in November 1998, has won more than 50 Game of the Year Honor's worldwide and been called “a smash hit” by the Wall Street Journal. Half-Life was named “Best PC Game Ever” in the November 1999 issue of PC Gamer, the world’s best-selling PC games magazine. In addition, Half-Life has become one of the best-selling PC action games of all time.

Team Fortress Classic is a multiplayer add-on for Half-Life that challenges players to engage in team based strategic battles. Since its release in April of 1999, Team Fortress Classic has become one of the most popular games on the Internet, with thousands of players and dozens of Web sites dedicated to the game and its community.

Counter-Strike is a multiplayer action game built on the Half-Life engine.

Counter-Strike mixes elements of strategic gaming into its unique blend of team-based action play. Today, more gamers are playing Counter-Strike than the sum total of all other action games combined—making it the most popular online action game of all time.

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VALVE STAFF STRUCTURE: Below is a run down of the Senior staff and their structure as well as a brief background on each of them, this is to show what the structure of Valve internally is.

Gabe Newell – Managing Director Gabe is the founder and managing director of Valve, L.L.C. Before starting Valve, Gabe held a number of positions in the Systems, Applications, and Advanced Technology divisions at Microsoft, where he worked for 13 years. His responsibilities included running program management for the first two releases of Windows, starting the company’s multimedia division, and leading the company’s efforts on the Information Highway PC.

Scott Lynch – C.O.O. Prior to joining Valve, Scott was a Senior Vice President at Sierra On-Line where he created and managed the Sierra Studios business unit publishing a number of products, including Half-Life. During his 5-year tenure at Sierra, Scott held a number of different positions in business development, acquisitions, finance, investor relations, and product development. Before joining Sierra, Scott worked in the public accounting industry at Coopers and Lybrand where he worked in both the audit and tax departments managing a range of clients from small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Scott is a graduate of the University of Washington Business School, with a concentration in accounting, and a certified public accountant in the state of Washington.

Yahn Bernier – Senior Software Engineer Yahn received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Harvard University. He then went on to study law at the University of Florida School of Law. After law school, Yahn moved to Atlanta and spent five years practicing patent law there. Yahn’s law practice was focused in the areas of computer software, chemistry, biochemistry, and mechanical engineering. In his spare time, he authored the popular “Quake” level editor BSP, and because of this work, he was contacted and recruited by Valve, L.L.C. in late 1997. Currently, Yahn is developing the network aspects of Valve’s future titles, including Team Fortress 2.

Kelly Bailey – Senior Designer Formerly a product unit manager at Microsoft, Kelly has a programming background that includes consumer multimedia, database engines, and networking. In addition to serving as senior designer, Kelly did all of the music and sound effects for Half-Life and wrote sound code to create character speech and DSP reverb effects for the Half-Life engine.

Ken Birdwell – Senior Software Engineer Ken has contributed to a wide range of projects in the last 15 years. These include in-circuit emulators (CodeTap), 3D surface reconstruction (Surfgen), 3D prosthetics design tools (Shapemaker), and satellite networking (Microsoft’s Broadcast PC). He also wrote one of the first graphical shells for multiplayer online games for Compuserve’s Sniper. Oddly enough, Ken has a BFA from Evergreen State University, where he studied painting, photography, and animation. As one of Valve’s senior software engineers, Ken designed and implemented the skeletal animation system and many other engine components for Half-Life.

Pat Goodwin – Vice President of Finance Pat graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Economics from the University of Washington and holds an M.B.A. with emphasis in Finance and Accounting from U.C.L.A. After serving tenure as a Senior Accountant and Consultant for Price, Waterhouse, Coopers in Los Angeles, Pat moved to Seattle where he served as C.F.O. for success start-ups Briazz, Inc. and Door-to-Door Storage before joining Valve.

Doug Lombardi – Director of Marketing Doug arrived at Valve after his tenure at Sierra On-Line, where he held the position of senior marketing manager in charge of the launching of several products, including Half-Life, in addition to overseeing press relations and online communications for the Sierra Studios business unit. Prior to his move to Seattle, Doug launched boot magazine for Imagine Publishing and Gamecenter.com for CNET in San Francisco. He migrated to entertainment software from the music industry in 1994.

Jay Stelly – Senior Software Engineer Jay joined Valve from Tetragon where he was lead engineer and 3D engine developer of Virgin’s Nanotek Warrior. Before that, he developed titles for Sony Playstation & 3DO. Jay informally began his career in digital entertainment at age 9, when he wrote his first computer game. His first published work came at age 15, when a game he wrote was published on a magazine cover CD. Jay currently serves as the senior software engineer at Valve, and is a lead on the production of Valve’s next generation engine technology.

Mike Dunkle – Product Manager Mike previously held the position of Director of Sales and Marketing - Games Unit, at Applied Microsystems Corporation. Mike established contracts with Microsoft and Red Jade to design and produce development systems for these companies’ gaming platforms. Prior to this, Mike held positions as Director of Strategic Alliances and Director of Product Marketing in the High Speed Network Unit at AMC. Before he arrived at AMC, Mike held management positions in sales and marketing with Applied Precision Incorporated, where he established worldwide distribution channels and drove all aspects of product development.

SECONDARY Information sourced from the 2014 presskit published by the Valve Corporation:

http://www.valvesoftware.com/ValvePresskit_Q!25c.pdf

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VALVE CORPORATION: Legal and Ethical constraints

I wanted to begin this section by showing you the governing body that went about approving Valve's game 'Half-Life 2' fit for purpose. That is the ESRB or better known as the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

The ESRB is a board of people that judges media for the content within and appropriately rates the media and sets the warnings on it here is an example of some of the ratings that can be given to a video game or film.
As you can see on the box above the rating that was given by the ESRB was a 17+ MATURE rating and and BLOOD/INTENSE VIOLENCE warning which is understandable having played the game myself there is quite alot of killing and gore. Here are just a few more ratings that can be given and perhaps there are a few you will recognise.

Valve doesn't really have many Legal issues or constraints when it comes to video games except when the Games they're selling on steam violate the consumer agreements in Australia, Back in August of 2014 an article was posted by the Guardian about how the ACCC, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission was going to file a lawsuit against the Valve corporation for not providing refunds to users of the Steam service. This lead to a near year long court battle in which a compromise was made and a refund process was added to the Steam support service later the same year.

The games that Valve produces are very impactful game play wise but production is a very relaxed procedure at the Valve HQ, I found an employee handbook on Google and it gives all the information on how they makes games and their production methods by highlighting what they aren't good at and how this impacts them.

Valve consider themselves bad at making predictions and disseminating information but the biggest on of all is hiring people with talent and this is the biggest factor for production because for every person they miss out on hiring to work with them it begs the question of whether the production of their games could have just gone that one step further to have an overall better quality game. Not to say that Valve makes bog standard video games but as an example of them missing out on talent we can use Markus Persson as an example, back in 2009 Valve flew Markus Persson to their HQ and offered him a job which he promptly declined and later founded Mojang AB Studio in which Minecraft was developed and later bought out by Microsoft for 2.5 Billion.

HOW DOES VALVE GENERATE THEIR REVENUE?

In order to find out how Valve makes their money i decided to conduct some a primary research method by finding out what the communities opinion was of how much valve makes as it is not entirely clear except on a SteamDev days conference that took place in summer of last year.
Now the steam community is a forum based site within the steam service it is a place for people to discuss and help each other as well as provide useful information to others searching for something on a specific game. So i took this as an opportunity to construct a short questionnaire to find out how the community believes they make their money and perhaps intrigue the attention of an employee to reply.

After posting the questionnaire it wasn't long before a reply came in which led me to a website with some secondary research as well as the Primary research that was provided by a user named Darren, He linked me to a Steam spy website that tracks the facts and figures of Valve's sales because Valve doesn't publicly release any facts or figures so this website as best it can monitors sale activity from Steam sales and Market sales within the Valve services.

Firstly from what Darren said, Any game that Valve develops and publishes themselves all the profit is sent straight into the company bank account. Let me show you the comparison of the figures from a Valve title and a Non Valve title.

.Now as you can see from the information below the game title and the graph itself, We have the main parts we want highlighted in the red boxes, This was a game developed and published independently by the Valve Corporation and over 9.6 million people own a legitimate copy of Half-Life 2 as evident by the graph. now if we were to total up the cost of the game by the number of people that own the game we'll have a rough figure of how much Valve made off of just one of their titles alone.

$9.99 times by 9,629,396 gets us to..... a whopping profit of over 96 Million dollars.

For a game that released back in November of 2004 and all the time between up to now, It doesn't surprise me that Half Life 2 has managed to gross over 96 Million dollars and counting up still.

Now let us compare this to the Mojang's creation Minecraft pricing to owners ratio.

As you can see in the screenshot over 22 million people own the PC/MAC versions of Mojang's Minecraft and currently in the UK it costs £17.95 so if we were to times that figure by the number of people that own the game we should have a total gross income figure for the PC/Mac version sales of the game. HOWEVER there is one slight problem. Unlike the Valve title Half-Life 2, Minecraft has slowly been increasing in price as things have been added so. in order to work out the total amount of money we'd need to go back in time to when i bought the game during the Alpha versions of the game. During the 2011 development of the alpha of Minecraft the very first public release of the game was priced at £3.99, yes very cheap and this was worth the money as expected there was very little included in the game and as time went on along with development this price went up and so did the amount of people that owned it. After vigorously searching far and wide for the older figures it was no use the older figures for the Minecraft sales dissapeared from the website after the interference of Microsoft when they bought out Mojang. Now i think we'll go ahead and work out the current gross total from the screenshot we have.

£17.95 times by 22,848,849 owners would lead us to believe that in total Mojang have made .... over £410 Million, which is around about correct as a fourth of that was made in 2012 as Markus Persson managed to take in a total over 101 Million Swedish Krona. This is not to mention the money that is furthur being generated via Microsoft for the XBOX versions of the game.

When conducting this primary research and this little comparison between two games from the two companies I was surprised to see that even though Half Life 2 was named the best game ever over fifty times and won so many awards didn't even come CLOSE to reaching the total gross margin that Minecraft did, As you remember Half Life 2 between 2004 to now in 2016 managed to in total make just over 96 Million dollars whereas over in Sweden they managed to triple that figure into 410 million dollars between 2011 and now in 2016. However since then Markus Persson sold his business to Microsoft for just over 2 Billion dollars but that is a figure for some other time.

So far we have only managed to scrape the surface of Valve's money making methods so let us move onto the second biggest money maker for the Valve Corporation which is the community market and the microtransactions within.

What we're looking at here is the community market homepage for Steam currently displayed is the most frequently bought items, for the community this is keys and cases as well as weapon skins for the game "Counter-Strike:Global-Offensive" and down the side you can see many tabs for items in other games too, most from games made by Valve but others from games community created. You can see that right off the bat we have virtual items, items that cost steam credit which is bought with real money. The Steam community market is Valve's nest egg and rainy day funds which helps them to develop their projects furthur because the majority of the funds from the market go to Valve. Knowing that however, Valve only take a small percentage depending on the sellers pricing. Let me show you an example of me selling an item on the market.

As you can see from the highlighted areas in red, If i were to sell my Death racers helmet from Team Fortress 2 the current price it is going for is 72p and at the bottom there, you can see the prices that it will list for and the money i get for it, So the money between the received income and the amount the buyer pays is a window called the Valve tax window, take note of the '(Includes fees)' box that i have highlighted, this is the unspecified but obvious tax that Valve takes from the item sale for the use of their market service. Now with this information in mind you can get a gradual idea of how much Valve makes from the community market. Easily 400-500 Million a month especially if there is around a 1000+ quantity of one type of popular item as well.

MOJANG STUDIO: Structure and Ownership post Microsoft: Secondary Research

Mojang AB is a games studio based in Stockholm, Sweden.

It was founded in 2009 by Markus Persson. He’s also the creator the best-selling game to date: Minecraft. Since then, Mojang has released a second game, Scrolls, and have dabbled in publishing with Oxeye Game Studio’s Cobalt, which is due to release some time soon. They're developing more games too.

In 2014, Mojang was bought by Microsoft and as always Microsoft have had a XBOX version of Minecraft commissioned as well as XBOX microtransactions for skins and texture packs.

FOUNDED: 2009

OWNER: Microsoft

BASED IN: Maria Sklograt, Stockholm, Sweden

MOJANG STUDIO: Staff Structure after Microsoft bought them.

Unlike the Valve Corporation and its layed back approach t the office, Mojang studio has a very straight forward Games company structure, Boss > Developers and so on.....

Chief Executive Officer
Jonas Mårtensson

Chief Operating Officer
Vu Bui

Chief Financial Officer
Karin Severinson

Game Developers
Jens "Jeb" Bergensten
Aron Nieminen
Jon Kågstrom
Måns Olson
Erik "Grum" Broes
Nathan "Dinnerbone" Adams
Tommaso Checchi
Michael "Searge" Stoyke
Shoghi Cervantes
Daniel Wustenhoff
Tomas Alaeus
Thomas "ProfMobius" Gumbretiere

Artists
Markus "Junkboy" Toivonen
Mattis Grahm
Henrik Pettersson
Jonatan Pöljö

Web/System Development
Daniel Frisk
Leonard Axelsson
Krisoffer Jelbring
Martin Odhelius
Amir Moulavi
Tomas Sommar
Pär Axelsson
David Marby

MOJANG STUDIO'S FAMED CREATIONS.

Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks. At first, people built structures to protect against nocturnal monsters, but as the game grew players worked together to create wonderful, imaginative things.

It can also be about adventuring with friends or watching the sun rise over a blocky ocean. It’s pretty. Brave players battle terrible things in The Nether, which is more scary than pretty. You can also visit a land of mushrooms if it sounds more like your cup of tea.

Mojang's second masterpiece game, Scrolls is a MMO trading card game where players pit against each other with their minions by their side in order to defeat their opponent

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MOJANG STUDIO: Legal and Ethical

Mojang, Like the Valve Corporation have been assessed by the ESRB to have their product tested through the regulations of the Entertainment Software Rating Board and given a rating based on the content within and you can see that Minecraft was given the 10+ Everyone rating meaning there is no discrimination, fear or any of that. It is a very child friendly game for all ages.

Everything may be fine for Mojang studios on the Ethical side, However Mojang have had their fair share of lawsuits.

ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, filed a lawsuit against Mojang on 27 September 2011, claiming that Mojang's planned trademark of the title, Scrolls, infringed upon Bethesda's trademark of The Elder Scrolls series. On 18 October Markus Persson announced that Mojang had won the lawsuit, but that Bethesda still had the option to file an appeal and in March of 2012, Mojang and Bethesda reached a settlement, where Mojang would not trademark Scrolls, but Bethesda would not contest Mojang's naming of Scrolls, so long as it would not be a direct competitor against The Elder Scrolls. Both Markus Persson and Todd Howard sat down together and proposed they settle this over a game of Quake 3.

How does Mojang make their Money?

To recap from earlier:

To add to this section, I managed to find out the pre-beta pricing and sales figures:

[PRE-BETA - Current 1.9] - I calculated the UK GBP value of this.

10,868,000 : 2 = 5434000
(current minecraft premium accounts : first was £9.99 and now £17.95)
5434000 x £13,322 = £72405070
(slice of minecraft premium accounts x from beta 1.8 to nowdays price)
5435000 x £26.95 = £146473250
(slice of minecraft premium accounts x nowdays price)

£72405070 + £146473250 = £218878320

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Mojang Studio generally relies on game sales and doesn't bother with in game microtransactions however this is only the case for Minecraft as Scrolls is a game that is riddled with Microtransactions for players to purchase card packs in order to expand their collection. Very similar to the card game Hearthstone.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
SECTION 1: REFERENCES
1: http://steamspy.com/app/220
2: http://www.valvesoftware.com/ValvePresskit_Q!25c.pdf
3: https://minecraft.net/
4: http://store.steampowered.com
5: http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/01/minecrafts-notch-on-earning-101m-in-2012-its-weird-as-f/
6: http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/17/dota-2-and-team-fortress-2-item-creators-get-10-2-million-payout-from-valve-in-2013/
7: https://www.esrb.org/Index_Notloggedin.aspx?returnurl=/publishers/
8: http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
9: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/list-ethical-issues-business-55223.html
10: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/discussion/157080-about-how-much-money-does-mojang-make-from

Marketting & Distribution Methods: Valve and Mojang

Valve is very ahead of the game when it comes to distributing their products to the audience. They use a service they designed called Steam, it is essentially a gaming platform for PC gamers where they can buy games, play with friends and play those games they've bought as well as contribute to the community in a variety of different ways.

Over time Valve has become a popular name amongst the industry as their most popular talking point is Steam and you'll find that anyone with a PC that plays video games uses Steam for all their gaming needs as you will see below the ways in which they market their video games and the video games of others.

Welcome to the Steam homepage where even the smallest of developers can get their games out into the world without the need of a third party publisher. Steam is primarily an advertising platform but is also combined with the ability to plays video games from whichyou have bought from the Steam store. The screenshot gives you and idea of the types of things to expect on the homepage they have a feature box where the hottest new games appear in a rotation, at the side of that there are midweek madness specials where a random game has money knocked off anywhere from 10 -60% and at the bottom you can see new releases on the Steam platform as well as a recommended for you tab which will recommend games similar to those you browse in the store. This is Valve's main source of advertising however they are aware that not everyone owns a PC and uses their services and sometimes they have to commission moving advertisements for their video games, take this one on a bus for example showcasing Portal 2 a classic Valve title.

Advertisements like these can have a big impact and influence on someone, personally when i saw the advertisement for Fallout 4 on Steam homepage I wasn't as thrilled or excited as i was when seeing it in town the next day because i believe the production value of the advertisement is what generates excitement amongst fans of a game series. The better an advertisement looks the more likely people are to buy the game when it eventually releases. If a game is well marketted the more likely people are going to recommend it t others. So overall the production value of an advertisement really does influence an audience in this way. You'll usually find that more people will buy a video game if they see it when they're out and about rather than on the television unless they were aware of it prior to the advertisements as alot of video games journalists leak information to the public about video games. A great example of this would be back in the early 2000 - 2004 a German hacker managed to obtain files that told of Valve's new video game "Half Life 2" which lead to the development team entirely scrapping what they had created and starting over pushing the game back by two years until 2004 and this shows us that people will go off on the smallest of leaks about a game for confirmation even if there is no actual proof it is related to that game. Currently there are alot of advertisements and click-bait as it is known that perceive the existence of "Half-Life 3" a long anticipated game, a game that has been in the making for 9 years now as Valve really do take pride in ironing out every discrepancy. I can only imagine that the final game in the series will be majorly covered across the world in the industry as Half Life is a series of games that has really made itself known to the world ever since 1996.

November 19th, 1998 - Half-life is released.

The beginning of what would shape the corporation is released, Half Life hits video game stores across the world and eager people line up to see what the fuss is about, Half Life was a game all about a theoretical physicist, Gordon Freeman who conducts and experiment that plunges the world into chaos as he is tasked with escaping the Black Mesa research facility in the desert in Mexico.

March 25th, 1999 - Counter Strike is released as a mod for Half-life.

The second notable game is released as a modification for the game 'Half-Life' this modification was released on modDB a website for modification developers to post creations and additions for games they've made themselves for others to enjoy. This game concept was Counter-Terrorists vs Terrorists and boded well with Valve.

April 7th, 1999 - Team Fortress Classic is released, a remake of the original Quake mod based on the GoldSrc engine.

On this date another gaming series was developed Team Fortress Classic a remade Quake mod that was made on the Gold Source engine an engine that would later become the Source Engine.

January 15th 2000 - Mike Harrington dissolves his partnership with Valve, giving Gabe Newell full control.

It was at this point that Valve was instated as the CEO of the Valve Corporation after Mike Harrington the original CEO decided to cut all ties with the business which left Gabe Newell to fully revamp the Corporation itself into what we know today.

April 20th, 2000 - Valve hires the developers of Counter Strike.

At this point since the creators of the Counter-Strike mod intrigued Gabe so much he decided to hire those modders to work at Valve in order to create a fully fledged game Counter Strike that underwent many different itterations until it became what we know today as "Counter-Strike : Global Offensive".

2003 - Valve moves to Bellvue, WA after becoming a corporation.

Gabe Newell relocates the company to a more suitable location, Seattle in Washington where they reside today as a triple A games studio. This marked the beginning of Valve's more modern game series as they went on to develop a better game engine.

September 12th, 2003 - Valve releases its Steam client.

Steam has been created, a paltform for all of Valve's games to be sold world wide and also a platform for other companies to sell their games to the public

November 16th, 2004 - Half-life 2 is finally released, after numerous delays and complications, to glowing reviews.

After Valve suffering serious delays due to German hackers leaking development files and imagery of the sequel to Half-Life, Half Life 2 was finally released in 2004.

June 1st 2006 - HL2: Episode 1 is released. The first of a planned trilogy that were supposed to be released in a short period.

Half Life two gets its first sequel in the form of episodic gaming. Episodic gaming was an experiment for Valve as they didn't know what to expect after releasing the game.

October 10th, 2007 - The Orange Box is released. It includes the following games: Team Fortress 2 (which spent 5 years in development), Portal and HL2: Episode 2.

The Orange box bundle is distibuted across the world to every Game store and Steam client. The second release of the Half Life series was released with the Orange box, Episode 2 of the Half Life 2 series.

November 18th, 2008 - Valve releases Left 4 Dead.

Another game franchise is released by Valve, Left 4 Dead a zombie shoot them up which was a hit with the community.

November 17th, 2009 - Valve releases Left 4 Dead 2,

The sequel to the previous year's big hit. Months before, there was huge controversy about releasing L4D2 so soon after the first, even prompting a boycott on the game (Fans had become used to long, long development times from Valve so releasing a sequel so soon after the original raised questions of quality). However, the game still sold well.

April 19th, 2011 - Valve releases Portal 2, a fully developed sequel to the experimental hit, Portal, appearing first in The Orange Box.

Portal 2, The sequel to Portal was released on the Steam platform and XBOX and PS3 platforms

July 9th, 2013 Valve releases Dota 2, after a extended beta period and sequel to Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos mod called Defense of the Ancients.

Dota 2 is released, an MMORPG which has been now classed as an E-SPORT and is played world wide.

So from this little history lesson behind the timeline of the corporation you can see that overtime Gabe Neweel has managed to bring out all these video games and shape Valve to the relaxed and very profitable company we know today. So this is how Valve has developed its corporate brand.

According to various game industry reporters, Valve is the champion that PC Gaming deserves. Gameindustry.biz is a website recommended to all students for news on the industry and changing trends in the industry itself. Valve is one of the most highly rated companies on that website as well as other websites such as IGN.com as Valve has released many great video games that leave the company upon a pedestal of fame and fortune especially with their thousands of daily dollars rolling to the company from just Counter-Strike: Global Offensive alone. Valve's current standing in the sector is a strong one as they're currently focusing their efforts to developing VR - Virtual reality software in conjuction with HTC and have managed to create the HTC Vive, a VR headset designed in partnership with Valve specifically for video gaming in Virtual reality.

Valve has some sneaky marketting techniques, clever ones as well and as everyone is aware ADBlock is a big user in the anti-ad campaigns so one way that Valve managed to market stuff like the HTC Vive and their video games now is by advertising on not only their Steam client but also sponsoring people on the streaming platform Twitch.tv by sending these famous streamers advertisements to place down the side o their stream to get the word out, sometimes they even send them prototype test products so the streamers can show the viewers what all the fuss is about.

The way in which Valve managed to track their success is by monitoring the traffic of people who're looking at their games on their Steam platform as they will be able to have a general idea of how many people have visited their game sale pages, bought their games and more! Another way in which Valve gauges their success is by using internet rankings but more related to the industry they have standings in. Valve has been noted down as the second biggest games company in terms of revenue and video game awards. This internet ranking has put them below Nintendo but above Rockstar games.

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Mojang has never conducted real world advertisement anywhere outside of the internet. Mojang used to advertise their pride and joy, Minecraft on their website and via Twitch.tv where it gained rapid popularity around Early 2012 when it was picked up by the Yogscast, a small business which is now a thriving Youtube business that plays games in the name of various charities.

Mojang AB Studios having been bought by Microsoft for 2.5 Billion dollars has gained a less than great reputation since Microsoft have started to charge people money for player models and texture packs on the XBOX Verions of the game, However the PC Version remains strong and is still thriving as we can see by the most watched games on twitch.tv, Minecraft is within the top 10.

Minecraft 2011:

Minecraft was developed in 2011 by Markus Persson and was widely promoted by the Yogscast via the Youtube platform.

Scrolls 2014:

Scrolls is the second game developed by Mojang just before Markus' departure as CEO, The game shares plenty of similarities with the popular Blizzard game 'Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft'.

Minecraft: Story Mode 2015:

Minecraft Story Mode is a game that came out after the buyout from Microsoft it was a game created in conjunction between Mojang and Tell-tale studios who are famous for their episodic game story telling.

Cobalt 2016:

Cobalt is a 2016 game yet to be released, it is a platforming shoot them up which pits people in an arena where they are prompted to a free for all deathmatch, collecting powerups and so on.

You can see from this little collection of games that Mojang in comparison to Valve haven't had as much time to get going, However in Mojang's defense they we're established recently in 2011 whereas Valve have been around since 1996.

Mojang is capable of gauging their success ratings via similar methods that Valve use, it isn't a hidden fact that there are plenty of websites out there that gauge a video games popularity based on straw polls and ratings from market research websites. But Mojang publically voices their figures when it comes to how many people own their games, take a look at how successful minecraft is you can see a good 20+ Million people own a legitimate copy of Minecraft from the screenshot below. So Mojang tends to gauge their games development success based off of popularity and sales of their products. They generally don't advertise on telelvision however since Microsoft bought out the company Microsoft has been marketting the XBOX edition of Minecraft on telelvision and on posters and such outside of GAME stores across the UK and other retailers of that nature.

You can see where I have highlighted the sections that are relevant to this section that Mojang has over 22.9 Million owners of their pride and joy Minecraft but if you look above that you will also notice a little bit of market advertising that let's people know where they can get other versions and platforms of the game, that wasn't there prior to the Microsoft buyout, so because Microsoft owns Mojang AB Studio they're obliged to place that there on the website for the PC/MAC versions of Minecraft to point out that there are additional ways to play Minecraft.

CONTROL, MARKETTING & DISTRIBUTION CONCLUSION

To conclude this section I have decided to discuss with a well informed user of the Valve Steam service about what they think of the ways in which Valve markets their products to their audience. I began with asking the opinion of a good friend we all know and love.

Joe H:

"What do I think about the methods Valve undertakes to distribute their products to users?

Well, Valve's method of distribution of their products has really come a long way from what it was initally, their service was at one point universally made fun of by users not used to the then new way of game distribution. As we all know hindsight is 20/20 and their service Steam is almost* universally praised (*discounting their customer service reputation, their nack for trying to inivate where none is needed, eg paid mods for games they don't own, and their lenience for moderating their service). Despite Steam arguably being the most 'well known' distribution method for PC games, their lack of moderation for the service is akin to a parent not getting involved until someone does something to their child. This has happened twice where they were made aware of a hack in their code and seemingly refused to take action on patching it up until someone exploited it to play Rick Astley's "Never going to give you up" whenever you visited a page, and then when a user got his game through Steam Greenlight without ever having a member of Steam's staff actually look at the game called 'Watching paint dry'. I admire steam's ease-of-use philosophy, but everything else about their service irks me."

So from Joe's viewpoint he explains how at first the steam distribution system for gaming was made fun of since people were only aware of playing games via Discs and the idea of being able to play games digitally from the cloud was unheard of. However a downside to the distribution of product models on Steam is that pretty much anything that has a vague story and alot of gameplay seems to make it onto the front page as a "new release". Steam doesn't seem to have a quality control check since as Joe stated and as a witness to this i can confirm that there was a game on steam called "Watch paint dry" that was charging people to buy it. There is no end to the backwards distibution models Valve sets out.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Mojang AB Studios who are currently owned by mass tech company Microsoft and there is a rather odd pattern since Microsoft seem to have adopted the "Virtual library" style from Valve however they don't specilise within PC Gaming, Microsoft specialises in Console gaming with all the installments of the XBOX. Minecraft was originally a PC Game and still is however more focus lays on the XBOX remakes of the game as a good majority of the playerbase for console is teenagers and children under 18.

To offer my personal opinion Valve don't have a quality control when it comes to dsitribution methods and need to really sort it out as some of the games distributed to their audience is just a load of rubbish. However with Microsoft perhaps they could tone down the pay wall on Minecraft as it is getting a bit iffy and is starting to turn people away from Minecraft. I remember when it used to be a polished game with neat mechanics.

MARKETTING & DISTRIBUTION METHODS REFERENCES:

This is all the refences and sources of secondary information i sourced in order to construct the Marketting and Distribution methods section of this study.

1: http://www.giantbomb.com/valve-corporation/3010-1374/
2: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-10-11-valve-is-the-champion-pc-gaming-deserves
3: http://www.businessvalve.com/seo/how-do-you-measure-the-success-of-your-seo-campaigns/
4: http://www.thetoptens.com/top-video-game-companies/
5: https://www.twitch.tv/
6: https://minecraft.net/
7: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-microsoft-is-paying-25-billion-for-minecraft-2014-9?IR=T
8: https://mojang.com/

SECTION 2: Reception Theory, Uses and Gratifications and Hypordermic Needdle theory

In this section i will be explaning how my two chosen companies use these three theories in order to hook their audiences. I have found a couple of good videos on these topics by GabbitMedia, He does a great job of explaining these theories however it wouldn't be fair if i let him do the work for me so I'm going to explain these three theories in my own words however the video is down below for reference.

To recap Valve is a multi-million dollar business who get their money from designing and creating video games for avid gamers all over the world and they distribute these games via their gaming platform Steam. If you want to read more about that, consult the first section.

Now to understand how these companies use these theories to engage their products with their audience we need to understand what Reception Theory is.

Reception Theory is the way individuals receive and interpret a text. This theory emphasises the readers reception of a text or other media for example: TV or Film and how individual circumstances, like gender, age and ethnicity all affect their interpretation.

There are in total three types of people that fit into Reception theory these are Dominant, Negotiated and Oppositional, I'm going to draw up a image to give you an example of how these three categories work.

This diagram is my interpretation of the three cateogories in Reception theory i believe that DOMINANT audiences tend to take what they see as truth without questioning it which makes them a PASSIVE audience which refers to the Hypodermic needle theory which i shall cover later.

A negotiated audience is between DOMINANT and OPPOSITIONAL as they aren't crazy about what they see on telelvision or on posters but aren't against what they see either.

OPPOSITIONAL Audiences are very questionable about what they see and because of this they're a ACTIVE audience since they challenge what they hear and tend not to believe everything they read or hear about.

Now that we have an understanding of what Reception theory is, How does Valve utilise their advertising to this theory in order to reach their audience?

Take a look at this poster for one of Valve's masterpiece games, If i asked you your opinion what would you think the game was about just from the poster alone? Well unfortunately i can't tell what you're going to say so My opinion would be the game seems to take on a rather violent approach as in the image are two armed individuals. The wording "Counter-Strike" sounds like something to do with opposing forces of terrorism. My opinion is rather bias since i know what the game is and how it works. However i decided to consult some Primary data from some friends who haven't seen the game or had much interest in it before. I decided to show them the trailer and i asked a few people what their thoughts were on the trailer and whether it is something they'd be interested in.

I decided to source some Primary Data about the game CS:GO based off of the trailer i showed them, the two responses were opposite to each other.

The first one was very DOMINANT and approving of the game trailer whereas the second person was very OPPOSITIONAL since he was saying how inferior it was to all the other games currently like it, It isn't a new concept and yet his opinion is very OPPOSITIONAL because of this.

So from that you can see peoples responses can be very mixed when Reception theory plays its part in swaying people to either buy or deny a new video game that advertises on television.

Now let us move onto how Mojang with their game MINECRAFT manage to achieve this theory.

To recap about Mojang, They're a small Swedish Indie games company that has product many smaller games, But their biggest being Minecraft a worldwide craze that sparked from the mind of Markus Persson. Since then Microsoft has taken over the company and has begun using the game to develop Artificial intelligence.

Similar to how Reception theory plays its part in Valve's games Mojang tends to advertise their products online as opposed to on Television, However they get their game well known by primarily using traditional methods of advertisement and that is posters. They're plastered in video game shops and on the sides of buses far and wide. Baring in mind Reception theory i decided to ask the opinion o my friend again about the game Minecraft. His response was the complete opposite to his last OPPOSITIONAL opinion.

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY

This is the second theory that I will be covering in this section. Below is a video summing up what Hypodermic Needle theory is, however as always I will be explaining this in the way I understand it.

To begin with Hypodermic needle theory is a theory commonly talked about amongst Media analysts and Hypodermic needle dictates that the Mass Media physicall inject people with Media, of course you can't do that but because of how engulfed in Media the modern day person is this theory makes a lot of sense.

In the video Grant mentions about the increased sales of Levi's Trousers all because of the advertisement that was aired. However not only that Boxer shorts were also very popular and they weren't even the item being advertised. Now to compare this example to a similar example that my two games companies have experienced would be difficult. So to give an example of this I'm going to take a scenario that happened April 1st of 2016, Valve are a well known company for their games however their biggest revenue generator is the virtual item market and many people try to find ways to profit from this and it was on April 1st 2016 that a YouTuber known as McSkillet used one of Valve's Games to fool six hundred thousand people on that day.

"The Counter-Strike economy—which involves highly sought-after cosmetic items and deals in real money—is still a bit shaken after an April Fools prank by popular YouTuber McSkillet (via Game Zone)"

Here’s the thing, though: at the end of his video, McSkillet said the whole thing was an April Fools joke. Problem is many people don’t watch videos all the way through. Second Problem many treat YouTubers as their primary source of news, so they didn’t bother to check the Counter-Strike changelog, a news publication, Reddit, or what have you to verify whether they’d stumbled into a vat of molten gold. Plus, markets move fast. They wanted to be the first to cash in on the deal.

As a result, people suddenly went crazy buying Covert versions of cheap weapons like the AUG Chameleon and the MAC 10 Neon Rider. Suddenly, value of normally cheap items went up. The data was collected and the resulting Steam marketplace data was put into a spreadsheet, in which calculated that players ended up spending a total of $53,531.48 more than they would’ve if the weapons had been at their previous prices.

So from this you can see that people just fell for the Hypodermic Needle theory, seeing it and not really batting an eyelid to it, they took it as they see it.

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS

I decided to conduct some secondary research into this and found another summary video on the third theory, Uses and Gratifications in the GabbitMedia series, If you would like a summarised version watch that video, however as always i'm going to explain it in my own words.

Uses and Gratifications Theory is a theory that trys to understand mass communication. The theory tries to focus on the audience. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also tells us that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs. The theory suggests that people use the media to fulfil specific gratifications or needs. This theory would then imply that the media compete against other information sources for viewers gratification.

It is suggested that the uses and gratifications theory has to fulfil one the following when we choose a form of media.

Identify- being able to recognise the product or person in front of you, role models that reflect similar values to yours, aspiration to be someone else.

Educate - being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding

Entertain – What you are consuming should give you enjoyment and also some form of ‘escapism’ enabling us to forget our worries temporarily.

Social Interaction – the ability for media products to produce a topic of conversation between other people, sparks debates

My chosen companies specialise in two catogories within the video games industry, Those two catogories are to convey Entertainment and Social interaction as many video games and future ones have started to become more social with their online capabilities and interactions, Valve's most successful online multiplayer game Counter-Strike has always been a big part of the social side of Steam.

Mojang a smaller more independant company now also specialises in the catogories of Social interactions and entertainment with their most successful game being Minecraft.

From this forum i came across on the playstation website under the support section i found a very toxic individual who seemed to despise the game for a few reasons that fit into the Uses and Gratifications theory.

Firstly this user starts by explaining that he is a quick learner and the game isn't all that difficult to get to grips with, This shows us that Valve tends to give their audience a hands on simple interface to work with. So the Educating element comes into this as from my personal experience the game is very hands on and simple to grasp especially with the tutorial stages.

Secondly he goes onto say how he feels that the game is all trash because of the social interactions he has and going onto explain how after he engaged in a gunfight with someone they turned around and laughed at him before killing him which is funny no doubt but shows that the Social interactions in Counter Strike are all for the fun and taking part.

REFERENCE SOURCES

1- http://steamcommunity.com/
2- Grant Abbit. (20 April 2014). Reception Theory. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJd1rkDoURA. Last accessed 27/04/2016.
3- Grant Abbit. (16 April 2014). Hypodermic Needle Theory. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-toj0weAEM. Last accessed 27/04/16.
4- Nathan Grayson. (April 1st 2016). April Fools Joke Messes Up Counter-Strike's Marketplace. Available: http://steamed.kotaku.com/april-fools-joke-messes-up-counter-strikes-marketplace-1769520074. Last accessed 27/04/2016.

5- http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/Shooter-General/CS-GO-One-of-the-worst-games-i-have-ever-played/td-p/38086449

SEMIOTICS

What you see before you is a video game poster for the Valve game Portal 2. I will be comparing and contrasting this poster to another poster of a different game by Valve, you'll notice quite a bit of similarity in the two posters and with good reason, However because this is Semiotics we'll be covering such things as Representation, Denoation and Connotation.

Firstly to make it easier to understand what Semiotics are let me explain the three main ones. Denoation is essentially what we see in the image so in terms of this Portal 2 poster we can see the main protagonist dressed in what appears to be a white tank top and orange pants with some futuristic type boots on whilst in the background she seems to be surrounded by alot of different types of robots which convey the predicament she seems to be in.

Connotation is what the image is telling us so this could be things associated with other things that appear in the image, E.G: Colour and sound. Now Connotation to this image would be for example the colour of the jumpsuit she is wearing, what does the combination of the orange and white mean? Well after having done some colour theory research i found a neat little snippet on what these two colours generally represent.

WHITE: Purity, Clean, Fresh, Nice. Whereas ORANGE: Determination, Perserverence. 'Testing'.

These two colours work well because they are generally a pleasant combination however when finding out that ORANGE meant that a person was 'Testing' which in my opinion means they are always trying to prove themselves matches extremely well with the protagonist in the game as she is a woman who was signed up to a scientific program in the late 90's and was croygenically frozen in stasis for a very long time and she was awoken by a computer which forced her through various life threatening physics based tests at a facility called Aperture Science: INNOVATIONS. You can see that the choice of just the colour alone portrays alot about the narrative especially if you've played the game yourself. Now something i want to compare this too and how similar the game is to the next poster will make you question what these two have in common.

Here you can see an image for the upcoming Half Life 2 movie. This poster best defines connotation because right off the bat you can notice those similarities i was talking about, Colour is a big factor in Valve's franchises and they are what define the game. This protagonist much like the protagonist in the previous image was a theoretical physicist who worked in a research facility that was until a major sciencific disaster occured and an alien race invaded through various portal storms to invade Planet Earth and enslave all of humanity under a new world order known only as the combine.

There is an awful lot of portal work in Valve games and the reason that is, is because both Portal 2 and Half Life 2 take place in the same universe and as of the time of writing this a sequel is being developed to hopefully wrap up the unanswered questions to why Aperture Science and Black Mesa have crossed paths once more. A good in depth analysis for the Half Life poster would be the weapon the protagonist is holding in his right hand, Why a crowbar? well i can iner from this that the crowbar is being used to 'breakout' of something. Breakout of the messed up world and restore Earth to how it used to be.

So there are quite alot of things to talk about when it comes to the similarities and Semiotics of game posters and i hope that this has given you a insight into all these theories that i've explained here today.

Why do audiences play video games?

In order to answer this question we need to face the audience head on and find out their reasons for playing certains video games and the impact this has on their lives both mentally and physically. So to begin with I'm going to do some secondary research on some recent government stances on video games.

Now it is no secret that many Government bodies around the world want to ban video games, but have you ever wondered why? It is common knowledge that Australia and China are the two major countries to censor and impose bans on Video games that they deem "Too adult" or "Too violent". But due to public outcry video games haven't been fully banned since there are many Chinese players for major gaming teams in E-SPORTS (Electronic Sports). So let's look into theories and reasons behind why I believe these people in Government are against video games.

Currently in this day and age not much has change from ten years prior when it comes to video games and the controversy surrounding the content within them. very powerful individuals who we know today who are running for presidency in the U.S.A Here is a few quotes about their views on why they believe video games should be banned.

"Video game violence & glorification must be stopped — it is creating monsters!"

- Donald Trump, Twitter, December 17, 2012, after the Sandy Hook shooting.

"[I]n terms of how we have to deal with these mass killings … if you look at these video games … there is so much gratuitous violence … It desensitizes you to death and killing."

- Bernie Sanders, Thom Hartmann radio show, December 21, 2012, after the Sandy Hook shooting

So from just these two statements about video games, you can tell these people are blaming video games for terrible historic tradgedies, it is as simple as that but they're calling out the people that commit crimes like this and blaming the games as a result, so what is it in video games that compels a person to kill? Well let's have a look at some gameplay footage and the responses of the people playing them.

MORTAL KOMBAT X

Going back to the points that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders made they might be onto something about how "Violent" video games are creating killers and or monsters. Take this channel, TEENS REACT. It is a rather popular channel which let's people of all ages in their teens play violent games and see their responses to it. Now what cropped up as interesting to me within this video was the excitment that sprung from these people when they were first given the game they were going to play.

One girl in the introduction said and i quote

"Is this the one with the fatalities? Really? Good i want to rip someones spine out!"

To hear someone as young as 15 say they want to rip out someones spine does beg the question if video games are to blame as there is quite alot of evidence to say there is and isn't. However not a single one of the kids in this video refused the concept or idea of the game, they were all excited to play Mortal Kombat X which has a history of being one of the most violent games and has been banned from numerous countries for the fatalities found within the game.

Now it is time to analyse responses i received from some Primary data i collected on two games i chose from two different video games companies. We shall see whether the responses for "Half Life" are anything to be worried about than the Mortal Kombat responses in that video example i showed you.

Let's start with this response as I think it highlights a key concern with many younger kids.

"Half Life 2 is actually more of a First Person Shooter, run and gun shooter, with an interesting storyline and variety of enemies to fight with. Decent graphics and gameplay, worth it when you're bored and had never touched HL2 before nor know of its storyline. I touched Half Life 2 when I was young and it was more of a way to escape from fighting parents and boredem. I decided to touch HL2 instead of Team Fortress 2 on the orange box. It was fun, frustrating and sometimes headache will occur when I was just a clueless kid because of how I keep running and shooting some random cops and soldiers around. Not knowing some of the obstacle, I got really stressed out and decide to find a way pass it which usually take like 30-40 mins because of my young mind. Yet it was still fun due to the interesting storyline including the soundtrack".

If you read through the quote here you'll notice how this user spoke about how he used video games as an escape from his parents fighting which can be a safe assumption that this is why many younger children play video games as escape from real world problems, Personally i play video games to feel a sense of achievement and something to be proud of. Many of the other responses were vague and mostly about the atomosphere

"Immersion, physics, some environmental puzzles, enemies that aren't always bullet sponges, a story that doesn't cut-scene... Why didn't they keep cloning this game instead of Call of Duty???

Oh, seamless transitional areas... (mostly)"

Whereas other responses were pleasant as they spoke about the feelings that this game gave them when they were younger and how these types of games are no longer appreciated for their mechanics.

"I don't think anyone from the modern generation can properly appreciate the Half-Life games anymore. Their mechanics are certainly outdated compared to the current standards, but they were groundbreaking when released. I wouldn't say they were avant-garde but definitely unique. I played lots of Half-Life 1 and 2 since I was a kid, and they always give me a special feeling no other game does when I replay them. It may be the atmosphere, nostalgia, or the brilliant storyline that has been written for it, or all the time I've passed exploring the mod community and playing online...I just know that it's an experience I'll never forget."

There was one response that touched on the points by Donald and Bernie on video game violence and how it creates "Monsters"

"I think the attraction of HL2 is the element of dispatching your enemies with a range of different weapons like Rocket launchers and machetes cutting and killing enemies. What I mean by this is that the combat is functional with the gameplay. The inclusion of the gravity gun allows for a novel play style essentially fun too as you can kill your enemies by launching saw blades at them. It does a nice job of mixing physics puzzles along with action elements and then has chapters like ravenholme that shake up the pace by adding a scary section. So, it works both as an action game and pulls of puzzle sections well and has good pacing and variety. However HL2 has received alot of hatred by countries because of the violence of killing combine soldiers and innocent people in gorey fashions".

So this user believes that the main attraction of Half Life 2 is the vast array of different weapons and the gore element to the game, Personally this can be applied to any game that has weapons and different methods of killing your enemies take Manhunt or Postal for instance they were too amongst many of the games to be banned or at the very least censored

Now that we've looked and talked about the responses received from Half Life 2, Let's see how those responses differ to the Minecraft responses i got over at the Minecraft Forums. Here was one of many similar responses i got to the Minecraft topic to why people play the game.

"I play it because the almost limitless creativity inside the game is addicting. Each world and playthrough is different, and no two are ever really the same".

This user like many on the topic thread spoke about how it was a game they can let their imagination run wild, how they have limitless creativity in a mass openworld sandbox where you try to create whatever it is you want whilst surviving the monsters that try to kill you. So comapred to many of the Half Life 2 responses this isn't much different when he explains the addiction the game has and the worlds are unique and different.

Another response i got the Minecraft was rather surprising since this user seemed really excited and passionate about the game, why? Well let's see.

"I ♥♥♥♥ing love this game. but it's got it's problems. What I personally find the most amusing out of all the features in the game is the fascinating and unique mobs in the universe. Especially the green creepers.

Minecraft has an especially healthy habbit of feeding the player tiny bits of information. Enough to leave them with little to no knowledge yet compell them to tread the world of Minecraftia to learn more about the creatures, weapons and crafting receipies whilst trading with other villagers and looting dungeons. I also love the community it is full of creative minds like my favourite YouTubers Captain Sparkles and the Yogscast who do cool youtube series in Minecraft but also when i go to conventions like Minecon where you can meet people like the creators and YouTubers".

He starts off rather ecstatically but quickly gives his opinion on the flaws, To me this player seems to be the hardcore fan and we know this because he mentions about his favourite YouTubers and his love for attending Minecraft convention "Minecon".

HALF LIFE & MINECRAFT RESPONSE COMPARISON:

Now we know why people play these games, What compels them to keep playing and why they are proud to call themselves gamers. Well Now it's time to find out why these games have an impact on peoples lives, I did cover them briefly in the last section on the responses but now it's time to go in depth on this topic.

Firstly i'd like to begin by mentioning about the first response i received and how the player giving that response told of how he used Half Life 2 as an escape from real life problems with his parents and it is no secret or shock to anyone that this type of thing happens all day everyday in this world where Children turn to video games as a method of escapism from real world problems whether that be problems at home, at school or in a personal confrontation. It's a mental state that these children have adopted since they only seem to feel both physically and mentally comfortable when they're playing videogames at home where they can vent their anger and problems to others over the microphone. One could argue that these children playing these video games could escalte the real world problems since the dawn of cyber bullying. There have been numerous cases of children using video games as escape from dire problems. But not only can video games be used to escape problems they can cause problems since many parents will worry about what games their children play and because of this many parents who saw major shootings and terror attacks jumped straight on the "Video games are responsible" bandwagon.

Secondly I want to talk about how people get so involved in a "fandom" that it affects their mental and physical appearance for example one of the responses i received was how one player was so in love with the game Minecraft that he had all the merchandise and attended all the conventions. So this shows the lengths some people will go to, to be invovled in the fandom

In conclusion people will escape their problems by immersing themselves in video games and video games do strike emotions that would be related with violent behaviour.

TASK 2: SOURCES OF PRIMARY DATA AND SECONDARY DATA:

PRIMARY

http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/discussion/2673279-audience-response-to-minecraft#c9

http://steamcommunity.com/app/220/discussions/0/357286033300525473/

SECONDARY

https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/04/pro-censorship-trump-bernie-hillary-vs-video-games