Business Models

Arcade

Games which were made in the 70 – late 80’s that are operated by inserting a coin, these machines are a lot larger than the consoles that are used today. In the 90’s Japan had a national coin shortage due to people playing the hit game at the time Space invaders. The game controls in these days were very different to the ones now, back then arcade machines in most arcades would feature a Joystick which would be used to move and a series of buttons which would be used to do the main actions such as with mortal kombat they were used to punch and kick.

The 1st Arcade game to be created was the Computer Space which was very complex to understand but addictive once you understood how to play it.

An example of the arcade games that are still in use today are the time crisis first person simulator, house of the dead and Terminator salvation.

Box Ship, Done

These Consoles originate in the 80’s and are still liked by most people who have had one in the past or just like playing the origin of the games they enjoy in the present day. These consoles only required the use of electric and a little extra money depending on whether you wanted a new game to play

At the time these consoles were the next big thing because before they were released people had to pay handfuls of coins per hour to play the game they enjoyed, so when these consoles were created people were excited about the idea that they could play for no extra cost the games they enjoyed without no interruptions or fees.

Observe Measure and Modify

This Consoles Originate In 00’s and is still used today and everyday get better and better.

These consoles can be used for home use and you can connect to the internet and chat with your friends while playing you favourite games. An example of something this has achieved is all 3 major gaming company’s all have their own kind of currency if you like which is called a micro transaction, Microsoft has Microsoft Points, play station has PlayStation points & Nintendo has Nintendo points the best use of these in my opinion, is when you walk into a Local game store you can just buy them from the counter and then redeem them on your console without having to enter your bank details which can lead to fraud if you’re not careful.

One of the pros about these are you can save them on your profile and just leave them there until something that catches your eye is released, a problem with this is due to game stores not staying open all night, if something is released and all your friends have it and you really want it because you or your parent doesn’t want their details saved on the console you will have to wait until the next day to purchase them. Fortunately there is PayPal which can resolve this problem in allot of ways one being you can just purchase a Microsoft points code from the internet or even the Xbox website without saving your details to their database.

Another thing that is a main feature for the online services is System & title updates, a system update is when the whole console is updated and new things are added onto the systems dashboard itself such as internet explorer for the Xbox 360. A title update is when a game such as call of duty is updated and new features are added such as altered or brand new game modes, but in most cases these title updates are used to fix bugs, glitches and disable access from Hackers doing what they please, one of the main problems with this is title updates are not cheap and in some cases the developers are not willing to give up there hard earned cash to make a long term profit, an example of this is now currently call of duty 4 Modern Warfare for Pc, Xbox and PlayStation is swarming with hackers due to the developers just not giving a damn which is a shame because many people enjoy playing the classic games.

Luckily with newly released games like call of duty black ops 2 hackers do gain access but are immediately banned or a title update is put in place, this is thanks to the team of developers parting with their money to help keep the game alive and with sales of over 1 billion there not going short.

There are many other games that run in many different ways such as social games such as face books Farmville has over 31 million people playing each day, the game didn’t cost a heap to make but because of the amount of users even if the game only generates 1 penny a day due to the amount of people that play times the amount of days per year the game makes around 113 million in that scenario and keeping in mind that 3 – 5 % of people who play games buy virtual goods times that by the amount of days per year and players who are on it each day you can see why the game is so successful.

Another known way of making money is an advertisement which is anything from a short clip on YouTube whilst waiting for a video to load to a cinematic trailer on your TV.

The way games like World of Warcraft make money is the high cost of pretty much everything from expansion packs to memberships but one of the cool facts which redeems them is the gold you earn on the game can be sold for real money.

Newly introduced way of playing games is from your TV, smart TV of course you can now download apps similar to ones on smartphones, Gives you the ability to connect to social networking sites whilst watching a movie and or program. Yes the smart TV is very much a TV with a computer jammed into it but his has advantages like not needing to have both the computer and TV on whilst doing research and the ability of playing apps and games on a bigger screen without the need of buying a tablet.

The final and very successful market I am going to mention is steam, created by valve and helps both the creators of the game and the players. Steam gives the players easier access to downloadable content as well as the ability to chat with their friends whilst doing so, much like the set up Xbox and PlayStation have. But as well as being helpful to the players Valve is a great ally to the game developers and publishers them self-helping them sell their games as well as giving the player advantage of paying less for the games & services such as cloud and VAC.