Slide 3

1) The female protagonist, Lara Croft fights of the evil making her look like the heroine. She does this alone, which again makes her look strong like a heroine. She explores different wild environments and fights the creatures that lives there. She uses bow and arrows or guns depending on the game.

2) Action / adventure3) She’s an important figure in computer gaming history because she is very popular

and well-known by people. People can easily recognise Lara Croft as the manly and brave girl that fights off the evil.The character herself have also refined gender in gaming, she attracts both female and male gamers, as female gamers aspire to be her while male gamers are attracted and they want her. She was also known for bringing sex appeal into gaming because of the way she was portrayed. She was being feminised and this obviously causes the ‘male gaze’. Her breast and hips were exaggerated making her look deformed. Moreover, she is a female lead character in games which acts as the heroine of the game. Normally a male character would lead most games and become the hero of most games, however she fights of the bad alone without the help from any male characters. Lastly, IGN credite a rise in PlayStation sales in part to Croft’s debut on the PSOne because she was unique and unusual which then causes a lot of gamers to be attracted by this.

Slide 4

1) The representation of women in the gaming industries have caused many women to stop getting involved in gaming. This is because most of women are represented as a sex icon. Their features are adjusted according to male’s desires. Lara Croft was a well-known sex icon in the gaming industry because of the way she was portrayed. Her breast was unnaturally enlarged and her hips too.Men were the one who originally dominated gaming and this might have an effect on the way the characters have been portrayed.

2) Lara Croft was originally designed to represent a “sexy, powerful and over the top heroine” almost like a female Indiana Jones.

Slide 5

1) Some people might argue that the character Lara Croft is extremely sexualised. Her features are unnatural and exaggerative. However, some men would consider her unrealistic features as the ‘perfect’ appearance. Because of her features she men are attracted not only to her personal character but also her body. However some might argue that she isn't sexualised and is a well-known heroine in the gaming industry. She is an icon of a female action fighter who is brave and tough which is what appeal to men.

Slide 6

1) She is able to adopt characteristics of masculine gender identity because her appearance is made less unnatural. Her hips and breasts aren’t overly enlarged and she is made to look fit and has muscles which is a feature that would be seen in mostly men. In terms of behaviour she is able to go to environments or act out scenarios in which only males were originally able to access/do

2) The game designer did this to be able to appeal to not only the male audience but also the female audience. She has appealed to mostly male for the last years and so the game designer thought they could widened the audience by making her appeal to female gamers. They did this by re-adjusting her original unnatural and exaggerative body to a more suitable one.

Slide 7

1) These animals have been chosen to represent evil because of the original connotations it has. Snakes are mostly used to represent evil. This is an intertextual reference to the Bible as in the Bible a snake was the one that was suggesting Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Some snakes are also venomous and can kill people. Spiders are associated with evil. In Greek mythology an angered Goddess cursed a weaver to become a monstrous spider and since then the spider have been haunting the descendants of the Goddess. Some people also think that spiders look disgusting and like snakes, some spiders are also venomous and they can also kill people.Salamanders are seen as a bad creature because of a myth that says that Salamanders were believed to have a poisonous body. If the Salamander wraps its body to a tree, the fruits of the tree would become poisons to those who eat it. Water would also become undrinkable and their saliva would cause hair to fall off the human body. Lastly dragons are creatures that often represent destruction which therefore means that they are evil creatures.

2) The protagonist/heroine (Lara Croft) is represented as an tough looking female who fights against the evil. She has muscles which suggests that she is strong and is also capable to fight against the evil. Evil on the other side is represented as animals with evil connotations such as spiders and snakes. They are also designed mostly with the coloured red. The colour red has a strong connotation to something that is danger. Stop signs are red so that people can then sense that they must stop. The colour red in this game warns the audience that they are the evil characters.

Slide 8

1) These settings have been chosen in the game to create a challenging atmosphere for the main character to explore. The audience would know that there would be lots of enemies that live in those settings and therefore they could anticipate for the moment in which the main character would fight against evil.

2) There are lots of intertextuality that exists in the settings. One of which is the Indiana Jones movie. The movies features a lot of dungeons and as the female representation of Indiana Jones the character Lara Croft would also have to explore dungeons.Moreover, not only Indiana Jones movie but also the Tomb Raider movie and game. This would then cause the fans of both movies and game to easily identify with the settings of the game. This would then cause them to be attracted by the game and play the game.Lastly, another intertextuality to the setting of the gameis the retro puzzle game: the ‘Secret of Monkey Island’. The game Lara Croft Go involves mainly puzzle based minigames, this is similar to the ‘Secret of Monkey Island’. Again, this will then cause the fans of the game to easily identify with Lara Croft Go and possibly play the game.

Slide 9

1) One of the convention of an action adventure hybrid genre is that instead of focusing on reflexes the genre mainly focuses on problem solving creating a puzzle for the audience to solve. In the game Lara Croft Go there aren’t many situations where players reflexes are tested whereas they tend to focus more on problem solving.

2) The way Lara Croft fights against the enemies is reinforced by a turn based puzzle style where the players take turns to fight. This is different from a real time strategy where all the players fight at the same time. This is suited to mobile gaming because its has a short timespan. People that does mobile gaming tend to only do it for a short period of time.

3) Lara Croft is wearing the outfit that was previously worn by the Lara Croft of Tomb Raider (the movie) this would have an effect on the Tomb Raider movie fans as they would instantly recognise the outfit she is wearing. The setting is ‘jungle-themed’ and the enemies are also scary forest creatures. The setting was also the same as the setting in the previous movie of Tomb Raider which again will cause fans to easily identify with the game.

Slide 10

Description

Narrative Lara Croft is an explorer and her mission is to uncover earth’s secret, she does this by exploring forests and ancient buildings. There are levels in the game and puzzles and problem solving are the key to levelling up. The game is full of puzzles. There are 4 different types of enemies that she has to defeat on her quest. The enemies are mostly fought with certain moves. She is able to switch levers to help her journey.Moreover, there are also single used items like spears which she can collect and use to help her fight off enemies. Collectibles are also available to help her in her journey.

Iconography The game character is wearing the same outfit as the one she wore in the Tomb Raider movie, this would then cause the fans of the Tomb Raider movie to recognise what she is wearing and identify with her. The theme of jungle and ancient, old buildings seem to be the style of the game. The enemies that she has to fight against are scary forest creatures.

Characters The character Lara Croft is a heroine that fights off the evil. The enemies are forest creatures like spiders, salamanders or snakes. At the end of the game there is a boss which is hard to defeat (Queen of Venom).

Setting The setting is located in the jungle. The ancient buildings are inspired by many such as the old Tomb Raider game and movie and the Indiana Jones movie. The setting is also inspires by an old puzzle retro game called ‘Secret of Monkey Island’. There is a recurrent theme which is the mysterious setting.

Slide 13

1) The use of isometric views creates a 3d mechanic to the gameplay and puzzle solving which then ables then player to easily navigate themselves in the game.

Moreover, the use of dark and light creates a focal point for the players to focus at, at different points throughout the game. This is convenient for mobile game users as the screen is small and the use of the dark and light can easily identify what to focus on.

Furthermore, the use of colour allows the players to identify between different situations, for example a scene with vibrant colours might mean that they are at a dangerous point or a crucial point in the game which has a lot of actions.

Finally, the quality of animation allows the players to focus on the character more. This is because while the background is made blurry and blocky, the characters of the game are illustrated with great details so players would know exactly what to focus at. If both are well illustrated with great details it might be harder for players to distinguish as to what objects are ‘playable’ and what objects are just decoration

Slide 14

1) By overwhelming players with sound effects it might cause them to lose focus on the puzzles, it might also distract their concentration as puzzle based games require a lot of concentration.

Slide 15

1) The target audience for the game Lara Croft Go falls under 3 catergories: Those who are interested in the actual gameplay and the concept of the game, those who are supporters of the female empowerment movement and those who are original fans that favours the sexualisation of Lara even though the representation of Lara have drastically changed over the past years.

Furthermore, those who are interested in the actual gameplay and the concept of the game might be the target audience because they are casual mobile gamers. They like to try new games to entertain themselves and Lara Croft Go should be able to keep attracting more and more casual mobile gamers.

In addition, Those who are in favour of female empowerment is one of the target audience of the game because this game features a heroine. Lara is a female who is able to fight like how originally men would fight. She is also able to handle the same situations that originally only men would be able to handle such as fighting a wild and scary creature in the wild or explore a big forest or an ancient building full of evil creatures alone.

Lastly, those who attracted because of the sexualisation of Lara is one of the target audience because they have been happy with the way Lara is presented in the past years. Her exaggerated features satisfies them and therefore they would anticipate for this game as by this game, they would be able to see Lara again. However I think some of them would be slightly disappointed because the way Lara is presented have changed and her features are not as exaggerated anymore.

Slide 16

1) Lara Croft was hypersexualised, she was advertised as a sex icon. Her features were overly exaggerated and she was represented in a sexy manner. I think by doing this, it would attract more teen male audience.

2) Back in the 1990s/200s the way Lara was advertised would only appeal to men as it would satisfy their desires. However in 2015 the way Lara is advertised have changed. Her features look more realistic and she was less sexualised. The way she is designed in the game is also no longer sexualised.

3) Advertising budget is different in mobile and console games because the competition is bigger.

Slide 17

1)

Positive impacts Negative impacts

Improves decision making Can make people more violent

How to respond to challenges Can cause laziness

Problem solving and logic Less empathetic

Know what to do in stressful situations Health problem such as obesity

Improves memory addiction

Team work Socially isolates people

Improves brain growth Confuse reality with fantasy

2) I disagree with the statement. Just because of the growth of mobile gaming it does not necessarily mean that it would damage society.Some people might argue that it the more we play games the more we damage society which is partly true. Many kids have their eyes glued on to their screens and that is not healthy for them. Addiction the main cause of this, a lot of people get addicted by playing games. However we can control this, we can always limit ourselves to a certain amount of hours of gaming and parents can also control the amount of hours their kids can look at their screens.

Therefore, even with the growth of mobile gaming and more people playing mobile games, as long as we can protect and limit ourselves from the addiction of mobile gaming then society would not be damaged. If people are addicted to a game, we can’t blame the game. Games are made to be played and humans have the power to know what is right or wrong. Humans should know that too much of something is bad, therefore too much gaming is also bad and unhealthy and by knowing this they can then limit themselves.

Slide 18

1) A media franchise is a collection of media works inspired by an original work.2) Making a game for an existing franchise is advantageous because the status

of the franchise is already known therefore the risk of failing when starting up is reduced. There are people who are already loyal to the brand so the brand is already known to the public. Whereas by starting up a brand-new character it would first of all take time to be known widely and also there would be a 50% risk of failing.

Slide 19

1) Lara Croft Go was highly rated by critics, one of which is Metacritic which gave the game an 84/100. I think something above 80 could be considered very high because not every game can achieve that high of a score. IGN also gave it an 8.5 which is high.

2) People are less likely to pay for a mobile game because of the competition in the market. A lot of mobile games are free and instead of paying people would most likely look at what is free. Whereas in consoles there aren’t any game for free, all games have to be bought using money and therefore the game could create a much higher income by launching it for consoles.

I think Lara Croft Go was a commercial success because of the amount of views and downloads it has only after a year. It has 11 million views after a year, that means people were taking interest in what the game is. It was initially downloaded 280,000 times worldwide on only IOS after a year. IOS is not the only platform, there is also play store so the whole number combined would be way bigger. Many businesses fails within a year but looking at these statistics this game was a big success.

Slide 20

Advantages Disadvantages

Bigger audience More expensive to make

Generate a social buzz Longer to develop

Creates greater brand loyalty Only big studios can do it

Only certain ‘licenses’ carry multi-platform e.g Fifa

Not ‘exclusive’

Slide 21

1) PEGI (Pan European Game Information) is a European company that rates games to inform customers about what ages are suitable for the game.

2) As games evolve, so does its content. The violent scenes in 1990/1980 might not have been in great detail. Whereas violent and gory scenes nowadays would have been shown in great detail and people might get uncomfortable by it. It could also be a bad influence to little kids, that it why there needs to be an age rating to inform buyers.

Slide 22

Lara Croft Kim Kardashian Zoella

Gender Identity There are some aspects in which Lara Croft fits the stereotypical representations of women. She is sexualised, her features are adjusted to fit men’s desires. However, unlike the stereotype that women are mostly shy and quiet she is not like that. She is tough and she fights enemies. I personally don’t think that she is concerned of her looks, its just that she was designed accordingly to the ‘male gaze’.

Kim Kardashian follows a stereotypical representations of women. She is concerned about her appearance and is willing to change it according to men’s desire although some might argue that she does this to satisfy herself. However, if men don’t find large bottoms attractive then would she have done the same thing to ruin her body?

Zoella is a well known beauty YouTuber. She also follows the traditional representation of women. She is concerned about her appearance and wears makeup to satisfy herself and/or other people.

Gender Power Lara Croft is well-known worldwide because of the Tomb Raider game that a lot of people play. She has been a sex icon for the past years and is famous for being the ideal type for men. She has gained power by this.

Despite following the traditional representation of women, Kim Kardashian have gained a lot of power as a women. She has fans and is well-known worldwide.

Like Kim, she has a lot of power especially on teenagers because of her popularity on YouTube.

Celebrity and followers

Her followers are mostly male who are in favour of her being sexualised.

Her followers and mostly female who are probably self-conscious.

Her followers are mostly teen girls who have interests in beauty.

2) There are some games like the old Tomb Raider that sexualises women but as we become more advanced, people started to realise that it is wrong to sexualise women like that, especially if they want to expand the market and attract female players.

For example, a popular game Rainbow Six Siege features a lot of female characters as fighters. They are not designed to satisfy men’s desire. Their features are arranged accordingly and they are more masculinised then sexualised. They fight their enemies as women which shows women power.

If gaming industries continue representing women in a sexualised manner, then the market would not expand. They would have the same audience and the same income. Women are uncomfortable with the representation of themselves in games. Seeing other women with unnatural and enlarged features wearing revealing clothing would make them feel very embarrassed or uneasy. Therefore, to attract female players into the industry gaming industries must change the way they represent women in games.