How has consumer engagement with entertainment changed
To conclude, the overall aim of this blog was to recognise the transitions that are occurring in the modern media landscape, not necessarily as new, but as meaningful, looking at the effect they have had on Minecraft. It is evident these changes are in support of new media, making it more prominent, effective and challenging traditional methods, youtube is an example of this. The hope is, by recognising these changes and why Minecraft is so successful as a text, practitioners will be able to replicate its success and be more effective as producers and consumers.
The blogs first post looked at Minecraft more objectively to try and find what kind of audience it targets. After analysing the structure of the game it became clear that Minecraft only appeals to active audiences, It’s lack of direction requires consumers to be active, making their own meanings by playing the game in a unique way that only their sociocultural experiences would encourage. Micheal de Certeau was a surprisingly valuable asset in helping break down Minecraft’s Consumers, his thoughts on active and passive audience are still applicable to this day and form valuable foundations to many other theorists work, such as Henry Jenkins.
‘Crafting Participatory Culture’ looks at the reason for Minecraft’s success, linking paratexts’ effectiveness to fandom and how they are a foundation for successful exposure. As fan prosumers create paratexts, they create a, theoretically exponential, feedback loop of exposure between the text and it’s paratexts and this is only possible because of the contemporary media landscape that focuses on virtual social engagement such as YouTube. To do this the blog used multiple theories of fandom, by Jenkins and Abercrombie and Longhurst, and how the games structure takes advantages of fans who poach and create canon such as Herobrine, which feed back to the games success.
In ‘Let’s Play vs Let’s Watch’ the blog took a step back to look at how the gaming industry is changing more generally and how Minecraft is apart of this. It concluded that Let’s Plays are no longer just paratexts, but a new way of presenting and consuming the game. The success of which is because of it’s characteristics act as a replacement for the social aspect of gaming that has been missing since the demise of analogue gaming and arcade machines.
Overall this blog has been successful in understanding how Minecraft’s success is owed to a combination of contemporary ideas. Firstly, a key text that targets an active audience, something that traditional media has failed to do and secondly, how it takes advantage of new platforms such as YouTube where fandoms and paratexts are exploding in popularity. But it also looked at how Let’s Plays exemplify other changes, the change in power of production with petty producers and the change in the way we consumer texts, but none of this would have been possible if Media wasn’t in Transition, adopting new technology and catering for social needs to stay effective in an increasingly competitive media landscapes.
Originally published at thesynergists.co.uk on April 18, 2016.
