WK3 Analysis: Games Expand Transmedia Worlds

There a lots of different ways to play games out there. There whole point of a lot of these is to have fun and bring people together doing something they enjoy. The smaller and more portable our technology gets the easier it is to make this happen.

                Console games really got us hooked on video games. The arcades were great but could be costly and the lines were inconvenient. But what the early console games lacked over the arcade was the social aspect. That has change drastically over the past few years and now they make socializing more global then arcades ever could have. One of the console franchises that have cross media down are the Spiderman games tying in movies and comics. But the biggest one I can think of is Lego. They tie in movies, comics, TV shows, toys and many characters that don’t normally go together.

                Mobile app games have been probably the fastest growing genera on this list recently. The fact that anyone can create a game and get it distributed through several sources makes for a lot of content to choose from. One that has grown huge and crosses a few media boundaries is Angry Birds. They started in the Mobile App arena and have moved to cartoons, console games, and comics.

                I’m still new to the Brower Games as I haven’t spent a lot of time playing them. These are similar to the Mobile apps in that they can be produced and distributed a lot more freely because of their ability to be played on any computer with interment. They are different in that they usually require a consistent connection whereas most Mobile App games are can be played anywhere once they are downloaded.

                Role playing games are pretty diverse in of themselves. They started with storytelling and rolling dice then evolved into the digital age. Dungeons and Dragons is a great example of this type of game and how they can be played across genera. D&D has been in books, movies, games, comic books, and video games, the franchise is huge. These eventually rolled over into Live Action Role Playing (LARP) where whole groups get together for days at a time and live as their character in a share made up world. They conduct battles and parties and bring their characters to life.

                Cosplay differs from LARP in that the participant is just dressing up as a character they enjoy. They are still themselves and don’t enter into a made up world to interact with other characters. Cosplay is actually short for costume play and that’s basically what it is, dressing up. Some people have put some incredible work into constructing costumes for different events. And that is where the Cons come in. The biggest and most known is ComiCon. It has grown to include comics, games, movies, video games and Cosplay. There are a lot of other cons out there to include steampunk, tattoo, fiction and many others that offer an endless amount of areas to start or continue a story that reaches people that want to play.