A (B)yron (S)tory Media Studies Blog

So what are the issues as to how videogames are regulated? 'The regulation of the videogame industry is largely ineffective, thanks to digitally convergent technologies.' Prior to 1989, videogames were for the most part fully unregulated under any official body in Europe, until the creation of the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (or ELSPA) which were the most prominent regulatory body, who gave out guidelines on what was to be allowed, versus not, etc.  Pan European Game Information (or PEGI) came up in 2003, which provide age ratings for each game, '3, 7, 12, 16 or 18.' and alongside this also 'content descriptors' which describe more so specific details of the game, ranging from extremely vague indicators like 'bad language' or 'fear' to the more bluntly obvious such as 'sex', 'violence', etc. None of which are actual obligations for retail stores both physical and online to follow when selling copies o...

Terminology recap: Vertical Intergration  - the combination in one firm of two or more stages of production normally operated by separate firms. Horizontal integration  - the process of a company increasing production of goods or services at the same part of the supply chain. A company may do this via internal expansion, acquisition or merger.

'It is essential for media industries to minimise risk, and to maximise profit.' - David Hesmondhalgh The role of trailers -  Assassin's Creed: Valhalla  pre-release trailer : With this statement in mind by theorist David Hesmondhalgh, we can see it blatantly at play through the Assasain's Creed video game franchise, and more specifically via their use of digital convergence through their well-established cinematic pre-rendered CG trailer style that has been used since the franchise's inception to draw in returning niche players by displaying to them an experience reminiscent of the products they'd previously been consuming from the franchise albeit with the USP (Unique Selling Point) of being set within a new time period as well as setting. But more importantly, these trailers are set to bring in new customers to ensure and maximise profits, it needs to favour the masses; So how do these trailers do that? Minimising risk, maximisng profit:  High production val...

What actually is a video game?: Though it has evolved over the years, 'The current term "video game" now generally encompasses any game played on hardware built with electronic logic circuits that incorporates an element of interactivity and outputs the results of the player's actions to a display.' The History of Video Games: The first video game is something strangely argued by many, the simple search result displays to me Pong, released in 1958, but other sources have claimed it to be 'Spacewar!' in 1962, or 1950's 'Bertie The Brain' which was a tic-tac-toe like simulator. Many other video games released around the late 1950s mostly as research cases at various universities and larger companies, the people playing these games were majorly academics, and those within these groups rather than consumers, with supposedly the first widely considered commerical video game coming in 1971's 'Computer Space'. Pong only saw it's 'h...