Reality is Broken

Reality is Broken - Jane McGonigal

• The planet is spending more than 3 billion hours a week gaming. 
• Collectively, there are 4 million gamers in the Middle East, 105 million in India, 100 million in Europe and 200 million in China. 
• More than 10 million "Hard Core" gamers in the UK, France and Germany spend at least 20 hours a week playing.
• Looking at statistics, every average American person who reaches the age of 21 will have spent 10,000 hours gaming. 
• The planet is spending more than 3 billion hours a week gaming. 
• 5 million 'extreme gamers' in the US play games on an average of 45 hours a week.
• Digital games, across most media platforms, is expected to be a $68 billion industry by the end of the year.
• 97% of young people play video games.
• 40% of gamers are women.
• 69% of heads of households play video games.
• 5.93 million years have been spent playing World of Warcraft. 5.93 million years ago, our first ancestors stood up, this shows how much time is spent playing video games.

Zynga!

Zynga is a company that develops games that work both stand-alone on mobile phone platforms such as Apple iOS and Android and as application widgets on its website and social networking websites such as Facebook and Google+. Zynga's mission is 'Connecting the world through games.'
Zynga is mostly known for the creation of games such as FarmVille, CityVille, CastleVille, ChefVille, Mafia Wars and Words With Friends.
A lot of people wonder how Zynga makes its money, especially seeing as the games that they create, their business model is free-to-play. Zynga is supported in two ways, via credit card payments and partner businesses.
Farmville 2 is a sequel to Farmville and was released in September of 2012. It's available as an adbone flash application via the social networking website Facebook and Microsoft's MSN games. The game is a freemium game which means there's no cost to play however players have the option to purchase premium content.

Skylanders

Skylanders Giants is a 2012 video game in the skylanders series, it's a direct sequel to the 2011 game skylanders, Spyro's adventure. As the title suggests, it features larger skylanders known as giants along with other gameplay mechanics.
The game was released in October 2012 globally and was released on the following platforms, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360.
The game was published by Activision, Neoplay, Square - Enix and was developed by Toys for Bob, n - space.

Vivendi

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - "Hot Coffee" Mod.

Hot Coffee is a normally inaccessible minigame in the 2004 video game GTA: San Andreas. Although the 'Hot Coffee' minigame was completely disabled and its existence was only highlighted after the mod's release for the PC version in 2005, people had found ways to enable the minigame via console video game hacking tools. The Hot Coffee minigame allows the player to engage in sexual intercourse with any of his six girlfriends.
By July 2005, the mod had attracted a lot of publicity from the likes of politicians and lawmakers, this then led the selling of the game to be stopped and for the game to be re-rated as an adult game.
Rockstar has now vowed that legal action would take place against sources that reveal how to access the minigame.

Mtn Dew & Halo!

This image is a prime example of Symbiosis, Halo and Mountain Dew have come together to promote eachother so they can both make a profit by using eachother. They have thought this out well because a lot of the time, when new games come out, the hardcore gamers will spend a lot of time playing the game to get as far as they can. This means that they will be drinking energy drinks to keep them energized. Mountain Dew fits a lot better than other energy drinks such as Red Bull because there are vibrant neon colours which seem very futuristic and sci-fi, this relates to Halo because the game is very futuristic.

Top 20 Games

The game which takes the top of the chart is the brand new Assassin's Creed III, this game was published by ubisoft and is available on the Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Wii U. Assassin's Creed III was released on the 31st October for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, it will be available to purchase on the PC and Wii U from November 20th - 30th. Ubisoft has stuck to keeping the game on the most popular consoles and has still had great success with it. The game has debuted as No.1 in the UK All Formats Charts and is the publisher's biggest launch to date, it's almost doubled the week one sales of Assassin's Creed II. Despite the place of the game on the chart, it's the second biggest UK game launch of the year so far, after September's FIFA 13. The Xbox 360 version of Assassin's Creed accounted for 59 per cent of sales, with the other 41 taken by the PS3.
On the rest of the chart, the publishers EA have 3 games in the top 6 and they are all franchises, the Medal of Honor franchise is trying to resurrect the game and has succeeded by selling 2m copies since its release last month, this is the 16th Medal of Honor game to date. Need for Speed: Most Wanted has been released on the Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Vita and has came 5th in the Top 20 Platforms Chart. FIFA 13 came 2nd on the whole chart and one of the main reasons why the FIFA franchise being so popular is the fact that they are available on all consoles instead of being restricted to a certain few consoles, the reason why the FIFA games are available on the PS2 is because in Brazil and India, people still play the PS2 and they are very big fans of FIFA, so by EA making FIFA available on the PS2, they are able to get more money for the sales as there are more consoles to sell the game on.
Ubisoft also has 3 games on the whole chart, these games are Assassin's Creed III, Just Dance 4 and Assassin's Creed III: Liberation. All these games are franchises because there have been previous releases of the game and there are now newer versions out.
Activison also has 2 games on the chart, these games are Skylanders Giants and Moshi Monsters: Moshlings Theme Park. Activision has targetted the childrens market well because these games have came 8th and 12th on the Platform Chart.
Nintendo is the most popular first party franchise, this means that when Nintendo release a game, they only make it available to play on Nintendo consoles such as the Wii, Wii U and the DS. The games that Nintendo have released recently are Pokémon Black and White 2 and Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask. These games are also aimed at the childrens market and they have came in places 11th and 15th.
Microsoft is the lesser known first party publisher and has reelased Forza Horizon which is only available on the Xbox 360, this game has came 7th overall so the sales for the game must have been very high and Microsoft will have got a very large income for the game because it has only been released on the Microsoft console. When you log onto your Xbox 360, Microsoft has a giant marketplace where it promotes their own games more than any other games, you will notice that when you log onto Xbox, there will be advertisements for Halo and Forza Horizon more than anything else.
Finally, there is a brand new IP called Dishonored which has been published by Bethesda Softworkers and is available on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The game is being developed by Arkane Studio whose former titles include Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. The developer's intention is to "shatter the mold that first-person action games have built for themselves in the mainstream".