Video Games

 

Ownership

It is owned by Activision

Developers of the games in a rotational basis:

• Infinity ward

• Treyarch

• Sledgehammer games

Franchising

Activision also franchises the Call of Duty brand to a number of different companies.

Merchandise includes action figures, comic books and card games.

E.g. Explicit figurines with weapons

Marketing and Distribution (notes from the article)

It is a video games franchise that has brought in a lot of revenue since 2013 (the article is from 2017)

In terms of marketing, they have used celebrity endorsement as a strategy to market the videogame. E.g. Michal B Jordan

One of the ways to connect with their audience is to tease out exclusive content by baking puzzles into trending digital platform.

They release teasers about every six months.

Billboards is a traditional strategy of marketing that it is also used. E.g. BFI billboard

Live stream on Facebook, twitter and Instagram, this helps as it hits a big age range for their target audience.

Digital marketing-  They realised 5 billboards in major cities. In each of these billboards there was a QR code to unlock exclusive content. This makes their audience feel special.

They spend 36 million dollars advertising their 2016 CoD title “Infinity Warfare”

Black ops 3 

Activision embedded Snap codes into different locations o could be scanned that would direct them to Call of duty snapchat account.

The website 

The tope of the home page has different tabs

• Games

• News

• Store

• Esports

The rest of the website is aimed at a younger audience as it is mainly uses images.

*Compared the community 

Audience and regulations

GRA (Games rating authority) regulating body

It is used by parents as it shows the recommended age for children however these recommendations are not often followed. E.g. young children playing COD

PEGI – Pan European Game Information

Discrimination drugs involved 

These are recommended but it is up to the players and the parents to make the decision of whether it is appropriate for them to play.

Article annotations (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33960075)

There is not single factor to blame videogames for people’s violence

There is a controversy of whether videogames are to blame for violence.

The European Games Information (PEGI) system analyses games and gives them age ratings. There are 5 age ratings (3, 7 12, 16 and 18)

The main problem is that violence it is hard to classify, gross violence can be very subjective. 

The API uses meta-analysis (using lots of results from multiple studies) to find patterns and correlations.

What theory could you apply to this article? 

Reception theory - It provides entertainment 

Active and passive audience – active audience would interact with the game (for example breaking TV)

Passive audience do not 

Hypoactive needle theory when enforcing ideas or ideologies in certain people. 

Desensitization - when someone has been exposed to violent games for a long time then the person has become used to seeing violence so does not react

Moral panic- when you are shocked or fearful. E.g. teenagers wearing baklavas, older people being fearful that that they would attack them

Audience 

The violence it is extreme and should not be played by children (there is only one CoD that is PEGI 16, all the others are PEGI18)

The true audience is a much younger audience