Synergy showed when they hired the university student that created World of Warcraft add-on to increase their audience.
Synergy and convergence shown in working with Apple’s Game Center for their new Operating System 4.0
They say Facebook and smartphone’s are the most exciting platform to work with because they bring millions of customers in.
According to the company, the 11 million or so monthly active users average a staggering 43 minutes per session. All this for a game that only lasts a minute.
Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs representations of gender using the following:
• Camera shots, angles, movement and composition
• Editing
• Sound
• Mise-en-scene
Camera work and mise en scene are used to a great extent in this extract to represent gender.
One of the preliminary shots shows the use of the set to empower the Master over Martha. This notion that the Master has the upper hand is enhanced by the low angle with an over the shoulder shot from Martha’s point of view and even more so when she is forced to kneel beneath him. Throughout the first half of the extract, low angle shots are always used for the Master and high angle shots for Martha to keep reinforcing the differentiations in power between the two.
These angles start to level out and turn into eye-line shots between the two characters when Martha explains the situation and the audience starts to realise she is the one with the power. The use of the ticking clock, added with more and more quick cuts, creates an intensifying pace within the extract and shows the Master becoming more anxious while Martha stays composed.
A very powerful point of view shot is used at the end of the extract to denounce the Master of all his previously shown power over his female counterpart with the Doctor looking almost vertically down while floating upon the Master who is scrambling backwards across the floor. This shows that males, especially the Doctor, are the most important characters in the narrative, not the females.
In juxtaposition to the male dominance shown in this sequence is the female character behind the Master. She is placed above the Master in the hierarchy of levels and is set apart from other characters through the red colour of her clothing. Red is often associated with sin, guilt, pain, passion, blood, and anger, some of which you are draw to feel she may produce upon Martha. She is later shown to be a protagonist by joining in with the chant of ‘Doctor’ which leads me to believe the colour resembled the Greek and Hebrew symbolism of love and sacrifice.
The male antagonist is portrayed as one with power and wealth from his costume compared to the army looking attire of Martha. This adds to the sense of emasculation of the Master’s authority as it creates a sense that he is the General and Martha the foot soldier. The set uses a lot of artificial light to create a very futuristic atmosphere with the main sources of light scattered around the set. The brightness is used to indicate of the possible future events and when the Doctor transforms back into a human being he becomes a source of light himself with his mystical bubble surrounding him. The set also has a lot of futuristic props with a lot of buttons and gadgets, something that represents a very male orientated area.
There is very minimalistic amounts of editing with the larger majority of it being continuity editing. This enables the story to flow and change pace when necessary. Cross cutting is used when to link Martha’s flashbacks to the action at hand.
Sound does not play a major role in representing gender in this extract, with the majority of it being digetic sound effects to keep sound continuity and create more realism. Non-digetic sound is used to highlight important parts throughout the extract, notably when the Ark Angel Network is mentioned as the way to rescue the Doctor from his confinement.
In conclusion, I feel that the extract used a very conventional method of representing gender with the female disempowered by a male at first but then gains the upper hand. This was done in various ways with the pinnacle being the change in camera angles throughout the shot-reverse-shot’s between Martha and the Master.
Players can download free versions onto their mobile phone.
Bejeweled is available on PC, mobiles, internet, iPhone, iTouchm PSP, DS, DSi and BlackBerry.
PopCap have won over 24 awards.
PopCap have over 35 different games.
PopCap has over 200 employees (games developers.)
Bejeweled was originall created for PC games as a web based Flash Game called Diamond Mine, but had to change the name as it was too similar to Diamond Mines.
A Bejeweled scratchcard is available.
In September 2006 it was available to download for the iPhone.
In October 2007 it was available on the PS2 and Xbox 360.
In September 2008 World of Warcraft made a free version of it as an add on for the WOW interface.
In October 2008 the third installment of Bejeweled Blitz was available.
In December 2008 it was available on Facebook.
In Novemeber 2009 the iPhone released Bejeweled 2.
At first I was entertained and hooked by Bejewled as it offered exciting colours and sound effects which hook the player. After a few rounds of playing, the repetitivness started to bore me.
I am a dedicated gamer and therefore I need sustainable games to keep me interested, something Bejewled does not offer due to its simplicity.
After discussing what our game would be about, we then had to set about making a trailer for it. We thought of ways how we could do this as our idea was going to have the game in an animation context. As neither of us can create animation pictures, we think this could be very difficult.
We then decided it was maybe better to have a different idea and Joel had the idea of taking the game ‘Heavy Rain’ and a particular part in it where a man is looking after a baby. We had the idea of changing our target audience to those of an older generation and have an interactive game where you have a child, then watch it grow up whilst taking part in a numerous amount of activities with them as they grow. We both liked this idea and below you will see the trailer for it.
It will be played on mainly the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. We had yet to decide on a name of our game and also we need to think of character names.
Amazon.com partnered up with Rockstar to be the games official retailer.
Rockstar allowed Amazon.com to be the initial retailer of the special edition version of the game.
Special editon included:
- Art book
- CD Soundtrack
- Exclusive Rockstar keychain with a safety deposit
- A limited edition Rockstar duffel bag
Rockstar also allowed Amazon.com to sell songs from the in-game radio stations by texting a services number on the in-game cell phone. This allows players to get the information of the song that is being played sent to their e-mail address. They could then order the song off Amazon’s website
Rockstar replaced Amazon.com with iTunes for their music database with their release of their first expansion pack.
The music used at the beginning of every Hollyoaks episode is very upbeat and lively which mimics the quick cuts and fast actions shown by the characters. The movement and cuts shown match with the beat of the music for added effect.
There is no digetic sound used in the opening credits which in a way denotes from the sense of realism the show produces.
The opening sound is a perfect fit for a teen drama as it is very positive and upbeat.
