HA10 Task 1 – Analysis of a Game Genre

Game Genre: FPS (First Person Shooter)
Chosen Games: Counter Strike
                          Planetside 2
                          Insurgency

What is a first person shooter?

An FPS (first person shooter) as the name suggests is a genre of shooter games that are played from the first person perspective. This is one of the oldest and widest genre of games, it includes many legendary and popular titles that are played by all kinds of people. It is of course, all around shooting things with different kinds of weaponry. It mainly involves shooting other people but there are of course games within this genre that have the players shoot at aliens for example, Aliens: Colonial Marines. For each FPS game there will usually be a lot of game modes available and different objectives to be achieved, things like team battles, 1 on 1 battles etc. There is usually quite a lot of skill involved in FPS games, since a player will require good reflexes, game sense and aim to beat the opponents. There are many FPS games, the most 2 popular ones that are in the casual scene currently are the Call of Duty and Battlefield series, in Battlefield, the players not only have guns, but they can also take control of different vehicles such as gunboats, jet fighters and tanks. In a more competitive scene for the hardcore players, Counter Strike franchise is unbeatable and at the moment very popular because of the recently released Counter Strike: Global Offensive. The eSports community is very much alive there, with a lot of tournaments going on, as a normal player you can expect a pretty high skill sealing.
Other notable examples of first person shooter games are games that combine other genres within FPS and create something unique, such games include things like Planetside 2 which incorporates MMO elements into their massive shooter. Or games like Arma which include a lot of real life simulation and real life warfare/tactics.
Shooter elements can of course be found in other games who aren't originally focused on shooting, such as in GTA 5, while playing in the first person mode and pulling out a gun.

Counter Strike:

Counter Strike is one of the most legendary PC video games and the most legendary competitive FPS. Currently, it has 4 games in its franchise (Counter Strike 1.6, Counter Strike:Condition Zero, Counter Strike:Source and the latest one being Counter Strike:Global Offensive). It all started out as a mod for Half Life 1, in 1999 a group of modders got together and created an FPS shooter simply called Counter-Strike. The game quickly got attention and soon Valve hired them and bought the IP to continue the development of the game, it would sen many iterations, each being labelled with a numerical system. Starting with Counter Strike 1.0, then to 1.1, 1.2 etc. until it got 1.6, 1.6 being the final iteration of original Counter Strike, the one treated as the 'perfection of Counter Strike'. To this very day, Counter Strike 1.6 is played by thousands of players, with official Steam servers having about 22 thousand people playing 1.6 at any given time. It is one of the longest life spans that a video game had.

         

In Counter-Strike, the players team up with others and play on various maps in various locations around the world. They either end up on the Terrorists side, or the Counter Terrorist side, each team will win by either eliminating the other team or completing specific map objectives. At the end of the round, a certain amount of money is given out to each player and upon the start of the next round they can buy various equipment for that money, equipment for both sides differs.
In older counter strike's there were 3 different objectives that were set up on maps (currently only 2). One is the most used one and one that is used in competitive play, and that is bomb defusal, the terrorists have the task to break into one of 2 bombsites on a map and plant the bomb, then defend it for 35 seconds until it explodes, the Counter Terrorists objective is of course to retake the bombsite (if it was taken of course) and defuse the bomb in time. Second game type is Hostage rescue mission, where the Terrorists defend hostages while the Counter Terrorists have to rescue them and get them to safety. Last game mode, which was removed in the latest iteration of Counter Strike, is the VIP mode, where one player on CT side becomes a VIP at the beginning of the round and has to be escorted by his teammates to safety against the Terrorists, which in turn have the objective to kill the VIP before he escapes.

The game has a lot of skill involved in it, it takes hundreds of hours of practice to become a good player and there are many aspects within the game to be perfected.

        

Back in 2002-2006 Counter Strike 1.6 was a very big scene within the newborn e-sport environment, it's main competitor for main stage being Starcraft 1 and Warcraft 3. Through the time, the competitive scene has faded away into a dark corner (but still existed until 2012 for original counter strike), until 2012 when Valve released the latest iteration of the game, Counter Strike:Global Offensive. Today, in 2014, Counter Strike Global Offensive is the second most played game on Steam (after Dota 2), having about 320 thousand players at any given time. It has also sparked the e-sport element of the game again, recently Counter Strike Global Offensive started to come back onto the main stage of e-sports, now competing for attention with games like Starcraft 2, League of Legends and Dota 2. A lot of new competitors are appearing on the scene everyday, and even more viewers, since watching Counter Strike can be very exciting and fun.

          

To this day Counter Strike continues to inspire new FPS games around the world and is one of the most legendary competitive shooters of all time. It breaks away from current modern shooter conventions, and that is why it feels so good.

Planetside 2:

Planetside 2 is a unique game, a game like no other, it is an MMO FPS with a lot of legacy behind it. It is a sequel to a very successful game Planetside 1, which was released back in 2003, both games were and are developed by SOE (Sony Online Entertainment). Planetside 2 has no competition, there is no other game like it.

           

In Planetside 2, the player creates his character and then has to make a choice to join one of the three factions within the game world, the Terran Republic (totalitarian government), the Vanu Sovereignty (humans that believe it is right to synthesize with aliens) or The New Conglomerate (freedom fighters sponsored by corporate overlords). After that choice is made, and the player passes the tutorials, he is sent into the battlefield in a drop pod from the orbit. Here, the journey begins.

Unlike any other FPS, where you play on instanced maps, in Planetside 2 the battlefield is consistent and massive, currently in Planetside 2, there are 4 continents, and each continent holds 2000 players, that's 2000 players battling each other at the same time, in organised groups, with different forms of weaponry, some people become dedicated fighter pilots, bomber pilots, tank drivers or just simple infantry. As said before, the battlefield is also consistent, meaning that it is always changing, even when you're not on, you might play through one evening for about 4 hours, capture some facilities, then go to sleep, wake up for work the next day, come back from work, log on and suddenly those facilities that you captured are someone elses. That is because the world is constantly flowing, with people logging in and out.

           

There are multiple infantry classes within the game, from supports such as medics healing and reviving, engineers repairing vehicles and rearming people to heavy brawlers such as the heavy assault and MAX suits. There are also several vehicles, from quick buggies to heavy main battle tanks, and a lot of aircraft, from agile fighters to big bombers and transporters. All of that is constantly cooperating with each other on the battlefield to secure the objective for their faction.

           

A lot of people form groups to cooperate with each other on the battlefield, these are called outfits, and they actually have things like schedules, proper military grading of each member, militaristic communication dialect etc. A good outfit has skilled members, is well experienced, and can react to anything to help out its faction. It is a challenging job to govern such an outfit, but it is also very fun at the same time as well as develops certain skills that will later on be useful in real life in landing a job for example.

Other groups also do other activities, such as socializing or role-playing within the world of Planetside.

Planetside 2 is a free to play game that is constantly developed with new content.

Insurgency:

Insurgency is an FPS that is very similar in structure to games like Counter Strike, but also combines a more realistic approach and a more complicated one as well. In Insurgency, you either become an insurgent or a government force, you will face each other on multiple maps, each with a different objective to be achieved by each side. Game modes include things such as VIP protection missions, where the insurgents have to eliminate the VIP but the government forces have to protect him, intelligence stealing missions, where both sides need to break into each others bases, steal the intelligence, and then carry it back to their base before the other side does the same. There are also modes where one side has to take points on the map while the other one has to defend them. Apart from that there are multiple modes based off a cache destroy/cache capture system.

           

The game is based on the source engine and therefore has a lot of things that are similar to games like Counter Strike, including the good server search engine, graphics, as well as other features that make it easy to operate and work. Of course it has it's own features, apart from the modes and the style of the game mentioned above, it also features a variation of classes and guns, guns can be customized to fit what the users wants from them, and the selection of customization is wide and varied, with things such as different ammo types, scopes, stability equipment, flashlight/red-sight etc.

           

Overall the game is very fun and challenging at the same time. It is a treat for players that would love to have a game that combines things from games like  Counter Strike and Arma.

Describing structure/interaction/gameplay and themes:

Counter Strike:

The structure of Counter Strike is very simplistic yet very effective. Players can play upon a variety of maps in 2 different game modes, on either the terrorist or counter terrorist side, each side with different weapons and looks.

The game is very easy to learn but difficult to master, meaning that anyone can effectively start killing enemies within the game, but to become really good, a player will need to learn things like recoil patterns of the guns, economy basics of the game (since there's a certain amount of credit earned, players need to know when they can afford a full set of equipment and when they can't, if they can't, they will need to perform what's known as an eco round, a round where a player doesn't buy anything and saves the money, but will probably lose that round) tactics, good grenade uses, map and situation awareness, teamwork as well as have good aim and reflexes.

         

With the latest iteration of Counter Strike - Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Players can participate in a competitive match on official matchmaking servers, where they will have to either play with their own team or be randomly matched up with random people that are also queuing up, they will play either the bomb defuse or hostage rescue scenario, and will have to win 16 rounds in total to win the game (maximum of 30 rounds in a game, so a draw is possible). There is also a casual mode available, where the players only have to win 8 rounds (a total of 15 rounds) and where everything is much simplified, for example the players won't need to worry about economy anymore. The audio and graphical design of CS GO is very well made, and the gun-play itself is addicting and extremely fun.

Players can also search for community servers upon which there are multiple different game modes, such as zombie modes where players have to defend themselves against zombie waves (the zombies are players as well), jail break servers, where some players are prisoners and others are wardens, and the prisoners have to break out of jail, KZ and MG maps, which are basically jumping puzzle maps with a high skill sealing and many more.

Planetside 2:

Planetside 2 has a very different structure than any other FPS to date, it is because it isn't like any other FPS.  Players battle each other in huge numbers on huge battlefields, using a variety of weaponry, not only being a standard infantry, they can also become a tank driver. a pilot, a driver that serves in transporting troops from one place to another. Therefore, there is a lot to do in Planetside 2, you don't have to shoot everything constantly, you can become a leader and plan operations, or just be a simple driver that will transport your faction members from one place to another. Along with your friends and other people that you've met in game, you will be going across different continents with different themes, one might be a desert while another a frozen wasteland, you will be fighting for control and maintenance of territory with players from other factions.

         

The main interaction and gameplay parts within Planetside 2, between the player and the game that is, is the base capturing mechanics, where players can attack certain facilities that are currently held by an enemy and take them for their own faction and therefore for their own benefit. From there, every other interaction and gameplay parts sparks up, combat (not only around and in the facilities but on the roads as well where the troops might be moving), logistics, planning, individual player skill, socializing etc.

The graphical and audio stand point of Planetside 2 is still very good, even with maps being as big and there being a lot of players, the game does not take away from the visual stand point which is amazing, it also runs very well.

The themes are many within this game, the main one of course being planet wide combat with thousands of players, but also things like socializing, planning, transportation and logistical ability. Fighting for territory with your faction members and friends for your faction.

Insurgency:

Insurgency is a very similar game to games like Counter Strike and Arma franchise, but it has its own share of unique features that make the game fun.

The game is based on a combat scenario between a group of insurgents against government forces trying to stop them. The players will play on either side on many different maps in a variety of different game modes. They will have a variety of weapons available to them and be allowed to customize them with a variety of scopes/ammo types etc. Players will have to cooperate in a team to take objectives and win the game. Since dying in this game can be very quick, sudden, and come from a surprising angle, players will need to be very good at using things like grenades and cooperating with their teammates. There's also a variety of classes available, where each class does a specific job, so sometimes you will not be able to do everything with your class and will need to relay on others.

         

Upon opening up the game, a player will have a choice of either playing on official servers, or going into community servers, where they can expect not only standard game modes but also modified versions of these modes.

The graphical and audio standpoints of insurgency are very good, the game looks very well and is very atmospheric and feels good (especially at night). The gun-play is very exciting and fun, and the sound of the guns are very enjoyable as well. Good ambiance and additional sounds provide extra atmosphere.

The main structure as well as the gameplay element of insurgency is therefore mainly action and shooting action. But there are additional user made modes that can do different things.

Analyzing genre characteristics:

First Person Genre is one of the longest standing and one of the longest genres that has mostly not changed within the gaming industry. There has been many genres appearing over the decades in the gaming industry, the most recent one being the MOBA genre, with games like the Dota series and League of Legends.
The FPS genre consists of some very basics things that then you can add more complex things on top of that will make the game much better and much more fun. For example, an FPS game will have some weapons in it, but it can also have weapon customization which makes it more fun and therefore keeps the player occupied within the game.

An FPS game can be run on any engine 3D engine such as Unreal or Unity, and it doesn't really need a special engine like an MMO for example. Of course, there is a lot of production values included within such a production, such as graphics, which in some cases can even relate to gameplay (for example shadows in games like Counter Strike can tell a player of the enemy position even before he turns the corner), there is also the crucial audio design, in an FPS game it is important for the guns to feel good and to sound good, not seem like plastic dummies. Therefore a lot of money is usually spent on producing directional and ambient sounds for FPS games. Of course, things like maps, online servers and good UI also has to be provided in order to provide the best player experience possible.

Nowadays, an FPS game, just like any other game, will be distributed online and available for download, but of course with many games, especially big ones like Battlefield and Call of Duty, there are discs available to buy, and even things like collector's edition entire boxes, with additional special content rather than just the disc.

There are of course many generic codes and conventions within the FPS genre, such conventions are solid gun mechanics, things like recoil, maps with different objectives and paths to be taken, as well as specific guns being better in one part of the map than the other one. Battles against other players as well as AI in different game modes. But there are also many games that break these conventions and add something different which makes them very unique. For example Planetside 2 adds a leveling system into the game, and turns the FPS scene into a very big one, making it an MMO, which is very unique, there is no other game like it. Or other games like the Arma series which has real life simulation needs that you will need to take care of, massive battlegrounds as well as involvement of real life tactics.

Many FPS games try to go down the route of a more competitive shooter rather than a casual one. Games like Planetside 2, Arma and especially Counter Strike (which is an eSport, so it is having big tournaments with real professional players dedicated entirely to that game) will all have degrees of skill required for the player to be good, whether it will be understanding the mechanics of the game, the layout of the maps, good team-play and map orientation or just have good aim and control. Some games of course focus more on the casual aspect of FPS, such as Call of Duty. It is to be noted, that certain amount of skill is required for every single FPS games, but some games don't treat you as harshly if you don't know how to play, for example, a new player in Counter Strike will get absolutely destroyed, where as in games like Call of Duty he still might have a good chance at winning.
FPS is also home to one of the biggest current eSport titles - Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

A good FPS game will feel fluid, have fun, exciting and engaging gun-play. It will have many well designed maps for the players to play on, and many different game modes for the players to play for on these maps, both player vs player and player vs AI. The player might have a selection of several guns with different statistics (depends on what the game wants to achieve in the end) and be able to use these guns differently in different situations which will be effective in different ways based on that specific situation. A good FPS will also have good visuals and audio work as well as perhaps good voice acting.

Analyzing narrative structures:

In the FPS'es that I have chosen there isn't a lot of story included, they are mainly competitive and skill based shooters without a lot of story behind the very basic, in Insurgency you are either an insurgent or a government hired soldier, fighting the other side, the same happens in Counter Strike, where you are either a terrorist or a counter terrorist trying to eliminate the other side, there isn't really that much of a story going on in those terms. When it comes to Planetside 2 however, it has very extensive lore, but not a lot of it can be found in the actual game, rather, it can be found in books written about it, comics etc.

Overall in FPS'es, it can be found that story lines are mostly single strand quests, where the main character goes onto completing a single task, but usually that task is a major one. The quest is mostly linear, with 'corridor' mechanics (leading the player down a single route without any freedom of choice) and as such it is also a closed quest line where players don't really have that much influence on the outcome apart from actually doing what the game tells them to. Climaxes and plot twist can be present in a lot of FPS games but they are usually easy to decode before they happen. Overall, FPS'es aren't and they never were praised for their story, they are mostly about action, shooting, and in today's modern shooters, competitiveness of players in multi player.

Analyzing representation of characters:

The representation of different characters within my chosen FPS games is quite varied, first, taking  Counter Strike, there is a little bit of stereotyping, the terrorists are portrayed kind of like arabs, with scarfs and quite far-eastern looking clothes, they have accents that can be compared to arab ones as well. Overall, the terrorists are presented as a makeshift force, using things like ak-47's and galil-AR as their main weapons and other things, such as knives looking similarly to kitchen knives, makeshift grenades such as the molotov etc. When comparing them to the Counter Terrorist side, we can immediately see the difference, the Counter Terrorists have professional (and more expensive equipment - which is factored into gameplay and is a balancing factor in the fact that most maps in Counter Strike are Counter Terrorist sided), they all look alike, and have things like combat army knives and true incendiary grenades rather than a makeshift explosive cocktail in a bottle of beer in comparison to the terrorists. The Counter Terrorists have different clothes and even voices/accents based on where their unit comes from, it might be a German GIGN unit or a British SAS unit. Overall, the player can really feel on what side they are currently playing as, each side has its own share of unique weapons, looks differently and sounds differently as well in terms of things like the voice acting.

http://csgo.gamebanana.com/threads/184982

In Insurgency, the setting is quite similar of that of Counter Strike, but instead of Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists you have Insurgents and Government Forces. They are also represented in a very similar fashion, the insurgents have worn out weapons and equipment, while the government forces have professional uniforms and top of the line weapons with no signs of previous use on them. When comparing Insurgency to Counter Strike, one must also note that there aren't any specific real life organisations involved into the game, like in Counter Strike.

http://www.giantbomb.com/insurgency/3030-24023/

Last but not least there is Planetside 2. As said before, each character representation could be a lot deeper if only the lore that can be found for the universe was included in a meaningful way in the actual game. Still, however, the representation of characters is quite strong within the game, while there are no specific game characters, the soldiers, weapons, upgrades, styles and vehicles look different for each faction, so it gives each one of them a specific feel in relation to their chosen ideology or their background. You have the professional looking and equipped Terran Republic, the advanced technologically looking Vanu Sovereignity and lastly you have the rugged, tired looking and used equipment of the New Conglomerate which is also blocky and much heavier. This gives a unique representation to each faction and also plays into the gameplay elements, giving the game more variation and making things like spotting different enemies much easier.

http://mmohuts.com/review/planetside-2

http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/MAX

http://ps2.planetsidecats.com/blog-entry-482.html

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=43432

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/lets-talk-about-hitboxes.161252/

HA9 - Task 2 - Effects Debates

Ever since video games have been created, they have been creating multiple concerns within many groups of people about what they do and practice. Today, with the gaming industry being bigger than the move and music industries combined, the industry gets constantly attacked by both different media types and normal people, saying that video games are violent, cause addictions and that they should be censored, people who play games usually are very stereotyped by others.

But are video games really that bad?

Violence:

Violence within video games is very widely known and can be very widely found within them. By many, it is considered that all this violence is causing the teenagers to do things like commit crimes, or even worse, kill others. A lot of media's, especially national TV news channels like to pick on video games a lot whenever something bad or controversial happens. In many games, violence is the very base of the game, in slash&hack games, in FPS games, etc, it can practically be found in one or another form in practically every game in existence. Many people love to play violent games as stress reliefs after a stressful day in a job/school, and many find these games a nice evening escape after the hardships of life. Many people, especially parents, or older people who haven't experienced video games in their youths, want to ban video games and not allow the young people play them, as they think it causes bad influence and will spoil them.

There has been a lot of research done by various institutes on this matter, and practically all of it states, quite the opposite to the belief of many older people and parents, that violent games do not cause violence, they actually reduce it.

Christopher Ferguson, a researcher from Stetson University, as well as countless many other researchers, such as researchers from Villanova and Rutgers, prove that violent video games do not cause violence, to the point where it is actually clearly visible that the crime rates have decreased as the popularity of video games rose.

                               
                                                                    http://videogames.procon.org/

The studies say that indeed, violent video games allow the teenagers to ventilate any violent emotions that they have into a video game, rather than on someone's face in real life. They also are an escape-goat for them when they are depressed or are hard-pressed in life. It helps them get back on their feet and find their balance.

Violence can be found in all the media, TV, video games, films, books, magazines, newspapers, everywhere. If a certain individual is unstable mentally, then he/she will find that killing inspiration in any of these media's, and then that individual will go out and do horrible things such as shootings etc. To prevent that, would mean to restrict the entire media, that would mean lack of innovation, fresh ideas and thus no progress for anyone in anything.

The fact that lately its video games that got picked by other medias as the causes of violence is simply not true, it's just an escape-goat made by other media sources to try to crush down on the growing video game industry. It's been the same when television was first appearing in homesteads, back then however, it was the newspaper that tried to crack down the television, saying that it causes violence and addictions. Newspapers did that because they were afraid they would ultimately be considered obsolete and therefore many people would lose their piggy bank.

It is the same with television, a lot of young people do not watch any TV whatsoever and rather choose to watch everything via independent producers on the internet. This means that if the TV doesn't try to do something, they will be out of business in 20-30 years. It is a simple blame game since every media piece is trying to stay afloat, and any new innovative competition is considered a serious threat and being cracked down on.

Explicit Sexual Content:

Explicit sexual content is another thing that has been very present within the video gaming industry. It is very visible in many big games, especially in a game franchise made by Rockstar games - Grand Theft Auto (GTA), the most recent addition to the franchise, GTA 5, make use of a lot of female characters, dressed in skimpy clothes, being used as 'toys' by the male characters within the game. There are also a lot of prostitutes etc. This has been done since the target audience for GTA is mostly males and therefore things are done within that game that will please that audience.

In modern gaming industry, the numbers of males and females playing video games is fairly even, so controversial material is more and more rarely seen. However, still a lot of controversy is sparked whenever such a material appears, especially within the parent and older generations circles. They think that this is very unethical and it makes the teenagers that play such games savages who will later on assault some woman on the street sexually.

        

As stated above in this blog, about the violence, it is the same here, of course, there will be mentally challenged people who after experiencing certain things in a piece of media can turn crazy, but that doesn't happen just with video games, it happens with any media text, TV's, books, magazines, anything really.

In my opinion, no media piece should over exaggerate with using women as prostitutes etc. However, it shouldn't be disallowed either, because if it is, then it will block the creativity of any producer of any media, whether it would be television, video games etc. It shouldn't be over done either. By allowing the producers to create these harsh or controversial scenarios, we can teach people that it is wrong to do them ourselves in real life. Both genders are in fact controversially used in those media pieces, females can be used as prostitutes, but many males will also be stereotyped as dirty bandits in those games as well, or presenting every male as a muscular, perfect guy.

It helps creativity, to create a world exactly as the authors want it without restricting them, and as long as they don't overdo it, it can help teach children of what not to do, contrary to popular belief. At the end of the day, this stuff is happening in real life, and it is better for a teenager to learn about it via a video game and then think it's wrong, than learn it in real life.

Abusive/Inappropriate Language:

Abusive and inappropriate language has been another widely discussed topic within the gaming industry, and ever since the rise of the internet it has become of an even more present issue. A lot of parents/grandparents and other people worry that abusive and inappropriate language will spoil their children and teenagers while gaming online.
Tons of inappropriate language is used in online gaming every day and there are even more abuses coming in as well. Many games have banning systems implemented in to fix this issue but it is still present because of just the sheer scale of how many do it daily.

              
                                                             http://pikdit.com/i/rgaming-this-past-week/

For a parent to crack down on this issue, to not expose their child/teenager to this, they can use language filtering option, which can be found in most modern online games, or just ban online gaming and only allow them to game on single player games.

Parents can also direct themselves by looking at game reviews and PEGI markings.

Addiction:

Addiction is yet another common issue discussed within the gaming industry, parents blaming video game companies that their child is sitting on their computer constantly, doing nothing but playing the video game, even ending in some extreme circumstances of a person actually dying or being injured from the addiction. Addiction is of course a serious matter, it can cause injuries, health problems, lack of productivity, bad grades at school/getting fired from your job, or in the worst cases can even lead to deaths.

Anything that's enjoyable to us can make us become addicted, or sometimes even if we do not enjoy something, we can still get addicted due to special addicting chemicals being within that product. As such, we can get addicted not only from video games, but from smoking, drinking, doing drugs, or anything other that we might enjoy, such as watching a TV series or eating something that tastes really good in your opinion.

                              
                                       http://matstar102.deviantart.com/art/Gaming-Addiction-Wallpaper-206423271

It is a proven fact that some people will get addicted easier than others, it is entirely dependent on how mentally strong we are, and if we are able to say 'stop' to something or not. For example, when trying to quit smoking, some people have enough of a strong will to do it on their own, but other people might need help to quit by using some kind of medicine.

While the gaming industry can't really do much about addiction, it is up to the individual to deal with their addictions.

Stereotyping and Representation:

Stereotyping can be found around everything in this world. Every nation has some sort of stereotype, users of certain devices have stereotypes surrounding them, people with certain skins colors have stereotypes, the stereotypes about certain things even change from location to location, it is really all around, and the gaming industry is no different, it also gets its share of stereotypes.

There are many stereotypes surrounding the gaming industry and the people that are enjoying the gaming hobby as well. That games are for children some say, or 'Get a life' others say (hinting at the fact that you sit in front of a monitor all day and do nothing else). A lot of people, when asked to imagine a typical gamer in their head, will imagine an obese person, uneducated and unhygienic. While it is true with some extreme examples, all of these stereotypes are in fact completely wrong and are just a produce of common urban myths, lack of research or thought put into a specific conclusion about someone/something.

Back in 1990, gaming perhaps, just maybe, was for children. But nowadays, in 2014, it is a hobby that everyone does, around the world, at all ages, it is an industry that is bigger than the movie and music industry combined. And when it comes to stereotyping, it is also completely untrue to most people. Most people who game in fact treat is a a healthy hobby, are educated, and have more of a social life than those people who actually go out to parties, because when you game online you get to meet people from different cultures all around the world, learn languages, meet new friends. People who also dedicate themselves to gaming, can start earning a lot of cash, by doing things like streaming, doing YouTube or even do something like design content for their favorite game and get paid for it if it gets into the game. Even more, with the recent rise of E-sports, gaming proves to be a valid competitive scene for many skilled people to prove themselves.

          

Representation is also important, as they say, first impressions are very important, and when it comes to psychology of human beings, it is quite interesting. For example, if someone from Germany will meet a Polish person, and that Polish person happens to be a rude person, that German person will most likely think the same of every Pole he meets from now on. This is how stereotyping is born, and this is also why good representation of yourself and your values is important.

A ton of stereotyping is happening in online games, combine that with inappropriate language and you can find yourself some very toxic environments. That is why a lot of parents and older people are against online play, but at the end of the day, it is very easy to deal with toxic people online, just like you deal with toxic people in real life, you ignore them. There are also counter-measures against toxic people in most online games.

Censorship:

For the topics mentioned above, a lot of people want to censor many gaming related things,censor this, censor that they say. At the end of the day, you can't censor everything.

There are however, some games that got censored for being too extreme, that is, they were being either disgusting/racist/propaganda-like. Some games created by indie developers even recreated some horrible events, but putting YOU as the person that did these events. These games have no right of existence, and the creators should be apprehended and jailed for what they did.

          

The gaming industry tries their best at censoring games that never should have seen the light of the day, there are many companies that take care of such things, and they catch most offensive games and punish their creators.

In my opinion, cracking down on very offensive games is a must, in order to not give the gaming industry a negative image, I do not like however people trying to for example censor the internet, when they clearly have no idea what they're talking about and that clearly haven't done their research in that regard. For example when the American Congress tried to limit the internet. Or most recently, when the Hungarian government tried to tax the internet.

                           
                                                   http://rt.com/news/200315-hungary-internet-tax-protest/

- One of the Hungarian protests against internet taxation.

HA9 - Task 1 - Response Theories.

The Hypodermic Needle Model:

The Hypodermic Needle Model was the first real model of understanding how people consume and understand media. This model was developed in the 1920's and 1930's after World War 1 propaganda and many big movies effects have been noticed, today, this model is very much outdated and not accepted in our society anymore since it believed that people are simple minded and can be controlled through the mass media. As it happens, they were wrong.

This model worked as a linear communication method, as in, the media is pushed out, injected into the masses and that's about where the interaction ends, the citizen is supposed to consume that piece of media and acknowledge it, and therefore this model is very much based off a passive community, where every individual is the same and is therefore treated the same within the model.

A good example of how such a model was supposed to work, was when on a Halloween Night, 1938, through the radio, Awesome Wells and The Mercury Theatre has broadcast-ed quite a short report through the radio that dramatized the H.J Wells 'War of the Worlds' where it stated that scout forces of an alien army from Mars has landed on one of the American farmlands and with a single robot wiped out 6800 US Soldiers armed to the teeth. Later on it was found that in fact thousands of listeners believed to the fraud and they were utterly terrified.

Some of the techniques from this model are however still used today but in a modified way, mainly in advertisement, some advertisers just have people do amazing stuff, like Red-bull, stick their logo onto their equipment, and suddenly when people think of Red-bull, they also think of all the stuff they did for extreme sports for example.

           

The Inoculation Model:

This theory was originally produced and developed by a psychologist, William J. MacGuire, in 1961. It is studied to this day mainly by health academies and other psychologists and also used in preparation of advertisements and other things.

This theory believes that you can build up a certain belief or opinion within a person and make it very hard for someone to break that belief/opinion. So for example, a certain person might have a very specific opinion towards a specific topic, and even though someone might present them overwhelming evidence that their opinion is unjustified, they will stick to it anyway. As it can be noticed, this is usually very true, and happens with people from the day they are born.

If a person is born into a very conservative family for example, they will believe in a certain god and that all the new ideas are bad, and therefore someone with a fresh mind might have a lot of trouble converting that person. If someone however lives in a very open minded family, they might have a lot of different opinions on different topics, and be very mindful and open minded about their opinions, ready to change them if they are proven wrong.

This model also believes that every person has some expectations established within their life. For example, if you were born into a rich family, you would also expect to have good and quite expensive clothes, electric devices, etc. but if one day, for some reason you suddenly ended up on a street with your family, it would become a huge shock to you, since that familiarity would be completely broken.

                                          
                                                              http://www.justgiving.com/en/companies/company-fundraising-tips

The Two Step Flow Model:

As the name suggests the Two Steps Flow Model work in certain 2 steps that have to be met. Originally, this idea was developed by Paul Lazarsfeld in 1944 and later was improved in 1955 by Elihu Katz.

This model works by media creating some kind of topic, putting forth the information and the evidence of the information and then releasing it into the public. Within the human society, there are people who are much more intelligent than the others, or have skills that are seen by others as the 'leadership' skills, therefore, such people are seen by others as the obvious leaders, people to listen to or take advice from, since it is believed that they know better what to do or what to believe in, in certain situations. These are called, the opinion leaders. They take in a piece of information from a media source, process it and then analyse it to see what they think of it.

Later those opinion leaders meet up with their friends and talk about different things, eventually they will come onto such a topic of opinions, now, since those friends will usually see those leadership skills within that opinion leader, they will listen to him/her more closely, take his/her advice more and generally be assured that this person knows better than them in many topics. This will therefore form their opinion from those opinion leaders, the people that listen to opinion leaders are called 'opinion followers'.

Anyone can be an 'opinion leader' for someone, some treat their family members as opinion leaders, others trust their friends or husband/wife more to be their opinion leaders, it is entirely different from person to person. Previous events with that specific person for someone can decide if he/she can be an 'opinion leader' for them.

Before the rise of the internet, people treated the super stars as great opinion leaders, and therefore this was used by the media and advertisers, promoting their ideas and products with famous stars, telling people that this is okay.

Now with the rise of the internet, people are listening more to normal people who just are doing a small career on the internet as bloggers or Youtube channels, they are seen as the internet stars by those who watch them, and in today's times, it is them that are the new main opinion leaders, rather than the super rich stars, since normal people can relate more with those new 'Internet Stars'. Advertisers have begun to use those Youtube and other stars to do their advertisements, media however in general, still haven't accommodated to those people within modern television or magazines.

                                     
                                                         http://haverstockmedia.com/matthew-escudero-a2-rp-blog/?currentPage=7

The Uses & Gratifications Theory:

This theory is quite different than the previous ones that were discussed in this thread. This theory focuses on the user, rather than the piece of media. It was originally created and developed by Herta Herzog in 1944, through the decades, this theory has been updated and further developed by many other people.

This theory focuses on different people within our society, and what kind of media they might be looking for, and what media they might enjoy or not enjoy. So for example, a person interested in military things might be very interested in a TV channel about war machines, but not very interested in a fashion channel and therefore he/she will choose one over the other. One will gratify, the other will not gratify. Each person has their own likes and dislikes and therefore will like/dislike different things than another person.

This theory also studies the uses of media by people, as in, when a person watches something on a TV, what do they do with that knowledge, if someone will watch a tutorial on how to build a simple table, will they go do it or not?

We can therefore call this theory a research, that can be used by both the media and the people, in helping create content that people enjoy.

                                   
                                                                          http://www.jiad.org/article22.html

The Reception Theory:
This theory originates from Hans-Robert Jauss in the late 1960s. This theory is quite similar to The Uses & Gratifications Theory, only that this one focuses on literary media (books, magazines and newspapers) rather than something like a television or internet.

This theory aims to see what different kinds of people like to read, why, when they like to read it etc. So for example, you wouldn't expect an elderly person to read teenage magazines and vice versa. It aims to see how different people react to different source material and whether they like it or not.

Within this theory there are usually three codes of answers, and that is - Like it, On the fence with it, Dislike it.

                                 
                                                   http://tdonoghuetheory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/david-gauntlett-reception-theory-stuart.html

HA8 - Task 1 - Media Products and Their Audiences

Media Text:

Media text is a method in how a specific media is presented and how it is delivered to the consumer, each media is presented differently and is also usually consumed differently to the rest. Examples of different medias include - video games, newspapers, radio and television. Each one of them projects different meanings and is consumed differently by the individual person. The two pieces of products I will be comparing today are both video games. Just Dance 2014 and The Last of Us.

Semiotics:

Semiotics are hidden or sometimes even unintentional messages left in a piece of media that then get picked up by the consumer and are though on and about.

For example, a movie might have a hidden message that is being presented throughout the movie in different ways, such as in objects in movie sets or in certain way that a specific character might be speaking about something, the consumer then can pick up these messages and consume them and think through them on their own and make up their own conclusions, sometimes leading to different understandings than the author/s intended. In many cases, due to sloppy planning, hidden messages can be found by the players even when they weren't intended to be any hidden meanings/messages.

A great example of such a thing is something that is called 'The Indoctrination Theory', a theory sparked by the fans of the franchise Mass Effect to explain the terrible ending of Mass Effect 3 which ended the trilogy. The fans found tons of evidence suggesting that the main character that the player played as throughout the trilogy, was in fact indoctrinated by the 'Reapers' (machine invaders within the game with their only agenda being to wipe out all biological sentient life - the main evil in he story line that the player will battle through the 3 games) and in fact the ending is the way it is because of that.
The amount of evidence that was collected and verified as valid by the fans create an hour and a half documentary film explaining everything.
       
            

Additional documentaries adding onto the evidence were later created, to this day the developer of the game haven't spoken about the matter but the fans suspect that all will be explained in Mass Effect 4. This is a great example of how bad planning (or is it bad planning?) can spark different message reading within the media consumer.

             

Another great example of a semiotic, this time within the poetry area, is a poem written by Zbigniew Turek, a Polish thinker that during the occupation of Poland in 1939, wrote a poem in occupied Lwów (today Ukrainian Lviv) that was then sent, accepted and awarded by the communist government and even commented on by Stalin himself about how great it is.

The poem, when read in numbered verses, would talk about how great Communist Russia and Comrade Stalin is, but when actually read horizontally, line through line, it would actually tell the story of the Soviet nation burning in flames for their crimes, and Stalin dying young and paying a high price for what he did. This was not noticed by the Soviet occupants, but was discovered after the war.

Semiotics can play a vital role in the depth of a media piece and can form many opinions and win the specific product many awards for its cleverness.

When trying to find semiotics in Just Dance 2014 and The Last of Us, most of them will be found in the Last of Us, because it is a very story driven game, while the Just Dance 2014 is just a fun, casual dance rhythm game. Sure, there can be some hidden messages in the background of dance scenes in Just Dance 2014, referencing some other film etc. but that's about it. While in the Last of Us, the game teaches us how friendship is very important, by having the player go through the relationship with Ellie, the sidekick within the game. And also tells many different stories that sometimes cannot be spotted if not analysed in-depth.

Genre:

The game genre defines what the game is, what it does and how it specializes itself. There are many, many genres within the gaming industry and there are also a lot of sub-genres attached to the main genres that describe the game's type in a more detailed way.

This allows the customer to know what they are buying into, the genre tells them exactly what the game is like and what it is about. It is also easier on the marketing department, because when they know the genre and sub-genre of the game they are going to market, then they are able to much easily direct the adverts towards the specific audience that is going to be more interested in that specific genre, which in turn minimizes the costs of advertising but increases the income of the product.

Just Dance 2014 is a dancing rhythm game, while the Last of Us is a single-player survival apocalypse game with sub genres such as horror, adventure and puzzle. Both games have their specific audiences and they both have their specific flavors within each other. For example, while Just Dance 2014 is a great game for parties, includes co-op and is all about the dancing and the fun, the Last of Us might be a great gaming experience for a more diverse gamer.

                              
                                                   http://www.nintendolife.com/games/wiiu/just_dance_2014/cover

                       
                                           http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/ps4-games/1400999/the-last-of-us-remastered-review

Content:

The content of a media piece is its insides, what does it have for content? and how much of it does it have? The content is everything within a piece of media, from the selecting/starting screen to what is going on later on, on the screen. The more content a piece of media has, the more time consuming it becomes to through it, of course, the quality of produced content also is very important, nobody wants to produce a movie that lasts 10 hours and that is extremely boring.

When comparing the content of Just Dance 2014 with The Last of Us, we can immediately see that the content is prepared for different audiences and with different purposes in minds. Even when looking at the above box art we can see that.

Just Dance 2014 has very colorful, bright and exciting content for teenagers and kids, it's a simple dance-rhythm game with pretty static backgrounds, it mainly focuses its budget on actually acquiring the licenses for many famous songs which can be very expensive, rather than spend it on technology or a wide amount of content in game, the content comes from the artists that the producers buy licenses from.

The Last of Us is completely different however, it focuses on a story driven, complex, deep world to immerse the player in, therefore the quality within the game as well as the amount of content is very high and very well polished. Most of the budget in this game was not spent on acquiring expensive music licenses, but rather hiring people to create a lot of high quality content for the players to enjoy and to be immersed in.

Both games have their audiences, and when done correctly, both yield good results, when considering content for a media piece, a producer always needs to consider what audience he is aiming for.

Construction:

The construction of a media piece is the inner workings of it, so how it ticks, its basic mechanics, and how complex/deep it is. Again, dependent on what audience you are aiming for, it will depend what mechanics and how complex mechanics you decide to include into your product. Each target audience likes only a specific amount of complexity in their games and therefore it is important to get the balance right.

           

Just Dance 2014 has very simple mechanics, its mechanics are mainly based on dancing and rhythm syncing. Apart from that there are no other mechanics, it's just a dancing-party game that is fun with a group of friends.
When coming to the Last of Us however there are many more complex mechanics involved, there are several different things that happen within the game world that can also changed based how the player reacts, therefore, there are tens of mechanics involved within the game.

         

Off that conclusion, The Last of Us is a far more complex game, however, as said before, both games are designed well based on their target audience, half sober teenagers during a party wouldn't appreciate a super complicated dance game, just like a hardcore and dedicated gamer wouldn't accept a downgraded and simplified game.

Codes and conventions:

Codes and conventions are known techniques and 'standards' within the media industry that are practiced and expected by everyone, both the consumers and the producers. For example, in an action video game you wouldn't expect to be a lot of strategic, top-down thinking, because that's not the agenda of the video game and customers wouldn't expect it either. You would expect a lot of action, shootouts, explosions etc.

It is important for the producer to keep the codes and conventions, in their bases, the same, so that when a player plays their game, they won't feel alienated by the game, by things that are unusual in that kind of game. So that the game feels similar even when it is a new game.

Some producers however decide to break those codes and conventions, innovate in something, change something, in most cases, this ends in a disaster, but to the few companies that manage to do it, it got them a lot of fame, income and they have permanently written themselves into the cards of gaming history. A perfect example of a franchise that broke the codes and conventions not once, but twice, and change the face of the gaming industry, forever changing how FPS's and not only them would look like. Half Life 1 and Half Life 2.

          


Modes of address:

The modes of address, as the name suggests, is the way the game talks/interacts with you as the player. There are 3 main types of modes of address, the first one being first person, using words such as 'me' and 'I', second one being in third person, using words such as 'He', 'Used' etc. the game basically narrating your actions. And the last one is done in sort of god's form, as in, the game is telling you exactly what to do, in the case of Just Dance, it tells you dance to that specific song in that specific manner, so treats you as a minion, in this specific case then, it is the game that is the god and is telling you the commands while The Last of Us is done in the third person and the game narrates your actions throughout the play-through, and you can be a god of your own actions and have your own 'puppets' to steer throughout.

Dependent on what mode of address the maker of the game picks, it will have a huge impact on immersion, story telling, as well as the mechanics and the very base of the game.

Target demographic:

Target demographic is used in terms of business, i.e. selling the game once its completed. Each game has its own target demographic, that way, they can focus their marketing on that certain group, it is a well known fact that specific age groups have their niches, likes and dislikes, therefore, target demographic needs to be specific (what audience do we want this game to go to?) otherwise the marketing section of the publisher/game developer can't really create adverts that will satisfy, because they will have to create an all around advert that will fit in most categories, but won't excite anyone for the product. This means less sales, that's why target demographic is set, so that the marketing section will know what kind of advertisements they need to produce to excite that specific audience.

Not only that, but the game itself has to reflect on that, if a game is aimed at teenagers, it cannot be something boring like logic games, it probably will not sell very well in that demographic, aim it at older people however, and bingo.

It is therefore the matter of getting the balance right, of picking the right target demographic, and then designing the game and the advertisements to that specific demographic.

When we look at The Last of Us and Just Dance 2015, we can immediately see that they both have different target audiences. The Last of Us is done in a very moody environment and art style, it is in the middle of zombie apocalypse, not a happy time to live in, it is done with 2 survivors fighting for their life, with a lot of action and good story telling, clearly, this game is aimed at more hardcore teenagers and adults that game.

Just Dance 2015 is very colorful, literally exploding with colors, having all the latest and most popular songs. Here, we can see that this game is aimed more at those casual teenagers who don't really play that much games but like to have occasional video game fun on parties.

     

     

HA7 - Task 3 - Presentation of Research Results

                    

HA7 - Task 2 - Applying Research Techniques

Original questions:

Our task was to create a set of 10 questions that would ask a person about a game that we researched, in this case, GTA 5, which is said to have brought all kind of audiences to the game, female, male, living on farm as well as in town, poor and rich, so generally, everyone. I chose questions that would be relevant to what I want to find out, as well as designed them in a specific way to gain specific data (numerical or word). The questions were carefully chosen by and my colleagues from my group, we have also tried to make sure that the answers available were sufficient and that we didn't miss any important (such as not applicable for some questions) answers that might give us incorrect results. After designing the original questions we have moved onto survey monkey to create a proper questionnaire that we then sent out to other people through the internet and face to face to fill out.

Quantitative Questionnaire:

Setting up the questionnaire on survey monkey:

After we designed the main questions on the word document, me and my group colleagues have moved onto the survey monkey to design the questions properly to be then able to send them out to other people for them to answer them. We have carefully designed each question, slightly modifying some of the parameters that we set out in the draft version, such as adding - not applicable to some of the questions. We have also tried to pick out he best form of answering the question for the ease of the user and for the ease of collecting the data later on. 

End results:

The end results were quite overwhelming, I have personally published the survey to my facebook account, sent it out on twitter and my friends re-tweeting it, send it out via e-mails as well as published it on internet forums and other sites such as Reddit, after 5 days I managed to collect about 2300 responses in total. Later on I used about 70 of these in our final group presentation, below are the results of the survey.

Overall I would say that I am pretty happy with the results, there were a lot of responses, and with the responses also came some valid criticism about my survey (which is understandable). There were some unnecessary questions within the survey, For example I could have taken the: "are you a gamer?" question and just say that if you're not a gamer then please don't do this survey, this would leave space for an additional question which could have added a greater insight into the results. There were also some bad design decisions within the group age, they were spaced too widely to give a proper representation in some cases.
Overall however I feel like my presentation did the job and I am how happy it turned out and how many responses it got

Qualitative Questionnaire:

Setting up the questionnaire on survey monkey:

In this qualitative questionnaire I have only created 5 questions instead of 10 like in the quantitative one, it is because I wanted people to answers these questions well, and if they saw 10 questions they might have lost the drive to complete it. I feel however that those 5 questions were more than enough to get the results that I needed, in the end I was proven right about my decision.

End results:

The end results were as following:

Q1. Are you a male or a female?

Male: 28
Female: 2

Q2. Do you like the look/style of GTA 5?

98% of people answering said that yes, they do like the look of GTA 5.

Q3. What aspects of GTA 5 did you enjoy the most?

The results were very varied here as probably expected. Some people really enjoyed how large the map was and how much freedom they had. Others liked all the activities they can participate in within the game. Online, immersion, community, how dynamic the 3 characters were in comparison to each other. Many other people also liked the driving/flying and in general, the story.

Q4. Which is your favourite protagonist within GTA 5, Trevor, Franklin or Michael and why?

The results were pretty even here, but in the end Trevor and Franklin were liked more than Michael.

Q5. What would you do to improve GTA 5 if you could?
There were many suggestions here from the participants. Many suggested for the bugs to be fixed, additional mechanics to single and multiplayer be added, More content to be created and maps to be made bigger.

HA7 - Task 1 - Research Techniques

When doing research, there are 2 main ways of doing research, both of the ways can and are very effective if used in a correct way. Combining them together will make sure that you will get proper results that then you can use to your advantage in the future.

Quantitative Research, i.e. numerical data, factual information:

Quantitative Research is done, as the name suggests, in large quantities, on a large group of people. These surveys are usually done as a single question surveys to save time and resources as well as for the ease of asking, that is why it is very crucial to formulate the question well so that it is understood and can be answered quickly. The type of data therefore that is collected from quantitative surveys is usually numerical - easy to accumulate, store and sort, it is also usually a question based on a fact (example: is Volvo a company or not?). A lot of quantitative data will be presented in a form of a pie/bar chart and percents.

While this kind of research does not tell you people's opinion on certain topics for example, it does provide an insight into how many people know something,

People can create their own quantitative surveys for people to answers on things like Survey Monkey and Strawpoll.

A good example of quantitative research is recent research done by Digital Britain, where they see how many people and what kind of people consume what media and how much of it.

                        
                                             http://www.iabuk.net/news/33-million-uk-game-players

Qualitative Research, i.e. word data, opinionated information:

Qualitative Research is the opposite of quantitative research, while quantitative research can survey a lot of people quite quickly, it doesn't get that much detailing in there as qualitative research can. Qualitative research focuses on much less people, but rather than doing something like asking a single question, it hands in a whole survey, included with opinions/comments which allows for a much greater understanding after questioning.

So qualitative research, in comparison to quantitative research, is rather a word data than numerical data, and has a lot of opinion within the answers rather than straight factual information.

Qualitative data takes a lot more time to collect, can eat up more resources, and is much harder to organise, since you can't just put it in certain categories since each opinion is completely different to one another. But in the end is worth it nonetheless.

Examples of Quantitative and Qualitative data:

There are many examples of both the quantitative and qualitative data, a good example of a quantitative can be a website, such as survey monkey, where people can create quick surveys with a couple of factual answers, which then gets sorted automatically:

                         
                                            http://blog.soton.ac.uk/oneshare/2011/06/22/sle-online-survey-tools-review/

A good example of a qualitative data can be found on Youtube, the technology of free streaming and sharing is so popular today that there are professional reviewers on Youtube that review games and post up the videos up on the platform allowing other users to see it, a good example is a British Youtuber called Total Biscuit who is considered the No.1 PC Gaming Critic on Youtube and who does daily reviews of new games.

       

Another important thing to notice about this is that not only does this video provide the qualitative data that someone might be looking for, but also the user can go down and find many comments under the video who might also provide a lot of useful qualitative data, making this way of researching qualitative data very good and convenient for the researcher.

While you can make out many opinions in the comments underneath the video, many companies create promos of their upcoming games to promote them and also to show how different audiences react to their media piece. This is a more direct way of doing qualitative research.

A good example of that is another Youtube channel called the FineBrothers, which does react videos to many different things, they have 4 different audiences of people reacting to different things. They are as follows: Children, Teenagers, Elders and lastly other famous Youtubers.

In the following video, they have a bunch of elders react to Call of Duty Black Ops 2, many of them react in the expected for their age way, but there are some which also behave differently.

           

Target Audience Profiling, i.e. how to pick the target audience that you are going to survey and how to do it correctly:

In order for a good survey to take place, before the actual survey there must be target audience profiling done, the matter is so delicate and so crucial in this that there are entire universities that are dedicated to teach people this skill. If you will try to ask a question that is specifically designed for gamers, it is then quite obvious that you will not go around the entire Earth and ask the question to every gamer on the planet. You will need a sample of gamers that you will ask, but picking that sample is very crucial, if picked incorrectly it can give biased results that will be of no use or can misinform the person doing the survey.
There are multiple ways to get a biased survey, for example, asking people who all play the same game might be biased, or asking people who all know each other might be biased, or asking people who all have similar interests might be biased. There are literally thousands of things to consider when picking out a sample for the survey.

A number of factors is usually taken into consideration to not get a biased result from profiling:

Age, Gender, Race and Sexuality
Education
Occupation
Annual Income
Disposable Income
Current Lifestyle / Aspirational or Desired  Lifestyle
Culture
Media Interests
Buying Habits
Loyalty to Brands

There are a lot of other things to consider when collecting a survey sample, such as the demographics (what job they are working at), psychographics (their usual/expected behaviour) and geodemographics (where they live - people from the same neighborhoods will most likely have quite similar opinions).
In terms of demographics and psychographics, a special survey organisation called the NRS is conducting a lot of research into different people, and what they play, and how they play it, this allows companies to know exactly how and where to aim their product.

Demographics:

                         
                     https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1XdCWf2nhFk1hwIFSVa28tG-2QQC5-WczIRPt2lH0d3RWN4ZSV00ytR5dRYFJoEJ_YQAXgvjNuKXXK6UkDDz2o9y32P2WIUlU-2aFYD1U5Dak0mkfW7jskMs-i9MAB-FO4Z2383vGDc/s1600/media+class+system.png

Psychographics:

                                  
                   https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQQ0ZdHOtX5auhPPKsCeDgsSD-Wo9Lt_6gqxFDFdeWdRO-krpLLvn-86zp0Lhdu_9DlSar3GJWmdUSezzDcMv7SLrJh50WulH4Jzb60mw90HuZcHmrc_FB_u_bTpppkdiwozb0xuV1rroB/s1600/psyco.jpg

Geodemographics:

                              

                                                                  http://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/casa/events/images/gg1.png

After all of this is taken into consideration, one must pick a specific way to research and where to conduct it, for example, in the middle of the city, most people will most likely not stop to fill out a full qualitative questionnaire but they might ask one quantitative question.