Media Industries and Audiences: Minecraft

•Digitally convergent media: Video games consoles are an excellent example of a digitally convergent device, you can not only play games but access social media, surf the internet, stream films and TV content and upload content into cloud based servers. Cross-media content helps maximise profits and also improve reach to new customers.

•Production: This refers to all phases of designing, developing and making the media product;.

•Distribution: This refers to all processes linked to delivering the media product to audiences both through tangible (disc) and digital (Cloud based) media.

•Consumption: Explores the way in which the media text is used by audiences for pleasure but also explores the rise of user generated content across several platforms.

'CaptainSparklez' is a channel with 10 million subscribers, which has created various different Minecraft parodies that have gone viral. One example is '"Revenge" - A Minecraft Parody of Usher's DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love (Music Video)' which has achieved 173 million views. 

•Minecraft is the second most successful video game of all time behind Tetris.

•It was created and designed by Markus Persson,
a game programmer, who also developed and published the game through his company Mojang. A full version of the game went on release in November 2011.

•To date, well over 121 million copies have been sold across all platforms, including over 27 million PC copies, making it the biggest selling PC game of all time. 

The success of the games market.

–The UK’s   US$4 billion;

–China,   US$24.4 billion

–America’s   US$23.6 billion

•A recent report by the UKIE1 suggests that the global games market is now worth in excess of US$100 billion.    

•In comparison to traditional media like film, radio, print and television, video games are much younger, exponentially growing since the 1970s.

•Minecraft’s Swedish creator, Markus “Notch” Persson started creating the game in May of 2009 having been inspired by similar games such as Dwarf Fortress, a single- player construction and management game; his goal was to produce a Role Playing Game variation.

•Minecraft’s initial reception wasn’t commercially viable, seen more as a niche product for players with expert knowledge of computers and programming. 

Maintaining audiences

LEGO AND MINECRAFT

Lego Worlds is available now, at £11.99, via the Steam gaming platform. Its final release, featuring classic and modern playsets and popular mini-figures, is expected in 2016. Speaking last year, David Gram, Lego's marketing director, said: "Minecraft is digital Lego. We only wish we had invented it."

Lego likely created this after seeing Minecraft's success due to the similarity between the products. A box of physical lego is more expensive than the game they have released, therefore it is like a marketing stategy to appeal to a new audience who like to play video games. 

The game is given to the education sector for free. 

GENRE

Action -- e.g. call of duty 

Arcade -- e.g. streetfighter or pacman

Adventure -- e.g. minecraft or the walking dead

Fighting -- e.g. mortal combat 

Racing -- e.g. f1 challenge

Shooter -- e.g. FPS (Half Life) or TPS (GTA)

RPG -- e.g. Elder Scrolls

MMORPG -- e.g. world of warcraft

Minecraft storymode has also been developed. 

In terms of production: 2010 Minecraft was developed as a multiplayer game using JAVA code.. 

Gamers were able to contribute to the development of the program eliminating bugs and facilitating multiplayer capability

In September of 2013, Microsoft bought all rights to Minecraft from Mojang for $2.5 billion dollars.

Due to the original nature of the game, most players simply logged in to play Minecraft and didn’t need a physical copy of the game. 

When the Xbox and PlayStation versions were created there was often a chance to offer digital versions of the same game across the Windows 10 operating system 

Users were often encouraged to download the game through the cloud servers rather than a physical copy of the game which would incur more of a cost for the institution. 

Physical copies of the game were released 6 months after the cloud versions t encourage online purchase and reduce the risk of piracy

•Why Microsoft purchased – Minecraft for 2.5£Bn?

–Given the nature of the parent company and the loyal fan base of PC gamers, it was in the company’s interest to invest US$2.5 billion to purchase Mojang for long term revenue.
–Microsoft have since developed the product using more complex coding C++
–This has enabled multi platform access (mentioned previously)
–They have launched newer more traditional programs such as Miecraft Story board
–Minecraft in November 2014 of that year, plans to work on a virtual reality version of Minecraft in Partnership with Oculus
--Also vertical integration as Microsoft own Xbox and this can help to promote them. 

•Minecrafts commercial success

–Budgets for games vary and Minecraft is a good example of a game that was made and developed using readily available open source software within the gaming community; creating the original Minecraft using Java gave it the advantage of being cross-platform: it will run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
–other mainstream games that require entire teams of programmers, artists and engineers to make video games that have budgets equal or exceeding that of mainstream films.  AN example of this includes CALL OF DUTY

•Minecraft’s not for profit funding of projects

–Minecraft has also been linked to non-profit projects such as the UNs Block by Block project, which encourages communities around the world to redesign their neighbourhoods using Minecraft.

–An educational version has also been developed, MinecraftEdu (2012), which has several applications to help teach subject and develop a culture of computer programming amongst digital natives. 

Audiences

•Minecraft has universal appeal. It is useful to explore how such a game can appeal to different ages, genders and audiences from different social and cultural backgrounds.

•The variety of different modes is certainly a contributing factor to the game’s success, but also the way in which audiences can control and shape their own worlds and create new identities through mods and altering textures, maps and craft kits.

The content is suited to the wide age demographic due to the different modes and forms of playing which accommodate a large amount of people unlike other games. There is also choice of difficulty mode which can help younger people to begin playing, as well as older people who like the challenge. Story mode can also be a good way to invite younger children into the game if they do not understand the sandbox style, though this is also another reason it is so fitting for a wide age group - the freedom of what to build and how to play. 

The introduction of Minecraft Realms (2013) has tried to give the producers more control over the distribution and circulation of the game since some pro-am consumers were creating their own virtual spaces and hacks across illegitimate servers, such as https://www.wizardhax.com/ play/ as one example.

Realms is intended for use by small  groups of friends or as a family server

The interrelationship between media technologies and patterns of consumption and response

•YouTube, Facebook and online fan communities has enabled Minecraft’s audience to have an active voice in its ongoing production through detailed feedback and commentary on modifications and beta tests. There are several niche forums that should also be investigated across the internet.