BA5 Contextual Studies - My Idea

For Contextual studies I am going to look at marketing and advertising in games; how the adverts of games have changed over the past 20 years and why they have changed from the public's view of games and their increase in popularity. When we return from our break, we have to do a 5 minute presentation of our topic and a time line. For submission, we have to produce a 2,000 word essay that can be written as a technical report, a reflective report, an industry report or a journalistic piece.

So far, finding  time line of adverts for the past 20 years is proving a little difficult as i am searching through the internet trying to find these adverts. So far so good, as i have found a few.  Not only will i have to research images of adverts, but i will also have to research into a history of marketing/advertising and possibly psychology.  I need to find out all the possibilities of why adverts look they way they do from their time period, technology, the public's view on games and their popularity. I fear finding research for this will be much more tricky!

Here is my 20 years of adverts. From 1992 to 2012.

1992 Spellbound Adapter

1993 Lets Rumble

1994 Rage

1995 Wrestle Mania

1996 Back Dawn

1997 Resident Evil Director's Cut 

1998 CarnEvil

1999 Gauntlet Dark Legacy

2000 Alien Resurrection

2001 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

2002 WWE: Raw is War

2003 The King Of Fighters 2003

2004 Blood Rayne 2

2005 Extreme Hunting

2006 Elder Scrolls IV:  Oblivion

2007 Wii Advert

2008 Star Wars the Clone Wars

2009 Scrabble 2009 Edition

2010 Luchalibre Heroes Del Ring

2011 Skyrim

2012 Assassin's Creed 3

TIMELINE

When researching...

When researching for these adverts, i surprisingly found a good amount to start off with at 1992.  But moving forward down the timeline, getting closer to the present date i found it extremely hard to find any adverts.  I believe that this is down to technology which i will go on to explain. It can also explain how the composition of the adverts.  The technology is not only about the technological advance of consoles and the games themselves, but the technology used in which adverts and information is distributed.  It's increase in popularity and acceptance into popular culture and modern society also explains these points.

Visuals

90's adverts visuals

Visually the 90's adverts would tend to feature real people or characters.  The adverts are mainly for arcade games and would physically show the machine as part of the advertising.  They would also follow an arcade "theme"/"style" aesthetically. Resident Evil and Black Dawn are the only adverts to give an almost cinematic feel.  Screen shots of in game play are featured in most of them. 

00's adverts visuals

The early 00's and late 00's feature visually different adverts showing the evolution of and sophistication of games. In the early 00's, they still feature screen shots of the games. Arcade games are now not as prominent in this era. There are no real people or characters in the adverts apart from Tony Hawk. Alien shows a cinematic look to their advert.  The late 00's feature a more futuristic, clean, modern look to their adverts and are also more cinematic compared to the previous adverts. In game screen shots are less likely in the adverts.

10's adverts

Much more cinematic look and feel to the adverts.  They are now looking more like film adverts than game adverts. Game screen shots are much less likely to appear in the adverts.

technology & cultural popularity

90s

Arcade games were prominent with the feature of home consoles moving forward.
Some popularity, seen as a childish thing.

00's

Arcade games losing their popularity as home consoles take over.  Handheld portable consoles debut and gain popularity in the early 00's. Next gen consoles feature as the xbox (2001) and ps2 (2000) take over home consoles. The Wii features in late 00's and gains mass popularity with its new technology. Xbox 360 debuted in 2005 and the PS3 debuted in 2006, the next gen consoles.
From 2000 to 2009 the increase in game popularity has been great. Games were seen as childish but have been pushed forward into pop culture mixing with other sub cutures such as cinema, art, comics and music.  Games were finding their place among the art world.

10's
With the WiiU out and the Xbox 720 and PS4 coming out, there will be much more technical advances.
Games are very popular and are a definite part of pop culture, with games work being accredited by award ceremonies such as the BAFTAs.

the effects unto advertising and marketing

The images above show mainly advert pages from magazines. in the 90's it was the best way to advertise games as many children read comics and magazines, but was not widely accepted among society and pop culture enough to get wide spread advertising. Although, some games did have adverts on the tv.
It was in 1995 that the Internet was commercialized which then brought a new wave of potential advertising. Not only could adverts be posted on the internet for people to see, but they would be discussed on blogs etc increasing the name and discussion of games and companies.
Moving into the 00's, games are now widely advertised on the tv and on the internet as videos. The internet also allows you to now go to the games website and get information on a game, get downloadable content an buy games online. Games are now being openly advertised on the streets at bus stops, on the sides of buses  on billboards etc.  with the development of smart phones and portable devices such as the ipad, accessing the audience and accessing games has never been easier.
Going on into the 10's, with technology constantly moving forward there will be more and new ways to advertise games and to reach larger audiences.