The Stabroek News is a privately owned newspaper published in Guyana . It takes its name from Stabroek / ˈ s t æ b r uː k / , the former name of Georgetown, Guyana .
128-653: It was first published in November 1986, first as a weekly but it later changed to a daily print newspaper. The entry of the paper into the mass media in Guyana brought a new openness to the media environment in the country. It was founded by David DeCaires , who died on November 1, 2008. Stabroek News is also the sole distributor of DirecTV Caribbean in Guyana. There has been some controversy as illegal distributors of DirecTV Caribbean in Guyana have not provided services to those who have paid for it. This Guyana article
256-408: A computer game or just a game , is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick , controller , keyboard , or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device , most commonly shown in a video format on a television set , computer monitor , flat-panel display or touchscreen on handheld devices , or
384-430: A soft cover . Magazines fall into two broad categories: consumer magazines and business magazines. In practice, magazines are a subset of periodicals , distinct from those periodicals produced by scientific, artistic, academic or special interest publishers which are subscription-only, more expensive, narrowly limited in circulation, and often have little or no advertising. Magazines can be classified as: A newspaper
512-457: A teletype printer , audio speaker , or similar device. This also distinguished from many handheld electronic games like Merlin which commonly used LED lights for indicators but did not use these in combination for imaging purposes. "Computer game" may also be used as a descriptor, as all these types of games essentially require the use of a computer processor, and in some cases, it is used interchangeably with "video game". Particularly in
640-638: A virtual reality headset . These games are addictive and can lead to the release of dopamine in the addict's synapses. Most modern video games are audiovisual , with audio complement delivered through speakers or headphones , and sometimes also with other types of sensory feedback (e.g., haptic technology that provides tactile sensations). Some video games also allow microphone and webcam inputs for in-game chatting and livestreaming . Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform , which traditionally includes arcade video games , console games , and computer (PC) games ;
768-544: A DEC PDP-1 computer in 1962. Each game has different means of display: NIMROD has a panel of lights to play the game of Nim , OXO has a graphical display to play tic-tac-toe, Tennis for Two has an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court, and Spacewar! has the DEC PDP-1's vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. These inventions laid the foundation for modern video games. In 1966, while working at Sanders Associates , Ralph H. Baer devised
896-484: A book resembling a photo album. The first collection of records to be called an "album" was Tchaikovsky 's Nutcracker Suite , release in April 1909 as a four-disc set by Odeon Records . It retailed for 16 shillings —about £ 15 in modern currency. A music video (also promo) is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song . Modern music videos were primarily made and used as
1024-438: A catchall phrase that encompasses the aforementioned along with any game made for any other device, including, but not limited to, advanced calculators, mobile phones, PDAs , etc. Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical or mechanical re-creation or amplification of sound , often as music . This involves the use of audio equipment such as microphones, recording devices and loudspeakers. From early beginnings with
1152-437: A combination of the limitations of the game platform and display device and the program efficiency of the game itself. The game's output can range from fixed displays using LED or LCD elements, text-based games , two-dimensional and three-dimensional graphics, and augmented reality displays. The game's graphics are often accompanied by sound produced by internal speakers on the game platform or external speakers attached to
1280-445: A developer's programming language of choice, or they may opt to also use game development kits that minimize the amount of direct programming they have to do but can also limit the amount of customization they can add into a game. Like all software, video games usually undergo quality testing before release to assure there are no bugs or glitches in the product, though frequently developers will release patches and updates . With
1408-487: A device used to access a mass medium (the Internet). Video games may also be evolving into a mass medium. Video games (for example, massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), such as RuneScape ) provide a common gaming experience to millions of users across the globe and convey the same messages and ideologies to all their users. Users sometimes share the experience with one another by playing online. Excluding
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#17328721362481536-414: A fictional piece of technology from Star Trek , arguing for the video game as a medium in which the player is allowed to become another person, and to act out in another world. This image of video games received early widespread popular support, and forms the basis of films such as Tron , eXistenZ and The Last Starfighter . Ludologists break sharply and radically from this idea. They argue that
1664-432: A game following its initial release. Several games offer players the ability to create user-generated content to share with others to play. Other games, mostly those on personal computers, can be extended with user-created modifications or mods that alter or add onto the game; these often are unofficial and were developed by players from reverse engineering of the game, but other games provide official support for modding
1792-415: A letter dated July 10, 1972. In the letter, Bushnell uses the term "video game" twice. Per video game historian Keith Smith, the sudden appearance suggested that the term had been proposed and readily adopted by those in the field. Around March 1973, Ed Adlum, who ran Cashbox ' s coin-operated section until 1972 and then later founded RePlay Magazine , covering the coin-op amusement field, in 1975, used
1920-504: A limited number of platforms, and exclusivity to a platform or brand is used by platform holders as a competitive edge in the video game market. However, games may be developed for alternative platforms than intended, which are described as ports or conversions. These also may be remasters - where most of the original game's source code is reused and art assets, models, and game levels are updated for modern systems – and remakes, where in addition to asset improvements, significant reworking of
2048-678: A marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s, when Music Television 's format was based on them. In the 1980s, the term "rock video" was often used to describe this form of entertainment, although the term has fallen into disuse. Music videos can accommodate all styles of filmmaking, including animation , live-action films, documentaries , and non-narrative, abstract film . The Internet (also known simply as "the Net" or less precisely as "the Web")
2176-432: A minimum age is used by nearly all systems, along with additional descriptors to identify specific content that players and parents should be aware of. The regulations vary from country to country but generally are voluntary systems upheld by vendor practices, with penalty and fines issued by the ratings body on the video game publisher for misuse of the ratings. Among the major content rating systems include: Additionally,
2304-424: A more powerful media than either TV or the internet, starting with mobile being permanently carried and always connected. Mobile has the best audience accuracy and is the only mass media with a built-in payment channel available to every user without any credit cards or PayPal accounts or even an age limit. Mobile is often called the 7th Mass Medium and either the fourth screen (if counting cinema, TV and PC screens) or
2432-452: A newspaper, or watching the 10 o'clock news, people can log onto the internet to get the news they want, when they want it. For example, many workers listen to the radio through the Internet while sitting at their desk. Even the education system relies on the Internet. Teachers can contact the entire class by sending one e-mail. They may have web pages on which students can get another copy of
2560-607: A number of technologies combined to produce podcasting . Podcasting is an asynchronous broadcast/narrowcast medium. Adam Curry and his associates, the Podshow , are principal proponents of podcasting. The term ' film ' encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. The name comes from the photographic film (also called film stock ), historically the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms for film exist, such as motion pictures (or just pictures and "picture"),
2688-462: A particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images and other graphics, and links to other blogs, web pages, and related media. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog) and audio (podcasting), are part of
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#17328721362482816-551: A platform, the hardware which contains computing elements, to process player interaction from some type of input device and displays the results to a video output display. Video games require a platform, a specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware and associated software , to operate. The term system is also commonly used. These platforms may include multiple brandsheld by platform holders , such as Nintendo or Sony, seeking to gain larger market shares. Games are typically designed to be played on one or
2944-464: A relatively recent development in the humanities. The two most visible schools in this emerging field are ludology and narratology . Narrativists approach video games in the context of what Janet Murray calls "Cyberdrama". That is to say, their major concern is with video games as a storytelling medium, one that arises out of interactive fiction . Murray puts video games in the context of the Holodeck ,
3072-455: A service . Today, video game development requires numerous interdisciplinary skills, vision , teamwork , and liaisons between different parties, including developers , publishers , distributors , retailers , hardware manufacturers, and other marketers, to successfully bring a game to its consumers. As of 2020 , the global video game market had estimated annual revenues of US$ 159 billion across hardware, software, and services, which
3200-590: A similar version running in a smaller coin-operated arcade cabinet using a less expensive computer. This was released as Computer Space , the first arcade video game , in 1971. Bushnell and Dabney went on to form Atari, Inc. , and with Allan Alcorn , created their second arcade game in 1972, the hit ping pong -style Pong , which was directly inspired by the table tennis game on the Odyssey. Sanders and Magnavox sued Atari for infringement of Baer's patents, but Atari settled out of court, paying for perpetual rights to
3328-515: A system to play a basic table tennis game on a television screen. With the company's approval, Baer created the prototype known as the "Brown Box." Sanders patented Baer’s innovations and licensed them to Magnavox , which commercialized the technology as the first home video game console , the Magnavox Odyssey , released in 1972. Separately, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney , inspired by seeing Spacewar! running at Stanford University , devised
3456-461: A theme, which can be exampled with The Wall Street Journal as they offer news on finance and business related-topics. The first printed newspaper was published in 1605, and the form has thrived even in the face of competition from technologies such as radio and television. Recent developments on the Internet are posing major threats to its business model, however. Paid circulation is declining in most countries, and advertising revenue, which makes up
3584-424: A video game are primarily determined by the underlying set of rules, demands, and expectations imposed on the player. While many games rely on emergent principles , video games commonly present simulated story worlds where emergent behavior occurs within the context of the game. The term "emergent narrative" has been used to describe how, in a simulated environment, storyline can be created simply by "what happens to
3712-412: A video game is first and foremost a game, which must be understood in terms of its rules, interface, and the concept of play that it deploys. Espen J. Aarseth argues that, although games certainly have plots, characters, and aspects of traditional narratives, these aspects are incidental to gameplay. For example, Aarseth is critical of the widespread attention that narrativists have given to the heroine of
3840-457: A way to distinguish them from console games , arcade games , or mobile games . Other terms such as "television game", "telegame", or "TV game" had been used in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly for home gaming consoles that rely on connection to a television set . However, these terms were also used interchangeably with "video game" in the 1970s, primarily due to "video" and "television" being synonymous. In Japan , where consoles like
3968-463: A wider network of social media. Microblogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired , news-oriented community sites like Slashdot , and personal blogs. It is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts. An RSS document (which
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4096-411: A word from Billboard ' s description of movie jukeboxes, Adlum started to refer to this new breed of amusement machine as 'video games.' The phrase stuck." Adlum explained in 1985 that up until the early 1970s, amusement arcades typically had non-video arcade games such as pinball machines and electro-mechanical games . With the arrival of video games in arcades during the early 1970s, there
4224-486: A worldwide attraction, especially with the addition of dubbing or subtitles that translate the original language. A video game is a computer-controlled game in which a video display, such as a monitor or television set, is the primary feedback device. The term "computer game" also includes games which display only text or which use other methods, such as sound or vibration, as their primary feedback device. There always must also be some sort of input device , usually in
4352-436: Is a publication containing news and information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint . It may be general or special interest, most often published daily or weekly. The most important function of newspapers is to inform the public of significant events. Local newspapers inform local communities and include advertisements from local businesses and services, while national newspapers tend to focus on
4480-674: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This South American newspaper-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Mass media Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication . Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films , radio , recorded music, or television . Digital media comprises both Internet and mobile mass communication. Internet media comprise such services as email , social media sites, websites , and Internet-based radio and television. Many other mass media outlets have an additional presence on
4608-490: Is a more interactive medium of mass media, and can be briefly described as "a network of networks". Specifically, it is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business and governmental networks, which together carry various information and services, such as email , online chat , file transfer, and
4736-431: Is a video game "appears highly eclectic and diverse". The gameplay experience varies radically between video games, but many common elements exist. Most games will launch into a title screen and give the player a chance to review options such as the number of players before starting a game. Most games are divided into levels which the player must work the avatar through, scoring points , collecting power-ups to boost
4864-499: Is accessible through the Internet, along with many other services including e-mail, file sharing and others described below. Toward the end of the 20th century, the advent of the World Wide Web marked the first era in which most individuals could have a means of exposure on a scale comparable to that of mass media. Anyone with a web site has the potential to address a global audience, although serving to high levels of web traffic
4992-494: Is called a "feed" or "web feed" or "channel") contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays. A podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to
5120-459: Is frequently a cross-disciplinary field. Video game developers , as employees within this industry are commonly referred to, primarily include programmers and graphic designers . Over the years, this has expanded to include almost every type of skill that one might see prevalent in the creation of any movie or television program, including sound designers , musicians, and other technicians; as well as skills that are specific to video games, such as
5248-421: Is from 1947—a " cathode-ray tube amusement device " was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U.S. Patent 2455992. Inspired by radar display technology, it consists of an analog device allowing a user to control the parabolic arc of a dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which are paper drawings fixed to
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5376-548: Is mostly isolated from the rest of the world due to the government's censorship, and all games published there must adhere to strict government review, disallowing content such as smearing the image of the Chinese Communist Party . Foreign games published in China often require modification by developers and publishers to meet these requirements. Video game development and authorship, much like any other form of entertainment,
5504-403: Is not seen because of an effect known as persistence of vision , whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Also of relevance is what causes the perception of motion: a psychological effect identified as beta movement . Film has emerged as an important art form. They entertain, educate, enlighten and inspire audiences. Any film can become
5632-433: Is sometimes erroneously used as a synonym for " mainstream media ". Mainstream media are distinguished from alternative media by their content and point of view. Alternative media are also "mass media" outlets in the sense that they use technology capable of reaching many people, even if the audience is often smaller than the mainstream. In common usage, the term "mass" denotes not that a given number of individuals receives
5760-836: Is sometimes misunderstood in this way. It can be used for various purposes: Journalism is the discipline of collecting, analyzing, verifying and presenting information regarding current events , trends , issues and people. Those who practice journalism are known as journalists . News -oriented journalism is sometimes described as the "first rough draft of history" (attributed to Phil Graham ), because journalists often record important events, producing news articles on short deadlines. While under pressure to be first with their stories, news media organisations usually edit and proofread their reports prior to publication, adhering to each organisation's standards of accuracy, quality and style. Many news organisation claim proud traditions of holding government officials and institutions accountable to
5888-422: Is still relatively expensive. It is possible that the rise of peer-to-peer technologies may have begun the process of making the cost of bandwidth manageable. Although a vast amount of information, imagery, and commentary (i.e. "content") has been made available, it is often difficult to determine the authenticity and reliability of information contained in web pages (in many cases, self-published). The invention of
6016-447: Is the primary means which one interacts with a video game. The narrative setting does not impact gameplay; a shooter game is still a shooter game, regardless of whether it takes place in a fantasy world or in outer space. An exception is the horror game genre, used for games that are based on narrative elements of horror fiction , the supernatural , and psychological horror . Genre names are normally self-describing in terms of
6144-571: Is three times the size of the global music industry and four times that of the film industry in 2019, making it a formidable heavyweight across the modern entertainment industry . The video game market is also a major influence behind the electronics industry , where personal computer component, console, and peripheral sales, as well as consumer demands for better game performance, have been powerful driving factors for hardware design and innovation. Early video games use interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example
6272-515: The Berne Convention . This typically only applies to the underlying code, as well as to the artistic aspects of the game such as its writing, art assets, and music. Gameplay itself is generally not considered copyrightable; in the United States among other countries, video games are considered to fall into the idea–expression distinction in that it is how the game is presented and expressed to
6400-637: The Clue VCR Mystery Game which required players to watch VCR clips between turns. To distinguish between these two, video games are considered to require some interactivity that affects the visual display. Most video games tend to feature some type of victory or winning conditions, such as a scoring mechanism or a final boss fight. The introduction of walking simulators ( adventure games that allow for exploration but lack any objectives) like Gone Home , and empathy games (video games that tend to focus on emotion) like That Dragon, Cancer brought
6528-540: The United Kingdom and Western Europe , this is common due to the historic relevance of domestically produced microcomputers. Other terms used include digital game, for example, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics . However, the term "computer game" can also be used to more specifically refer to games played primarily on personal computers or other types of flexible hardware systems (also known as PC game ), as
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#17328721362486656-485: The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle ( Entertainment Software Self-Regulation ) would refuse to classify, and thus allow sale, of any game depicting Nazi imagery, and thus often requiring developers to replace such imagery with fictional ones. This ruling was relaxed in 2018 to allow for such imagery for "social adequacy" purposes that applied to other works of art. China's video game segment
6784-476: The crash of the North American video game market in 1983 due to loss of publishing control and saturation of the market. Following the crash, the industry matured, was dominated by Japanese companies such as Nintendo , Sega , and Sony , and established practices and methods around the development and distribution of video games to prevent a similar crash in the future, many of which continue to be followed. In
6912-611: The first-person shooter and the Grand Theft Auto clone , respectively, in the few years after their release. However, at times and more frequently at the onset of the industry, developers would intentionally create video game clones of successful games and game hardware with few changes, which led to the flooded arcade and dedicated home console market around 1978. Cloning is also a major issue with countries that do not have strong intellectual property protection laws, such as within China . The lax oversight by China's government and
7040-409: The game designer . All of these are managed by producers . In the early days of the industry, it was more common for a single person to manage all of the roles needed to create a video game. As platforms have become more complex and powerful in the type of material they can present, larger teams have been needed to generate all of the art, programming, cinematography, and more. This is not to say that
7168-439: The 1950s and 1960s were simple extensions of electronic games using video-like output from large, room-sized mainframe computers . The first consumer video game was the arcade video game Computer Space in 1971. In 1972 came the iconic hit game Pong and the first home console , the Magnavox Odyssey . The industry grew quickly during the "golden age" of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s but suffered from
7296-519: The 1970s and 1980s before having a larger worldwide contribution. Today, the video game industry is predominantly led by major companies in North America (primarily the United States and Canada), Europe, and southeast Asia including Japan, South Korea, and China. Hardware production remains an area dominated by Asian companies either directly involved in hardware design or part of the production process, but digital distribution and indie game development of
7424-471: The 1983 crash, forming around the concept of publisher-developer dichotomies, and by the 2000s, leading to the industry centralizing around low-risk, triple-A games and studios with large development budgets of at least $ 10 million or more. The advent of the Internet brought digital distribution as a viable means to distribute games, and contributed to the growth of more riskier, experimental independent game development as an alternative to triple-A games in
7552-462: The 1993 game . A hierarchy of game genres exist, with top-level genres like "shooter game" and "action game" that broadly capture the game's main gameplay style, and several subgenres of specific implementation, such as within the shooter game first-person shooter and third-person shooter . Some cross-genre types also exist that fall until multiple top-level genres such as action-adventure game . A video game's mode describes how many players can use
7680-626: The 2000s, the core industry centered on " AAA " games, leaving little room for riskier experimental games. Coupled with the availability of the Internet and digital distribution , this gave room for independent video game development (or " indie games ") to gain prominence into the 2010s. Since then, the commercial importance of the video game industry has been increasing. The emerging Asian markets and proliferation of smartphone games in particular are altering player demographics towards casual gaming and increasing monetization by incorporating games as
7808-452: The Internet has also allowed breaking news stories to reach around the globe within minutes. This rapid growth of instantaneous, decentralised communication is often deemed likely to change mass media and its relationship to society. "Cross-media" means the idea of distributing the same message through different media channels. A similar idea is expressed in the news industry as "convergence". Many authors understand cross-media publishing to be
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#17328721362487936-637: The Internet or other communication methods as well as cloud gaming alleviate the need for any physical media. In some cases, the media serves as the direct read-only memory for the game, or it may be the form of installation media that is used to write the main assets to the player's platform's local storage for faster loading periods and later updates. Games can be extended with new content and software patches through either expansion packs which are typically available as physical media, or as downloadable content nominally available via digital distribution. These can be offered freely or can be used to monetize
8064-516: The Internet, however, it is questionable whether players of video games are sharing a common experience when they play the game individually. It is possible to discuss in great detail the events of a video game with a friend one has never played with, because the experience is identical to each. The question, then, is whether this is a form of mass communication. Five characteristics of mass communication have been identified by sociologist John Thompson of Cambridge University : The term "mass media"
8192-670: The Master Settlement Agreement between the US and the tobacco industries prohibited the billboard advertising of cigarettes. In a 1994 Chicago-based study, Diana Hackbarth and her colleagues revealed how tobacco- and alcohol-based billboards were concentrated in poor neighbourhoods. In other urban centers, alcohol and tobacco billboards were much more concentrated in African-American neighbourhoods than in white neighbourhoods. Mass media encompasses much more than just news, although it
8320-467: The Odyssey were first imported and then made within the country by the large television manufacturers such as Toshiba and Sharp Corporation , such games are known as "TV games", "TV geemu", or "terebi geemu". The term "TV game" is still commonly used into the 21st century. "Electronic game" may also be used to refer to video games, but this also incorporates devices like early handheld electronic games that lack any video output. The first appearance of
8448-399: The ability to publish in both print and on the web without manual conversion effort. An increasing number of wireless devices with mutually incompatible data and screen formats make it even more difficult to achieve the objective "create once, publish many". The Internet is quickly becoming the center of mass media. Everything is becoming accessible via the internet. Rather than picking up
8576-423: The activity of making information available for public view. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers. Traditionally, the term refers to the distribution of printed works such as books and newspapers . With the advent of digital information systems and the Internet , the scope of publishing has expanded to include websites , blogs and the like. Video games A video game , also known as
8704-728: The age of the "one-man shop" is gone, as this is still sometimes found in the casual gaming and handheld markets, where smaller games are prevalent due to technical limitations such as limited RAM or lack of dedicated 3D graphics rendering capabilities on the target platform (e.g., some PDAs ). Video games are programmed like any other piece of computer software. Prior to the mid-1970s, arcade and home consoles were programmed by assembling discrete electro-mechanical components on circuit boards, which limited games to relatively simple logic. By 1975, low-cost microprocessors were available at volume to be used for video game hardware, which allowed game developers to program more detailed games, widening
8832-417: The avatar's innate attributes, all while either using special attacks to defeat enemies or moves to avoid them. This information is relayed to the player through a type of on-screen user interface such as a heads-up display atop the rendering of the game itself. Taking damage will deplete their avatar's health , and if that falls to zero or if the avatar otherwise falls into an impossible-to-escape location,
8960-583: The bulk of a newspaper's income, is shifting from print to online; some commentators, nevertheless, point out that historically new media such as radio and television did not entirely supplant existing. The internet has challenged the press as an alternative source of information and opinion but has also provided a new platform for newspaper organisations to reach new audiences. According to the World Trends Report , between 2012 and 2016, print newspaper circulation continued to fall in almost all regions, with
9088-434: The cars in front of them and the obstacle. The programmer never wrote code to specifically create a traffic jam, yet one now exists in the game. Most commonly, video games are protected by copyright , though both patents and trademarks have been used as well. Though local copyright regulations vary to the degree of protection, video games qualify as copyrighted visual-audio works, and enjoy cross-country protection under
9216-517: The class outline or assignments. Some classes have class blogs in which students are required to post weekly, with students graded on their contributions. Blogging , too, has become a pervasive form of media. A blog is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or interactive media such as images or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order, with most recent posts shown on top. Many blogs provide commentary or news on
9344-417: The console itself, while peripheral controllers are available as a separate purchase from the console manufacturer or third-party vendors. Similar control sets are built into handheld consoles and onto arcade cabinets. Newer technology improvements have incorporated additional technology into the controller or the game platform, such as touchscreens and motion detection sensors that give more options for how
9472-491: The definition. In the early 2000s, a classification called the "seven mass media" came into use. In order of introduction, they are: Each mass medium has its own content types, creative artists, technicians and business models. For example, the Internet includes blogs , podcasts , web sites and various other technologies built atop the general distribution network. The sixth and seventh media, Internet and mobile phones, are often referred to collectively as digital media ; and
9600-423: The difficulty for foreign companies to take Chinese entities to court had enabled China to support a large grey market of cloned hardware and software systems. The industry remains challenged to distinguish between creating new games based on refinements of past successful games to create a new type of gameplay, and intentionally creating a clone of a game that may simply swap out art assets. The early history of
9728-827: The exception of Asia and the Pacific , where the dramatic increase in sales in a few select countries has offset falls in historically strong Asian markets such as Japan and the Republic of Korea . Most notably, between 2012 and 2016, India 's print circulation grew by 89 per cent. Outdoor media is a form of mass media which comprises billboards, signs, placards placed inside and outside commercial buildings/objects like shops/buses, flying billboards (signs in tow of airplanes), blimps, skywriting, AR advertising. Many commercial advertisers use this form of mass media when advertising in sports stadiums. Tobacco and alcohol manufacturers used billboards and other outdoor media extensively. However, in 1998,
9856-412: The form of button/joystick combinations (on arcade games), a keyboard and mouse/ trackball combination (computer games), a controller ( console games), or a combination of any of the above. Also, more esoteric devices have been used for input, e.g., the player's motion. Usually there are rules and goals, but in more open-ended games the player may be free to do whatever they like within the confines of
9984-412: The fourth and fifth, radio and TV, as broadcast media . Some argue that video games have developed into a distinct mass form of media. While a telephone is a two-way communication device, mass media communicates to a large group. In addition, the telephone has transformed into a cell phone which is equipped with Internet access. A question arises whether this makes cell phones a mass medium or simply
10112-434: The game Tomb Raider , saying that "the dimensions of Lara Croft 's body, already analyzed to death by film theorists , are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently... When I play, I don't even see her body, but see through it and past it." Simply put, ludologists reject traditional theories of art because they claim that the artistic and socially relevant qualities of
10240-642: The game at the same type. This is primarily distinguished by single-player video games and multiplayer video games . Within the latter category, multiplayer games can be played in a variety of ways, including locally at the same device, on separate devices connected through a local network such as LAN parties , or online via separate Internet connections. Most multiplayer games are based on competitive gameplay, but many offer cooperative and team-based options as well as asymmetric gameplay . Online games use server structures that can also enable massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) to support hundreds of players at
10368-406: The game can also be exploited. On some consoles, cheat cartridges allow players to execute these cheat codes, and user-developed trainers allow similar bypassing for computer software games. Both of which might make the game easier, give the player additional power-ups, or change the appearance of the game. To distinguish from electronic games, a video game is generally considered to require
10496-484: The game should they lose all their lives or need to stop the game and restart at a later time. These also may be in the form of a passage that can be written down and reentered at the title screen. Product flaws include software bugs which can manifest as glitches which may be exploited by the player; this is often the foundation of speedrunning a video game. These bugs, along with cheat codes , Easter eggs , and other hidden secrets that were intentionally added to
10624-501: The game. Video game can use several types of input devices to translate human actions to a game. Most common are the use of game controllers like gamepads and joysticks for most consoles, and as accessories for personal computer systems along keyboard and mouse controls. Common controls on the most recent controllers include face buttons, shoulder triggers, analog sticks , and directional pads ("d-pads") . Consoles typically include standard controllers which are shipped or bundled with
10752-399: The game. By definition, all video games are intended to output graphics to an external video display, such as cathode-ray tube televisions, newer liquid-crystal display (LCD) televisions and built-in screens, projectors or computer monitors , depending on the type of platform the game is played on. Features such as color depth , refresh rate , frame rate , and screen resolution are
10880-560: The game. Today, many games are built around a game engine that handles the bulk of the game's logic, gameplay, and rendering. These engines can be augmented with specialized engines for specific features, such as a physics engine that simulates the physics of objects in real-time. A variety of middleware exists to help developers access other features, such as playback of videos within games, network-oriented code for games that communicate via online services, matchmaking for online games, and similar features. These features can be used from
11008-485: The growth of the size of development teams in the industry, the problem of cost has increased. Development studios need the best talent, while publishers reduce costs to maintain profitability on their investment. Typically, a video game console development team ranges from 5 to 50 people, and some exceed 100. In May 2009, Assassin's Creed II was reported to have a development staff of 450. The growth of team size combined with greater pressure to get completed projects into
11136-586: The idea of games that did not have any such type of winning condition and raising the question of whether these were actually games. These are still commonly justified as video games as they provide a game world that the player can interact with by some means. The lack of any industry definition for a video game by 2021 was an issue during the case Epic Games v. Apple which dealt with video games offered on Apple's iOS App Store . Among concerns raised were games like Fortnite Creative and Roblox which created metaverses of interactive experiences, and whether
11264-474: The interlinked web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web . Contrary to some common usage, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not synonymous: the Internet is the system of interconnected computer networks , linked by copper wires, fibre-optic cables, wireless connections etc.; the Web is the contents, or the interconnected documents , linked by hyperlinks and URLs . The World Wide Web
11392-414: The invention of digital recording and the compact disc in 1983 brought massive improvements in ruggedness and quality. The most recent developments have been in digital audio players . An album is a collection of related audio recordings, released together to the public, usually commercially. The term record album originated from the fact that 78 RPM phonograph disc records were kept together in
11520-414: The invention of the phonograph using purely mechanical techniques, the field has advanced with the invention of electrical recording, the mass production of the 78 record , the magnetic wire recorder followed by the tape recorder , the vinyl LP record . The invention of the compact cassette in the 1960s, followed by Sony's Walkman , gave a major boost to the mass distribution of music recordings, and
11648-450: The larger " AAA " game studios, and are often experiments in gameplay and art style. Indie game development is aided by the larger availability of digital distribution, including the newer mobile gaming market, and readily-available and low-cost development tools for these platforms. Although departments of computer science have been studying the technical aspects of video games for years, theories that examine games as an artistic medium are
11776-713: The larger game and the individual experiences themselves were games or not in relation to fees that Apple charged for the App Store. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers , recognizing that there was yet an industry standard definition for a video game, established for her ruling that "At a bare minimum, video games appear to require some level of interactivity or involvement between the player and the medium" compared to passive entertainment like film, music, and television, and "videogames are also generally graphically rendered or animated, as opposed to being recorded live or via motion capture as in films or television". Rogers still concluded that what
11904-417: The late 2000s and which has continued to grow as a significant portion of the video game industry. Video games have a large network effect that draw on many different sectors that tie into the larger video game industry. While video game developers are a significant portion of the industry, other key participants in the market include: The industry itself grew out from both the United States and Japan in
12032-443: The late 20th century, mass media could be classified into eight mass media industries: books, the Internet, magazines, movies, newspapers, radio, recordings and television. The explosion of digital communication technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries made prominent the question: what forms of media should be classified as "mass media"? For example, it is controversial whether to include mobile phones and video games in
12160-452: The latter also encompasses LAN games , online games , and browser games . More recently, the video game industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablet computers ), virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud gaming . Video games are also classified into a wide range of genres based on their style of gameplay and target audience . The first video game prototypes in
12288-659: The major content system provides have worked to create the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), a means to streamline and align the content ratings system between different region, so that a publisher would only need to complete the content ratings review for one provider, and use the IARC transition to affirm the content rating for all other regions. Certain nations have even more restrictive rules related to political or ideological content. Within Germany, until 2018,
12416-462: The market to begin recouping production costs has led to a greater occurrence of missed deadlines, rushed games, and the release of unfinished products. While amateur and hobbyist game programming had existed since the late 1970s with the introduction of home computers, a newer trend since the mid-2000s is indie game development . Indie games are made by small teams outside any direct publisher control, their games being smaller in scope than those from
12544-405: The market. Due to loss of publishing control and oversaturation of the market, the North American home video game market crashed in 1983 , dropping from revenues of around $ 3 billion in 1983 to $ 100 million by 1985. Many of the North American companies created in the prior years closed down. Japan's growing game industry was briefly shocked by this crash but had sufficient longevity to withstand
12672-774: The original game and possibly from scratch is performed. The list below is not exhaustive and excludes other electronic devices capable of playing video games such as PDAs and graphing calculators . Early arcade games, home consoles, and handheld games were dedicated hardware units with the game's logic built into the electronic componentry of the hardware. Since then, most video game platforms are considered programmable, having means to read and play multiple games distributed on different types of media or formats. Physical formats include ROM cartridges , magnetic storage including magnetic-tape data storage and floppy discs , optical media formats including CD-ROM and DVDs , and flash memory cards. Furthermore digital distribution over
12800-474: The other hand, two or more organisations may share a channel and each use it during a fixed part of the day, such as the Cartoon Network / Adult Swim . Digital radio and digital television may also transmit multiplexed programming, with several channels compressed into one ensemble . When broadcasting is done via the Internet the term webcasting is often used. In 2004, a new phenomenon occurred when
12928-472: The patents. Following their agreement, Atari made a home version of Pong , which was released by Christmas 1975. The success of the Odyssey and Pong , both as an arcade game and home machine, launched the video game industry. Both Baer and Bushnell have been titled "Father of Video Games" for their contributions. The term "video game" was developed to distinguish this class of electronic games that were played on some type of video display rather than on
13056-409: The platform, as directed by the game's programming. This often will include sound effects tied to the player's actions to provide audio feedback, as well as background music for the game. Some platforms support additional feedback mechanics to the player that a game can take advantage of. This is most commonly haptic technology built into the game controller, such as causing the controller to shake in
13184-399: The player interacts with the game. Specialized controllers may be used for certain genres of games, including racing wheels , light guns and dance pads . Digital cameras and motion detection can capture movements of the player as input into the game, which can, in some cases, effectively eliminate the control, and on other systems such as virtual reality, are used to enhance immersion into
13312-502: The player that can be copyrighted, but not the underlying principles of the game. Because gameplay is normally ineligible for copyright, gameplay ideas in popular games are often replicated and built upon in other games. At times, this repurposing of gameplay can be seen as beneficial and a fundamental part of how the industry has grown by building on the ideas of others. For example Doom (1993) and Grand Theft Auto III (2001) introduced gameplay that created popular new game genres,
13440-433: The player will lose one of their lives . Should they lose all their lives without gaining an extra life or "1-UP" , then the player will reach the " game over " screen. Many levels as well as the game's finale end with a type of boss character the player must defeat to continue on. In some games, intermediate points between levels will offer save points where the player can create a saved game on storage media to restart
13568-419: The player's hands to simulate a shaking earthquake occurring in game. Video games are frequently classified by a number of factors related to how one plays them. A video game, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres . However, unlike film or television which use visual or narrative elements, video games are generally categorized into genres based on their gameplay interaction, since this
13696-430: The player." However, emergent behavior is not limited to sophisticated games. In general, any place where event-driven instructions occur for AI in a game, emergent behavior will exist. For instance, take a racing game in which cars are programmed to avoid crashing, and they encounter an obstacle in the track: the cars might then maneuver to avoid the obstacle causing the cars behind them to slow or maneuver to accommodate
13824-420: The products, but rather that the products are available in principle to a plurality of recipients. The sequencing of content in a broadcast is called a schedule . With all technological endeavours a number of technical terms and slang have developed. Radio and television programs are distributed over frequency bands which are highly regulated in the United States. Such regulation includes determination of
13952-418: The public, while media critics have raised questions about holding the press itself accountable to the standards of professional journalism. Public relations is the art and science of managing communication between an organisation and its key publics to build, manage and sustain its positive image. Examples include: Publishing is the industry concerned with the production of literature or information –
14080-450: The question of what are the essential factors of a video game that separate the medium from other forms of entertainment. The introduction of interactive films in the 1980s with games like Dragon's Lair , featured games with full motion video played off a form of media but only limited user interaction. This had required a means to distinguish these games from more traditional board games that happen to also use external media, such as
14208-637: The same time. A small number of video games are zero-player games , in which the player has very limited interaction with the game itself. These are most commonly simulation games where the player may establish a starting state and then let the game proceed on its own, watching the results as a passive observer, such as with many computerized simulations of Conway's Game of Life . Most video games are intended for entertainment purposes. Different game types include: Video games can be subject to national and international content rating requirements. Like with film content ratings, video game ratings typing identify
14336-544: The scope of what was possible. Ongoing improvements in computer hardware technology have expanded what has become possible to create in video games, coupled with convergence of common hardware between console, computer, and arcade platforms to simplify the development process. Today, game developers have a number of commercial and open source tools available for use to make games, often which are across multiple platforms to support portability, or may still opt to create their own for more specialized features and direct control of
14464-605: The screen. Other early examples include Christopher Strachey 's draughts game, the Nimrod computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain ; OXO , a tic-tac-toe computer game by Alexander S. Douglas for the EDSAC in 1952; Tennis for Two , an electronic interactive game engineered by William Higinbotham in 1958; and Spacewar! , written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell , and Wayne Wiitanen's on
14592-543: The series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. Mobile phones were introduced in Japan in 1979 but became a mass media only in 1998 when the first downloadable ringing tones were introduced in Finland. Soon most forms of media content were introduced on mobile phones, tablets and other portable devices, and today
14720-506: The short-term effects, and Nintendo helped to revitalize the industry with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America in 1985. Along with it, Nintendo established a number of core industrial practices to prevent unlicensed game development and control game distribution on their platform, methods that continue to be used by console manufacturers today. The industry remained more conservative following
14848-404: The silver screen , photoplays , the cinema , picture shows , flicks and, most commonly, movies . Films are produced by recording people and objects with cameras , or by creating them using animation techniques or special effects . Films comprise a series of individual frames, but when these images are shown in rapid succession, an illusion of motion is created. Flickering between frames
14976-484: The target age group that the national or regional ratings board believes is appropriate for the player, ranging from all-ages, to a teenager-or-older, to mature, to the infrequent adult-only games. Most content review is based on the level of violence, both in the type of violence and how graphic it may be represented, and sexual content, but other themes such as drug and alcohol use and gambling that can influence children may also be identified. A primary identifier based on
15104-665: The ten best-selling printed books were originally released as mobile phone books. Similar to the internet, mobile is also an interactive media , but has far wider reach, with 3.3 billion mobile phone users at the end of 2007 to 1.3 billion internet users (source ITU). Like email on the internet, the top application on mobile is also a personal messaging service, but SMS text messaging is used by over 2.4 billion people. Practically all internet services and applications exist or have similar cousins on mobile, from search to multiplayer games to virtual worlds to blogs. Mobile has several unique benefits which many mobile media pundits claim make mobile
15232-405: The term "video game" emerged around 1973. The Oxford English Dictionary cited a 10 November 1973 BusinessWeek article as the first printed use of the term. Though Bushnell believed the term came from a vending magazine review of Computer Space in 1971, a review of the major vending magazines Vending Times and Cashbox showed that the term may have come even earlier, appearing first in
15360-546: The term in an article in March 1973. In a September 1982 issue of RePlay , Adlum is credited with first naming these games as "video games": "RePlay's Eddie Adlum worked at 'Cash Box' when 'TV games' first came out. The personalities in those days were Bushnell, his sales manager Pat Karns, and a handful of other 'TV game' manufacturers like Henry Leyser and the McEwan brothers. It seemed awkward to call their products 'TV games', so borrowing
15488-434: The third screen (counting only TV and PC). A magazine is a periodical publication containing a variety of articles, generally financed by advertising or purchase by readers. Magazines are typically published weekly , biweekly , monthly , bimonthly or quarterly , with a date on the cover that is in advance of the date it is actually published. They are often printed in colour on coated paper , and are bound with
15616-477: The total value of media consumed on mobile vastly exceeds that of internet content, and was worth over $ 31 billion in 2007 (source Informa). The mobile media content includes over $ 8 billion worth of mobile music (ringing tones, ringback tones, truetones, MP3 files, karaoke, music videos, music streaming services, etc.); over $ 5 billion worth of mobile gaming; and various news, entertainment and advertising services. In Japan mobile phone books are so popular that five of
15744-503: The type of gameplay, such as action game , role playing game , or shoot 'em up , though some genres have derivations from influential works that have defined that genre, such as roguelikes from Rogue , Grand Theft Auto clones from Grand Theft Auto III , and battle royale games from the film Battle Royale . The names may shift over time as players, developers and the media come up with new terms; for example, first-person shooters were originally called "Doom clones" based on
15872-422: The video game industry, following the first game hardware releases and through 1983, had little structure. Video games quickly took off during the golden age of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s, but the newfound industry was mainly composed of game developers with little business experience. This led to numerous companies forming simply to create clones of popular games to try to capitalize on
16000-458: The virtual universe. In common usage, an " arcade game " refers to a game designed to be played in an establishment in which patrons pay to play on a per-use basis. A "computer game" or " PC game " refers to a game that is played on a personal computer. A " Console game " refers to one that is played on a device specifically designed for the use of such, while interfacing with a standard television set. A "video game" (or "videogame") has evolved into
16128-1171: The web, by such means as linking to or running TV ads online, or distributing QR codes in outdoor or print media to direct mobile users to a website. In this way, they can use the easy accessibility and outreach capabilities the Internet affords, as thereby easily broadcast information throughout many different regions of the world simultaneously and cost-efficiently. Outdoor media transmits information via such media as augmented reality (AR) advertising ; billboards ; blimps ; flying billboards (signs in tow of airplanes); placards or kiosks placed inside and outside buses, commercial buildings, shops, sports stadiums, subway cars, or trains; signs; or skywriting . Print media transmit information via physical objects, such as books , comics , magazines , newspapers , or pamphlets . Event organising and public speaking can also be considered forms of mass media. Mass media organisations or mass media companies that control these technologies include movie studios, publishing companies, and radio and television stations (the latter are also sometimes known as mass media networks ); they often form media conglomerates . In
16256-570: The width of the bands, range, licensing, types of receivers and transmitters used, and acceptable content. Cable television programs are often broadcast simultaneously with radio and television programs, but have a more limited audience. By coding signals and requiring a cable converter box at individual recipients' locations, cable also enables subscription -based channels and pay-per-view services. A broadcasting organisation may broadcast several programs simultaneously, through several channels ( frequencies ), for example BBC One and Two . On
16384-434: Was initially some confusion in the arcade industry over what term should be used to describe the new games. He "wrestled with descriptions of this type of game," alternating between "TV game" and "television game" but "finally woke up one day" and said, "What the hell... video game!" While many games readily fall into a clear, well-understood definition of video games, new genres and innovations in game development have raised
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