timed essay question 1

 

Explain how ongoing audience interaction influences the production of video games. Refer to Minecraft to support your answer.

Minecraft was a game originally made for programmers and coders to help understand different software. this meant that the game was aimed towards quite a niche audience, so the creators weren't expecting a large audience or a large profit from the release of this game.

 Before the games release there was no advertisements across any social media platforms for the game in order to gain a larger audience, so the creators of the game never expected the reaction that they got when the game was released. In the games first month of release it managed to gain 1 million downloads which later developed the social and audience interaction for the game. factors like social and audience interaction are very important in order to decide whether a game is going to be successful or not. 

When Minecraft was first released, it had two gaming modes which consisted of creative and survival, this gave the audience an opportunity to play the same game but in different ways, this helps to grow the audience faster as they have two versions of the same game. This growth in popularity that the game had, led to the creators adding more modes to keep audiences interested, this included modes like adventure and spectator, which gave fans of the game the opportunity to play along with other players  which creates social interaction between the players of the game. Not only did the game add more modes, it also released new platforms audiences are able to play it on, for example they released a pocket version which allowed players to download the game of their phones or tablets, they also released a version that fans could download on their games console which meant that players could invite their friends to play the game with them, therefore creating more audience interaction for the game. This links to the uses and gratifications theory, as the more modes the producers add to the game the more the audience will get out of it, as the game is most likely used by the audience for escapism and entertainment, so by adding these new modes audience will be more interested in the game and will want to play it more often. Most of these changes were happening as the creators sold the game for millions of dollars, to one of the most well-known computing companies in the world which was Microsoft, and these changes were added to the game by them in order to make it more profitable. 

These changes and adjustments to the game led to players of the game advertising the game on social media platforms, but mainly being YouTube. Players of the game would record videos of themselves playing the game so that other fans of Minecraft were able to see different modes and versions of the game being demonstrated by a fan of the game. This made the audience of Minecraft become prosumers, so in the videos they would be able to say what is good about the game and what is bad, and then what they would add to improve the experience of playing the game. The use of gaming videos links to fandom theory, as views of the gamers videos would be able to interact with them as well as, other fans which lead to more conversations around the game to make it more popular. This idea of fandom theory is also continued with this game as there are conventions for Minecraft for fans of the game to go to and interact with other fans as they all have this common interest in the game. 

In conclusion, with every video game audience interaction is extremely important in deciding whether a video game will be successful or not. Minecraft in particular has been very good with creating audience interaction since the surprise success of the game. Factors like adding new modes and letting fans of the game so other fans how they play the game, has been extremely effective in creating that audience interaction as the audiences of the game are creating a large online community where they're able to discuss with each other what they like or dislike about the game, so the producers are able to take away feedback from this and mold the new add-ons for the game around what the audience have said.