Impact of Societal, Cultural, and Technological Factors on Video Game Development

Games In
Context

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Discussion of momentous development of the video game industry......3
P2 Assessment of technological innovation within the video game industry
.....................................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3 Impact of societal, cultural, technological and economical elements on
development of video games.......................................................................5
P4 Analysis of relationship between consumer expectation and product
development.................................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P5 Effect of culture society and technology on the video game watchdog. .6
P6 Evaluation of relationship between video game marketing and social
and cultural elements...................................................................................6
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................7
P7 Presentation of research analysis and conclusion...................................7
P8 Theories of contemporary game development .......................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFRENCES ................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The video game industry is one of the fastest industries in the world. This industry is
involved in construction, marketing and generating income from sale of video games. This report
focuses on the video game industry and provides and its historical development. Technological
innovations which contributed to the progress of this industry along with current technology used
in this sector are also provided in this report. The ways in which societal, cultural and
economical factors affect the video game industry is also given in this report along with relation
between consumer expectations and product development. The impact of cultural and technology
on action adventure game watchdogs is mentioned in this report. The relationship between video
game promotion and social and cultural elements is evaluated in this report. Apart from this,
theories and practices utilised in the video game industry for game development are provided in
this report.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
P1 Discussion of momentous development of the video game industry
The invention of cathode ray tube which is the same technology used in television helped
in development of early versions of video game in the 1940’s and 1950’s. the main similarity
between video game of this era and the current video games was that it enabled interaction
between the player and the machine such as Bertie the brain and Nimatron. Spacewar is one of
the first known examples of video games which was developed by Harvard and MIT employees

in 1962. Technological development in the form wide usage of main frame computers and easy
programming languages such as BASIC made a significant contribution to development of the
video game industry. The time period of 1970 to 1983 marked the golden age of video arcade
games. The early years of this era were dominated by Pong, a game developed by Atari Inc. This
was the first financially successful video game as it and introduced the use of coin based operator
in gaming industry. This game included multiplayer tennis with two dimensional graphics and
could be played with single hand. This enabled the players to interact with each other during
usage of the arcade machine and resulted information of culture surrounding the game.
Development of first video game console Magnavox Odysey which visually displayed video
games and came with a controller which allowed the player to interact and play the game
contributed to the development of the videogame market. Launch of space invaders was another
milestone for the arcade video game sector as it resulted in widespread demand of arcade games
from shopping malls to convenience stores (Bosman, 2019). The 1980’s introduced 8 bit home
computing which helped in development of hand held video games such as the game boy. Hand
held video game system changed the video game industry as they introduced a technology which
allowed the consumers to play their video games from any place due to the small size of such
systems. This increased the popularity of video games on a global scale and expanded the video
game industry as international organization from Europe and Japan entered this industry. The
1990s saw the development of 3D graphics which are the current norm in the industry along with
the usage of CD storage. Widespread usage of internet and miniaturization of mobile technology
started the trend of internet gaming and mobile gaining which are currently the most popular
gaming platforms of the video game industry. This technological development lead to formation
of affordable video games and enhanced the global reach of the video game industry to
developing economies. Cultural impact of this technology is still seen today as it caused the rise
of competitive gaming and e-sports (Rogers, 2016). The 2010 was the decade which increased
the popularity of e-sports which increased the desirability of gaming skills and created a
professional industry surrounding gaming.
P2 Assessment of technological innovation within the video game industry
The gaming industry has been continuously improving due to technological
advancement. Construction of easy programming language was the initial technological
development which helped in progress of the video game industry. This along with the
development of 2D graphics was the main contributor to success of initial commercial games
such as Pong, CD based storage and rise of personal computers paved the way for development
of the gaming industry as it enabled easy distribution. It was not until the rise of mobile gaming
and introduction of smartphones that the consumer base for the video game industry reached
billions. The launch of apple application store frothier products and subsequent release of goggle
play store for android devices enabled the video game industry to reach billions of consumers.
Increase in online gaming is also attributed to the widespread usage of smartphones. This was
highly advantageous for the video game industry as it helped the industry reach emerging
economies (Kerr, 2017). Online gaming created professional industry surrounding gaming and
assisted in development of gaming as a mainstream sports.
Current technology impacting the video game industry includes Virtual reality and augmented
reality technology. Virtual Reality games include interactive hardware and software which are
used to interact with 3D objects in an artificial world. Players can explore this artificial world
through this technology and gain an immersive and realistic experience of this artificial world.
The gaming industry is using this technology to transform the user experience of consumers.