Advertisements in the Gaming Industry
On Thursday we had a group of presenters in the class that discussed video games from different perspectives based on their interest and majors. I think that it was a very smart choice to look at video games through their familiar lens. The presenters looked at the economic aspect of the gamer industry, the advertisement from marketing and digital media art, and finally they looked at the ways that they advertise. In the article, “What Does a Gamer Look Like? Video Games, Advertising, and Diversity”, as well as in the group discussion, both talk about how the primary advertisement is geared toward young white men, “both in terms of gender as well as ethnicity, meant that for a long time, primarily white men have dominated the American-based video game industry (Fullerton et al. 2008)” (Evans, Baines 2016). Now something that I would argue is that the game has become more diverse. In more resent gaming console ad no people have been shown but instead has focused on the layout and features of the devise. In addition, ads for games have worked to include more diverse actors in their television advertisements. I would recommend watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewEk6l3WGVE its a compilation of the best video game ads and it goes back to the 1990s. It is interesting and obvious the quality and diversity in the game industry has increased. However, I would agree that the game characters within the games have remained pretty much unchanged. Game characters, and their pictures on the cover of the games, are often a white man or a highly sexualized woman.
The second article we had to read for this week the article was about gambling in the gaming industry. I am not entirely sure how this related to the topic of the class discussion and presentation from this week. The authors argue that the professional gaming industry is comparable to sports. “Reasonable people can debate whether competitive video gaming is a sport, but it has at least one thing in common with football, basketball, and soccer: People like to bet on the outcome” ( Brustein, Novy-Williams, 2016). Again I think it is an interesting topic to discuss but am unsure how it entirely relates to this weeks discussion topic. I found the article about the marketing and advertisement to be a much more interesting topic.
Until next week.
Brustein, J., & Novy-Williams, E. (2016, April 19). Virtual Weapons Are Turning Teen Gamers Into Serious Gamblers. Retrieved October 20, 2017, from https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-virtual-guns-counterstrike-gambling/
Chess, S., Evans, N. J., & Baines, J. J. (2016). What Does a Gamer Look Like? Video Games, Advertising, and Diversity. Television & New Media, 18(1), 37–57. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
