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".

Digital Distribution

In this essay I will be talking about the advantages and disadvantages of digital distribution and whether it should become the main source of purchasing games, I will also be talking about the arguments for and against digital distribution and why people would and would not want digital distribution to take over.

Digital Distribution is the delivery of media content such as audio, video, software, and in this case, video games. The term online distribution is typically applied to freestanding products; downloadable add-ons for other products are better known as downloadable content or DLC.

The biggest and most obvious benefit to downloading games online is immediate enjoyment. It’s possible to buy the game at any hour of the day or night, there’s no need to stand outside shops in the early morning. In fact, you don’t even have to move to purchase it. With this ability to download the game to any computer, it’s easy to play it anywhere and enjoy auto-patches without having to hunt through desks and filing cabinets looking for disks or validation keys. The most attractive thing about digital distribution is the fact that there is no clutter, no boxes, plastic wrapping or manuals.

Whilst digital distribution makes a very convincing argument, there are still significant benefits to owning an actual physical copy of a game. For one thing, faster installation, depending on the internet connection that you have, it’s possible that you could be waiting several hours just for one game to download completely, whereas with an actual disk the process is much, much faster.  If you have the physical copy of a game, it’s easy to lend them to friends and you can play them even when you don’t have access to the internet. The strongest argument for buying physical copies concerns the collectors; those who love looking at their game collections, counting it, cataloguing it and crooning softly to it like Gollum with the One Ring are highly unlikely to be talked into buying games digitally.

The cost for digital distribution is often less for the publishers than physical copies because they’re not paying for packaging, shipping or point of purchase costs. Even better, if something happens to the game such as it stops working, you can uninstall it and re-download it again and you don’t have to spend money buying it all over again.

While it is true that boxed games usually cost more, there’s the possibility of saving money by buying them used which is something that digital distribution doesn't offer. It’s also possible for you to sell or trade your games once you’re doing with them to stretch your gaming cash.

Another major advantage is the fact that digital distribution is a blessing for indie game developers as it gives them the tools to spread the word of their game, to have easy access to a large market, and ultimately the potential to have a hit on popular distribution services like Apple’s Appstore, the Android Market, XBLA, Steam and the PSN Store. Online markets are so huge today that it gives indie developers the opportunity to get their concepts and ideas out in to the world, so that it may be ridiculed, or so that it becomes a worldwide phenomenon.

The last advantage that I’m going to be talking about is the discounts that the markets offer, if you download games from Steam, there are plenty of sales and offers on all the time which makes games even cheaper to buy.  For example, they do certain days where you can earn achievements and claim prizes in “The Steam Summer Camp Sale”. This is a good way to advertise because promotional sales give players further motive to download games.

In conclusion, I believe that digital distribution is amazing and minor disadvantages shouldn’t sway people away from what is inevitably the future of gaming. Although, believing that digital distribution is going to be the future of gaming, retail copies of games are going to be around for a very long time, so if you still want to get the soundtrack, art book, character figure from the Collector’s edition of your favourite game, you still can, and will be able to for a very long time.