Monday, 26 February 2018

Minecraft: Marketing, Promotion & Franchising


  • The cultural impact of Minecraft is significant. We know that much of Minecraft's  success was due to word of mouth but also audiences sharing their own mods and game footage across web forums and video sharing sites such as YouTube. 
  • Different versions of Minecraft were released, moving away from creation only narratives to include story modes, spectator modes, educational mode and multi - player functionally  across Minecraft Realms. Also, now that Persson no longer has a stake in the company plans to works on a virtual reality version of Minecraft have been renewed.  

Intertextuality

  • Culturally, other developers and games studios have made Intertextual references to Minecraft across games such as Run escape and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to name but a few: there are also Lady Gaga, South Park and The Simpsons parodies. All of this benefits the game by heightening its exposure to audiences. 

The Minecraft Franchise 

  • A Lego set based on Minecraft called Lego Minecraft was released on 6 June 2012. Two more sets based on the Nether and village areas of the game were released on 1 September 2013. A fourth Micro World set. The End, was released in June 2014. Six more sets became available November 2014. 



  • Mojang collaborates with Jinx, an online game merchandise store, to sell Minecraft merchandise, such as clothing, foam pickaxes, and toys of creatures in the game. 



  • In Minecraft 2013 Mojang signed a deal with the Egmont Group, a children's book publisher, to create Minecraft handbooks, annuals, posters books, and magazines. 

Minecraft the Movie 

  • In 2009 there will be a joint venture with Warner Brothers to release Minecraft the movie, this will be anticipated as having as much commercial success as The Lego Movie, also a Warner Brothers Movie. No doubt, there will be several spin-offs as a result of this. 
Minecon 

  • Minecon is a convention for the video game Minecraft, hosted by Mojang. 
  • The first gathering in 2010 was known as MinecraftCon 
  • Mojang announced that MINECON was taking the form of an interactive 90-minute live stream on 18 November 2017. It was lilted MINECON Earth. 

Friday, 23 February 2018

Minecraft Essay


  • Write an introductory essay to Minecraft 
  • Explain what it is, give an outline of the game's history and explain why it has been a commercial and critical success 
  • Approx. 700 words or 2 sides 
Minecraft is a sandbox computer game created and designed by Swedish programmer Marcus “Notch” Persson in 2009 and fully and published by Mojang.
A sandbox game is one with an open structure where the player is free to plat without specific objectives – the allusion is to a child’s sandbox. Players in sandbox games are free to explore an environment, to choose which takes they do, and often they have the ability to express themselves creatively within the game.

In Minecraft players build structures out of textured in a 3D world. They key activities are mining and crafting. Other activities in the game include exploration and combat.
When Notch started Minecraft, in summer 2009, he was on his own. He wrote a basic game, which mashed up others such as Dwarf Fortness and Infinimer into something entirely its own and mentioned it on the TIGSource forum – a site for independent games players and creators. A month later, he charged people €10 (£8) to download the game, Minecraft sold 40 copies that first weekend. Every Friday, Persson would update it, adding features. He had always been an active member of the TIGSource discussions and now he engaged with Minecraft’s early players, on the forums, on Twitter Notch has 660,000 followers and on his Tumblr page.

In summer 2010, Persson set up Mojang, along with Poser, with whom he had worked at Flash-games developer King.com, and Manneh, his former CEO at jAlbum, a photosharing site.
Since the release of Minecraft in 2009, it has been a commercial success. It is estimated that 55 million people play Minecraft every month, and is therefore the second best-selling game ever made, coming after Tetris. The company is worth around £1.09 billion, as it was brought out by Mojang in 2014.  
Minecraft surpassed over a million purchases less than a month after entering its beta phase in early 2011. At the same time, the game had no publisher backing and has never been commercially advertised except through word of mouth, and various unpaid references in popular media such as the Penny Arcade web comic. By April 2011, Persson estimated that Minecraft had made €23 million in revenue, with 800,000 sales of the alpha version of the game, and over 1 million sales of the beta version.  In 2014, Mojang sold Minecraft to Microsoft in 2014 for $2.5 billion (£1.9 billion). Since this deal, Minecraft has been spread onto many different platforms. In 2019, a Minecraft movie is set to appear in cinemas.  
There are many reasons as to why it has become such a commercial success, including its popularity; Minecraft is played all around the world, in around 8 different countries including the US, Norway and Australia. This means high volume sales, which could be due to its availability and easy accessibility. Continuing from this, another reason that Minecraft is so commercially successful is due to its spread onto different platforms. These include, Xbox, Windows 10, Windows phones, Nintendo Wii U, PlayStation and Android phone. This makes it more easily accessible for a wider audience meaning more people are able to play, therefore resulting in more sales and then higher revenue from sales. Finally, another reason that is credible for commercial success, is the spin off games and merchandise created since the release of Minecraft. Spin off games include “Minecraft, story mode” and “Minecraft, Education Edition”. Both of these games will appeal to a specific demographic, which will commercially benefit the business as they are targeting a wider audience, rather than just focusing on the original demographic targeted by the original Minecraft game. The merchandise that is created and sold across the world, will catch the eye of gamers, and also promotes and advertises that game when people wear the merchandise, which will increase profit which makes it commercially successful.

The popularity of Minecraft has later been showed through spin-off games such as Minecraft: story mode and Minecraft: education mode. This brings a fun way of learning to children and influences them to want to expand their knowledge. Popular forms of social media such as Facebook and YouTube have also played a significant role in helping to popularize it and advertising to others to play.

On top of this the game has received millions of dollars in merchandise revenue from T-shirts to toys, and spawned its own convention, Minecon, which began just 2 years after the game was created. The convention has taken place in Las Vegas, Disneyland Paris, California, London and Orlando which expands their global marketing and attracts even more customers to get involved.

In think the reason Minecraft is so successful is that a video game with no story line sells very well because you can do whatever your hearth desires.

Minecraft



Minecraft Timeline from 2009


How Notch made Minecraft a cult hit



Video Game Terminology


Radio 1 Breakfast Show - Self Review Test





Minecraft

Into to Minecraft - Some Key Things 

  • Minecraft development - online lego? 
  • Multi - platform 
  • Open Sandbox 
  • Started as an "Indie" - - >  Independent 
  • Critically and commercial successful 
  • From Independent to mainstream - 125 million copies sold 

Who owns Minecraft? 

  • Minecraft was created by Marcus "Notch" Persson and developed by Mojang 
  • These were Independent, separate to and not financed by a big commercial company 
  • But, as a small Independent products become successful, it is usual for larger organization, owners to want to buy them. 

Minecraft is an Open World 


  • 6 Reason why Minecraft is incredibly popular 
  1. Minecraft is a literal sandbox with infinite replayability - The game is only limited by the confines of your imagination.
  2. A strong community - The players' creations are Minecraft's own marketing campaigns. Like Jacob Granberry who have recreated the entire world of "Game of Thrones". Although other guy who created a functional 16 - bit computer within the computer. 
  3. It's platform agnostic - It first built a loyal PC fanbase and then eventually released on everything. 
  4. It has been co-opted by children - which has made it a household name. 
  5. It's not limited by genre 
  6. It fufills our human instinct to bring order to chaotic wilderness. 



Wednesday, 21 February 2018

Video Games

21st February 2018 notes
- - >  Game consoles 
  • Sony 
  • Xbox 
  • Nintendo
  • Microsoft 
- - > Sandbox game 
  • Construction
  • Working with people on Internet to a particularly ending 
- - > Microsoft 
  • Company (e.g. Rockstar)
- - > Platforms 
  • 3 main media Platforms 
  • Broadcast - - > TV 
  • Online - - > everything online 
  • Print - -> you can print 
- - > multi platforms like FIFA that you can play it online and in your own console 

What are video games?

20th February 2018 notes  

  • video games are a gamed played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer or a monitor or other displays.  

  • Videogames Genr

Wednesday, 7 February 2018

Radio Audiences and Technology

  • Who is the target audience for BBC Radio 1? 
under 30 (15-29) 

  • The change from Chris Mayes to Nick Grimshaw 
Grimshaw was brought especially to develop the audiences in its target range of 15 - 29 and shed the over 30s. 

  • Why the show's audience are declining?
The show's audiences are declining - as are the audience for BBC Radio 1 as a whole. This Radio 1 Breakfast show with Nick Grimshaw attracts 5,29m listeners per week compared to 5,7m last year. 

  • Response: Ben Cooper 
Has argue that the station should not be judged solely on Rajar figures. Radio 1 is evolving with its young audiences as we live through changing time for traditional radio, so it's particularly gratefully to see that in addition to Facebook with 80 million monthly views, and 1,4 billion total views on judge Radio 1 on Rajar figures alone - just as you can't judge a newspaper solely and physical sales - you have to take into account our digital innovations as well. 

Nick Grimshaw: BBC Breakfast show



  • Nicholas Peter Andrew Grimshaw is an English television and radio presenter. He is best known for having hosted a variety of shows on BBC radio 1 has been host of the Radio 1 Breakfast show since 2012. 
  • He is also known for his channel 4 roles in T4 and the Album Chart Show. In 2015, he was a judge of the twelfth series of the X Factor. 
  • He joined BBC Radio 1 in September 2007, presenting the BBC's youth strand Switch with friend and fellow DJ Annie Mac. He hosted the show for 9 months solo while Mac hosted a weekend lunchtime slot. 

The episode - - - > The show is a live, presenter - led show which includes all of the expected codes and conventions of a radio music programme: music chat, guest, interview, audience phone - ins and competitions.

Some of the more well - known features of the Nick Grimshaw Breakfast show are: 
  • "Call or delete" - where celebrities guests have to decide whether to call someone from their phonebook to prank them or to delete them. 
  • "Happy Hardcore FM" - which allows listeners to phone in and scream and shout over happy hard core music. 
  • The daily waking up song featuring celebrities that encourage listeners to get out of bed. 

BBC Radio Production and Distribution


  1. The Radio 1 Breakfast Show with Nick Grimshaw is broadcast weekdays from 6.30 - 10.00 am
  2. The Breakfast Show has been running since 1967, but Nick Grimshaw took over as the 15th presenter in 2012.
  3. BBC Radio 1 is broadcast on FM, DAB, Freeview, Virgin, Sky or online via BBC Radio player (including via the phone or tablet app) where it can be heard live or streamed for 30 day. 
  4. It is produced for the BBC from its own studies at broadcasting house in London 

Radio 1

- - > The radio 1 Breakfast show is currently the most listen to "Show" on Radio 1 and forms part of radio one's overall public service broadcasting (PSB) rent to "entertain, educate and inform" and in required to demonstrate a "distinctive" output pf content compared to commercial radio.

- - > The BBC Radio that is the Radio Breakfast Show should "entertain" and engage a broad range of young listeners with a distinctive mix of contemporary music and speech.

- - > Radio 1 is getting smaller - in audience feel by a further 100,000 last year (2015) as it followed its remit of specially targeting under - 30s. Its controller, Ben Cooper, likes to say at industry events that the only radio boss who gets congratulated for falling ratings, as older listeners set aside their baseball caps and shuffle of elsewhere.

- - > Radio 1 still struggles to bring down its average listening age from 31, partly because Rajar doesn't count its one million - strong audience of 10 to 14 years old, drawn in by the likes of Nick Grimshow and Clara Amfo. But the station, which is as focused on the iPlayer and Youtube video platform as it is on radio - has changed significantly since Mayles left in 2012.

Tuesday, 6 February 2018

The BBC: A Public Service Broadcaster

What does PSB mean?
  • Public service broadcasting refers to broadcasting intended for public benefit rather than to serve purely commercial interests. It has to be for public service. 
  • PSB brad casters have to cater for also ages/genders/face/ religion/class/ etc. They also have to achieve a mix of educational, information and entertainment. 
Different remits for different channels 
  • The BBC has a 100% PSB remit 
  • ITV has a much smaller PSB remit 
  • Channel 4 has a large, but slightly different PSB rent 
  • Channel 5 has a tiny PSB remit and all digital channels have no PSB remit. 
OFCOM - - - >  in charge of ensuring broadcasting to keep their PSB remit 

  • The only reason BBC can meet its huge PSB responsibilities is because it does not on advertisers. 
  • ITV must always via for the largest audience possible in roder to make much money possibile. PSB does not always create massive crowd pleasures. 
  • So, because the BBC have no need to always win massive audiences. It can put on educational show documentaries. 
  • The BBC stand by its 3 keywords 
BBC Mission 

To enrich people's live with programmes and services what inform, educate, entertain 

Cur Values 
  • Independent, impartial, honest
  • audience are at the hearth of everything 
  • quality and value for money 
  • creativity 
  • celebrate cur diversity 

Sustaining citizenship and civil society 

The BBC provides high-quality news, current affairs and factual programming to engage its viewers listeners and users in important current an political issues. 

Promoting educational and learning 

The support of educational in schools and colleges and informal knowledge and skills building 

Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence 

Encouraging interest, engagement and participation in cultural creative and sporting activities across the UK 

Representing the UK, its nation, region and communities 

BBC viewers, listeners and users can really on the BBC to reflect the many communities that exits in the UK

Radio facts


  • remains resilient - as the oldest broadcast medium, since in creation at the turn of the 20th century, radio has witnessed each technological development that has brought different and competing media to consumers' media diets. 
  • The reach of radio is still high  almost 90% of adults tune in a weekly basis - and time spent listening to radio increased in 2015. But there are differences across ago groups. 
  • While for all UK adults the majority of time spent listening to any audio is accounted for by live radio 71%16-24s spend similar amounts of time with live radio 29% personal digital audio 26% and streaming services 25%. 
  • Overall, commercial stations increased their revenue in 2015 overall growth of 1,4% to £519m, as national advertising revenue. 
  • In 2015 over 40% of all reported radio listening was via a digital device. 
  • A second national DAB network of transmitters was switched on in March 2016, bringing 15 unique radio services to 75% of the UK's population. 


New Technology 

  • New technology has helped the radio industry evolve and increase in popularity 
  • There's been a huge increase in the number of people dowloading podcasts and streaming interest radio. Most radio stations archive past broadcast on their official websites, for listeners to access on-demand 
  • Studio webcam and social media have changed the audience relationship with radio by making listeners feel more connected to the presenters.

Monday, 5 February 2018

Radio Research Task


Radio 1 Breakfast show

  1. Who was the first ever breakfast show presenter on radio 1?
The first ever show presenter was Tony Blackburn, from 30th September 1967 to 1st June 1973, 5 years and 244 days

 2. List some other DJs who have presented the show? 


3.Find out a little bit of biographical information on Nick Grimshaw 

Nicholas Peter Andrew Grimshaw (born 14 August 1984) is an English television and radio presenter. He is best know for having hosted a variety of shows on BBC Radio 1 and has been host of The Radio 1 Breakfast Show since 2012. He is also known for is Channel 4 role in T4 and The Album Chart Show. In 2015, he was a judge of the twelfth of the X Factor.

4.  What are the current listening figures for the Radio 1 Breakfast Show? 

 Nick Grimshaw 

5.  Who is the controller of BBC Radio 1? 

 Ben Cooper 

6.  How is Radio 1 funded? 

It is funded by the annual TV license fee. 


7. How does Radio 2 try and be distinctive? 

By offering a range of new music and artists, (particularly British ones) and live music. They also provide relevant news, documentaries and advice campaigns. 

8.What is the difference between BBC radio stations and commercial stations? 

The BBC os a PSB (Public Broadcasting Service) and is funded by tax - payers money, Consequently its pure function is to serve the public. Commercial radio stations are more interested in bringing in money and therefore. 

How the Radio 1 Breakfast show is produced


What are the different responsibilities of presenters and producers?

 The presenters need to ensure that they are going to ask the best possible questions to the person they are interviewing to interest the audience, being entertaining. Producer need to make sure tasks or games suit the person. Guests need to be briefed, radio callers need to be spoken so they know what to do.


What preparation that goes into each programme?

 The day before is usually when they decide the routine for the show, e.g. question they'll ask the person being interviewed and timing. The timing is flexible so they are able to change what they speak about, meaning that they can speak about more recent interesting thing if something new breaks. Due to the target audience and people who are being interviewed, they do not need to spend a lot of time in creating long in depth questions. Instead they need to ensure that the 10 questions they ask, are the best questions they can ask. Constant preparation through their Whats App group chat about upcoming news, Every morning when the producers come in they need to check social media and news sites to check that they are going to cover everything that needs covering. 


 What's most challenging and most enjoyable about working on the show?

Enjoyable, working together as a team, as a dysfunctional family. Also finding thing that you find funny that could be spoken about on the radio. Being able to play new music, be informative creating a good show. Being able to chose who come on so that they can interview them. 


What are the team dynamics like?

 The team have to work close together and communicate also in order for everyone to create the best show for the millions of listeners. Working in a small studio, working close together, so everyone has to know what each other likes. Producers ask to everyone questions to learn new things and new ideas. New producers make people want to learn new things, in order to make the show better.


How can you break into radio?

Go to your local radio station to get used to how it all works, and to get used to the environment. Contacting people in the radio industry directly, asking for experience without caring about rejection. Taking part in student radio, to get used to it and it can also promote you so that you meet other people who are in the radio industry to give you chances and to allow you to get experience in a range of things.