Hurrican Films

Introduction
Over the next few weeks we will be having presentations from 3 different organisations, each one presenting us with a question to answer over the next couple of months. Their presentations will give us not only some insight to what they do but also some source of information regarding the question they are setting us. It is up to us then to conduct our own research methods in groups and answer these questions, with the end result being a presentation for the representatives of each organisation. Each group will only be answering one of the three questions given, but at this time it is uncertain which question people will be given so it's good to have a starting point for each question.

Presentation 1

6/10/11

How can you engage an online audience in storytelling? - How do you encourage users, especially those from an older generation to participate?

Question posed by Sol Papadopoulos from Hurrican Films.

www.hurricanefilms.net

We were given a presentation by a group about a project that Hurrican Films has developed which is called Peoples Stories.

www.peoples-stories.com

Peoples Stories is a website which is all based around Liverpool post World War II. It is a place were members of the public can go and share their stories, upload photographs, videos etc and generally talk about the evolution of Liverpool over the period of time.
It is a great place not only for older generations to remonice but also for the younger generation to learn/see what it was like all those years ago. It has a great sense of community and is a lovely way to etch historical moments down for everyone to share rather than them being lost in someones attic or just shared amongst a few people. It brings people together in so many ways. I find the concept itself a great idea and it's something that interests me loads. I love the whole fact that someones personal memories can be stored forever online and shared between the world. Learning history and hearing peoples personal experiences of how they grew up and how they have seen the surroundings that we know to day change over a period of time. That sense of change and the storys that can be told from various perspectives is a nice thing to be involved with.

The question itself doesn't really interest me at all, i find it some what boring and not very broad. It feels like there isn't much you can do with this questions.
In my personal opinion i think it's a stereotypical thing that people thing the older generation are not encouraged to participate in the interaction with the internet or that they don't actually do it. I think there of a lot of old people out there who get involved and use the internet for their personal convenience, i just think they don't know about such websites as peoples stories and what it offers. Either that or they just don't want to tell their stories, which i think is a shame.

It would be nice to see more websites like this one, but for all different places around the world. There may already be a lot of them out there but seeing as it's something i've never researched before then i wouldn't know.
Story telling is a huge part of our civilization. It's apart of our nature, apart of who we are. We always have a story to tell no matter how big or small it may be. Each experience stimulates/provokes a story to be told, and a story can do so much more.

Rebel Play

Presentation 2

13/10/11

Do media platforms and genres have specific gender appeal? Why don’t more women play console games?

http://www.rebelplay.com/

Today we had a presentation from a couple of members from RebelPlay which is an independant games company based in Liverpool. RebelPlay use to go by the name "Gaming Inc" until they changed it earlier this year, 2011.

Their question is asking specifically about console games being gender specific and why women don't play these types of games, rather than just gaming in general. In their presentation they showed a lot of facts and statistics which were presented with a lot of graphs to show that women are interested in gaming, just not when it comes to console gaming.

It was stated from a recent research survey that only 38% men play games (in general) and 42% were women. Women seem to be drawn to games that are based on the internet or their phones. Games that don't seem to "waste time" with story lines and plots. Games that have some sense of purpose and productivity.

Now, I know a few girls who are interested in console gaming and are constantly online playing the latest games such as Call Of Duty and other games, but I think RebelPlay know that maybe the percentage of girls who play these sort of games are low and they want to know what it is that puts most girls off. Is it the games plot? Is it the style of game, the games genre? Is it the asthetics of the games? Is it apart of the games mechanics? Is it the controls? Or is it the console itself? 

Are the asthetics of the console itself a huge part of the problem to why most girls don't play console games? That is if the sterotype of most girls not playing console games is true.

They had some interesting facts about things like hypersexualization, whereby a games character's appearance is sexually enhanced just to promote the game. Most of these sexual enhancements are often aimed at the male target audience by often enhancing female characters breasts for example.

Now why are there never male characters that are sexualized for women users? Or are there games out there that use hypersexualization aimed at the female target audience? In my experience of gaming I can't think of any games like this for women but I'm sure there must be something out there that uses this form of comercialization.

They also came up with the way consoles are advertised. I've never noticed before until today but it seems the way consoles are advertised are a huge factor in the target audience they are intended for. Consoles like the Playstation and Xbox seem to have a masculine appearance and often have males promoting them through advertisements. They are seen to be hard, dark, cool and very macho. There are even simple advertisements like the one below that clearly use male hands to promote the Playstation.

These consoles are completely different to the approach the Nintendo Wii takes. It promotes itself as a family console, a way of bringing people together. A console that is to be taken as a bit of fun, that is to be used when groups of people gather together like at parties ect. And as you can see below womens hands are used in the advertisement. The console itself has a much softer look and feel to it. The control doesn't look complex and the system looks very compact and small which are all things that may appeal to women. Also the games that are released for the Wii are interactive fun packed games that seem to relate to everyday interests such as dancing. Maybe the Nintendo Wii has come the closest to breaking the stereotype of women not playing console games.

This question so far is probably the one that appeals to me the most.

I found this advert shown above for the Xbox 360 which clearly shows a female and male teenager joyfully interacting with the console. It seems like they are trying to appeal to both target audiences but not through gaming. This advert is showing the other capabilities of the console, which are it's abilities to link to the internet, watch movies, stream TV episodes, stream music etc. It seems like it's trying to appeal to the female population in other various ways rather than just it's gaming capability, which obviously they feel they are struggling on when it comes to the female gender.