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With current generations raised on the lightning-fast processing speeds and crystal clear graphics of Xboxes and PlayStations (and with the tide of virtual reality-based video games fast approaching), it’s easy to forget that just 50 years ago, digital gaming existed in only a few laboratories around the world, the experiments of unknown Ph.D. students or well-known scientists and mathematicians who would change the entertainment industry. Today, video games are an entrenched part of our cultures and routines. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 59% of Americans played video games in 2013. That same year, consumers spent $21.5 billion on video games, the association reported. Gamers today aren’t only packs of teenage boys, either. The average American game player is 31 years old and 48 percent of all American gamers are women, the ESA reports.

We were assigned the platform theme therefore we had to find a fitting technology. Some members of our group had experience with two platforms, Steam and the Playstation Network. With their help we could clearly understand how both these platforms work. Both platform are owned by a third party, Valve for Steam and Sony for the Playstation Network. The aim of these platforms is to join the game buyers and the game developers. To use Steam the players need to download it on their computer and to use the Playstation Network the user needs to have a Playstation console. Both Consoles are therefore serving two separate market, the computer gaming (Steam) and the console gaming (Playstation Network). The use of both platform is free for the players, the platform allows them to join a community of players and to buy games for a cheaper price. The game developers however have to pay a fee to put their games on the platform.

The simple fact that people can now play games online with friends and strangers has been the biggest way online gaming changed the traditional way of gaming. Some gamers now refuse to buy games that don’t have an online multiplayer component. Many of today’s most popular games sell in the millions precisely because of the draw of online multiplayer. Both platforms therefore attract the players willing to play online. Players are forced to use these platform to play online making their use mandatory for them. Therefore this is attracting not only the people wanting to buy games but also the people who wants to play online.

The gaming online platform are disruptive for the video game industry, stores use to make most of the sales for gaming industry. Physical stores keep 70% of the price of the game, Steam only keeps 30% and does not have the cost of a brick and mortar store. Therefore developers have the incentive to put their game on these platform, they can give a lower price to the players while making a higher margin. Once every three month Steam offers the Steam sales where most of game price is cut down, the amount of money spend during this week is huge this summer in one week it sold 37 millions games. No physical store retailers could offer such low price, because of the high cost of distribution, store maintenance and labor costs they have to pay. More value is therefore created for both customer and developers. More than 800 millions games have been bought on Steam, 40% of them have never been played, this shows that players don’t buy games because they want them but because of their price.

To also attract more developers, they also provide services for small developers who do not have the money to pay for the distribution cost in stores. They make it very easy for them to put their games on the market, this enhance the value of the platform as it increases the number of games, Steam has more than 7000 games on its store. Another interesting feature is the fact that it also puts the gamers and the developers in contact the Steam Greenlight allows the players to choose which game they would like to play.

These online platforms represent the future and the present of the video game industry. They already captured most of the players, 75% of online sales on PC are made on Steam. Everyday these platforms grow stronger with more games and more players, they have integrated many functions: Transaction Provider, Community Provider, Service Provider, Content provider. The functionalities offered by the cloud will enhance the possibilities of these platform. The consoles and the computer are limited by their hardware, cloud gaming could offer a great opportunity allowing everyone to play without owning a powerful computer or a playstation.

References:

http://venturebeat.com/2016/06/08/the-u-s-and-global-game-industries-will-grow-a-healthy-amount-y-2020-pwc forecasts/

http://www.onlineeducation.net/videogame_timelinehttp://store.steampowered.com/about/

https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/31/the-history-of-gaming-an-evolving-community/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/network/

Click to access Essential-Facts-2016.pdf

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Steam

http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/entertainment-media/outlook/data-insights.html

The biggest entertainment markets in the world

http://www.forbes.com/sites/edblack/2013/01/24/music-video-book-game-markets-growing-for-entertainment-industry-study-finds/#57260ffb6e8e

http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/6/12107700/steam-summer-sale-2016-best-selling-games

 

Team 64

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The internet has changed the way politics used to be played. In 2008, when Barack Obama won the presidential elections he was one of the first candidates to make such use of internet. His website had more than 1.5 million accounts which greatly helped him raise money. During his campaign, 3 million different donors gave money through the internet. In the end he had raised almost 800 million $ to spend for his campaign; whereas his opponent John McCain barely came close to 400 million. This was mainly due to Obama’s innovative way of using internet. We will look at different dimensions in which internet can have an impact during a political campaign.

$

The first dimension is fundraising, money is the most important component to win an election. In history few candidates managed to win an election when they had less money than their opponent. For small donors (Under 200$) it is now very easy to give money to a given candidate through internet, 50% of the people who donated money to a candidate did it online during the 2012 election. It is a driving force for some candidates, Bernie Sanders raised 60% of the 230 million he raised for the Democratic Party primary thanks to small donors, he was considered as an outsider because of the political positions he was defending, and without internet he would never have given so much trouble to Hilary Clinton. More than helping the “big candidates”, donations can boost small candidate by mitigating the impact of large donors.

Mobilizing

Internet is a tool for candidates to mobilize crowds for a meeting or a reunion. Through social media, candidates can attract many people to an event. People can be seen as an advertisement intermediary, sharing content on Facebook or sending mails is free advertisement. Social networks are now also political platforms, were people, share, exchange and debate. Internet can be a great tool to reach a different audience that is younger and more sensitive to internet.

Connecting

We can see with Donald Trump’s use of twitter that internet has also become a way to connect with fans. The candidates can directly reach their audience, it is a direct channel to the electors. Candidates now have to react directly to anything, the speed of information now is instantaneous and internet allows that. For the users it also means that with internet you can have all the information you want, you can receive a full PDF of the program or you can just watch a 30 seconds video’s on who to vote for, the information can be tailored to the person.

It’s hard to predict who will win the next US election, but the one who will make the best use of internet will increase his or her chances. I personally think Donald Trump will win, as far as American people hate him they hate Hilary even more, more than we Europeans realize. And we are too confident Brexit happened…

 

Readings I made before writing this article:

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00000528

Propelled by Internet, Barack Obama Wins Presidency

Politics Fact Sheet

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/20/hillary-clinton-fundraising-report-donald-trump-us-election

http://www.doz.com/marketing-resources/three-ways-internet-changed-political-campaigns