#when its creators and artists who carry niche franchises like these?

[ihearasound]

Favourite artists selling their PM merch... its so joever

[swinterwriting-blog]

Final: The Video Game Industry

The history of video games is largely tied to the history of computer and internet technologies. Video games began in the 1970s and 80s in arcades. Original games like Space Invaders and Atari’s Pong have become iconic. During this time, home-made video games were popular, and media culture and conversation around gaming began to develop. As computer technologies improved, home gaming consoles like the PlayStation4 and Xbox were created. The industry changed again as mobile phones became popular in the 2000s. Artists and content creators have been able to impact the industry from its beginnings to its current moment. This is not to say the industry is free from problems of representation and diversity. The video game industry has stayed true to its roots. The people who had the money and ability to game early on in gaming history had some privilege. It is still largely those people of privilege creating these games. However, the movement has also been influenced from the bottom-up, often taking developers and publishers by surprise.

In What are the world’s 5 biggest videogame companies? A foolish take the author explains that the world’s top 25 video game companies are making $94.1 billion a year. The top video game publishers (companies that coordinate the production of video games) are Tencent, Sony, Apple, Microsoft, and Activision Blizzard. Tencent is a Chinese multinational conglomerate founded in 1998. Tencent is the world's largest gaming and social media company, and one of the world's most valuable technology companies. Tencent games has a stake in Activision Blizzard, and has pushed popular games like FIFA Online, PUBG Mobile, and Arena of Valor.

Sony Interactive Entertainment is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company that is owned by Sony Corporation. The company was established in 1993 to handle Sony's video game development with its new PlayStation brand. Since the successful launch of the original PlayStation console in 1994, the company has been improving and profiting from consoles and accessories. As a part of one of the world’s largest corporations, the shareholders in the company include large banks like Citigroup.

Many people don’t think of Apple when they think of gaming, but Apple receives a 30% share of all games sold in the App store. With the booming industry of mobile gaming, this small portion of Apple’s profits is a large portion of the cash flow in the industry. Apple is a joint-stock tech behemoth.

Microsoft is an American multinational technology company that created PlayStation competitor, Xbox. The Xbox brand offers games, and streaming services. The brand was introduced in the United States in 2001, with the launch of the original Xbox console.

Activision Blizzard is an American video game company founded in 2008 through the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games. The company owns and operates additional studios, including Treyarch, and Infinity Ward, and its titles have broken a number of release records. Call of Duty: Black Ops III was the biggest entertainment launch of 2015. Other franchises owned by Activison are  Destiny, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and King's Candy Crush Saga. It is the largest game company in the Americas and Europe in terms of revenue.

One notable publishing figure is Ding Lei. He has made $17.3 billion as the founder of internet-giant Netease and was also China's first gaming billionaire. His company partners with Activision Blizzard on World of Warcraft and Hearthstone in China, plus exclusive licensing of Minecraft.

These publishers can also profit from advertising revenue in games. Dynamic in-game advertising is the process of sending ads into video games while individuals are playing and of changing the ads and offering different sponsored downloads depending on player game setting and level. This is an echo of the media fragmentation already taking place, segmenting and targeting consumers with television, social media, and consumer tracking. Many games make substantial profits from advertising in the games.

The video game industry is expanding quickly, and with its rather recent development, a large amount of the wealth is already concentrated at the top.  As with any industry, competition is healthy, and yet the video game industry is following a path of conglomeration we see in all media industries.

In 16 trends that will define the future of videogames the author describes some of the different moving parts within the industry. Many of the trends shaping technology and how we use it are also shaping the distribution of gaming content. One large factor changing gaming is social media—social media blurs the lines of games and our online realities. Social games are games played through social networks like Facebook.  The increased use of tablets and mobile devices, which can be used as portable gaming platforms with family members of all ages, has made toddler and child mobile games another valuable market. Many toy brands are integrating the digital games with physical ones. There is a name for this educational children’s gaming--edutainment is the genre of teaching-oriented video games that are designed to have educational outcomes.

Another trend is the opening market demographic of older gamers. As today’s gamers age, they will carry their habits with them, and as life requires people to live increasingly online, older generations have growing interest in gaming. As we age, the idea of creating an avatar, a character that represents the user within a virtual world, becomes more appealing.

Many gaming trends allow for more interactive content creation. Steam Early Access and the new Xbox Preview programme allow fans to buy games before they are finished and have a say in the development process. Gamers don’t just play, but create. Trends in game creation provide opportunities for people to truly create their own realities, especially as the future of gaming becomes more integrated with virtual reality.

One gaming trend that has changed industries from multiple angles is streaming. The most popular platform, Twitch, is a live streaming video platform owned by Amazon. Introduced in 2011, the site primarily focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of eSports competitions, as well as less popular music broadcasts, creative content, and, "in real life" streams. Content can be viewed live or in video archives. Twitch has around 750 million monthly viewers. In the article Youtube is closing the gap with Twitch on live streaming, report finds, the author discusses the vast reach of streaming on sites like Twitch and Youtube.

Streaming is a gaming phenomenon. The success of Twitch outside of the gamer niche market was unanticipated, and popular gamers that stream have achieved a celebrity status in the world. People pay to watch gamers, and pay gamers to play well. Companies support and use influential gamers to increase hype and profits from games, and gamers can use eachother (through small gestures like shoutouts) to boost their own popularity.

The video game industry is uncharted territory, and the rapid changes in technology and distribution have created unexpected successes (live streaming) as well as shortcomings. The access children have to technology, and their proficiency with it proves they can adapt and succeed to live with virtual realities, yet it also continues to raise questions on different negative effects these interactive media messages can have on young heads and social lives. Violence, sexuality, and social isolation are all topics of conversation in the gaming sphere. 

There are social inequalities in the industry. In The Video Game Industry’s Problem with Racial Diversity, and Zoe Quinn: after Gamergate don’t ‘cede the internet to whoever screams the loudest, the authors take two different approaches to the lack of representation in games, and lack of diversity in gaming content creators. Only 3% of video game content creators are African American, while 76% are white. This is extraordinarily disproportionate, considering that 53% of black adults game. While women represent closer to 21% of content creators, that does not balance the 48% of women who play. Race representation is gaming is even worse than the industries problems with gender.

The most notable gender equality progress in gaming came from a harassment campaign using #GamerGate. In August 2014, the harassment campaign targeted several women in the industry. One of these women was game developer Zoë Quinn. After Quinn's ex-boyfriend, wrote a slanderous blog post about her, making baseless claims about her sex life. #gamergate hashtag users falsely accused Quinn of an unethical relationship with journalist Nathan Grayson to receive good reviews on her games. Quinn received threats of rape, and death threats.

Police were largely unprepared to handle these threats, and Quinn was moved from her home during these events for her safety.

"Gamergaters" said that they were a movement, but had no official leaders, spokespeople, or manifesto. Gamergate supporters organized anonymously or pseudonymously on online platforms such as gaming platform 4chan, Internet Relay Chat, Twitter, and Reddit. The movement was read by many as a right-wing attack against female influence in video games.

Quinn still receives harassment, even in light of her success after the controversy. In her new book, she talks about the darker side of the internet and gaming industry, and is a leading female figure in gaming.

From another part of the industry, one notable streamer is Kristen or @KittyPlays on the internet. She is one of Twitch’s top talents. She streams twice a day and covers a variety of games like PUBG. KittyPlays is also known for her vlog, where she travels, cooks, and even races supercars. She has over 760,000 followers on Twitch.

As in other industries, counterculture in gaming can be brought into the mainstream and the most recent example of this is Battle Royale. Battle Royale is a genre that blends survival, exploration and scavenging elements and last-man-standing gameplay. Players begin with minimal equipment, to scavenge for tools and eliminate all other opponents while avoiding being trapped outside of a shrinking safe zone. The winner is the last competitor in the game. This year, the free-to-play Fortnite Battle Royale became a cultural phenomenon almost overnight.

Another interesting adaption of the gaming industry is its popularity in comic con. Gamers from around the world attend and participate in conferences like these, creating communities and sharing new happenings in the industry, and in their favorite games and avatars. 

Subculture and counterculture within gaming are interesting to examine, because video games were a counterculture themselves for a good part of their history. The public was not, and still in some ways, does not fully approve of video games. Video games have been associated with violence, social disorders, and a “lazy” millennial culture. Video games have been adapted to culture somewhat similarly to the way television was. Despite concerns, they have been deeply integrated into society, and are now a media that is here to stay. The industry is new, and adaptable, and changes in poor portrayal of female and minority characters are portrayed is possible, especially when the change starts with diversifying the content creators. People like Zoe Quinn and KittyPlays are making names for women in gaming, and new developments in technology turn the tables all the time. 

Works Cited 

Ong, Sandy. “The Video Game Industry's Problem with Racial Diversity.” Newsweek, 18 Oct. 2016.

Perez, Sarah. “YouTube Is Closing the Gap with Twitch on Live Streaming, Report Finds.” TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 25 Oct. 2018.

Stuart, Keith, and Jordan Erica Webber. “16 Trends That Will Define the Future of Video Games.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 July 2015.

Sun, Leo. “What Are the World's 5 Biggest Video-Game Companies? A Foolish Take.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 19 June 2018.

Turow, Joseph. Media Today: Mass Communication in a Converging World. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Valenti, Jessica. “Zoe Quinn: after Gamergate, Don't 'Cede the Internet to Whoever Screams the Loudest'.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Sept. 2017.

[yangtuakesini]

Comic Fiesta 2017: An Op-Ed & Interview With Local Malaysian Artist, Adibah Balqis.

December Saturday mornings are usually quiet, especially at 8 a.m when one would be resigned to believing that most people would be sound asleep, knowing it was a weekend. Yet this Saturday was different as train cars were packed with fans, young and old, dressed in elaborate cosplay or sporting their favourite anime characters on their t-shirts. Indeed, this Saturday morning saw the city center flooded by otaku, the delightfully Japanese term given to fans of anime or video games and taken colloquially to mean a “nerd”, even derogatorily so. For the attendees of Comic Fiesta 2017 though, the term carried a sense of pride, as fans of everything from video and board games to anime and manga queued up for tickets, expecting a long day filled with anime, manga and games.

The Saturday morning of the 16th of December 2017 was the 16th time that Comic Fiesta, the biggest otaku and animation, comics and games (ACG) convention in Malaysia was held, returning to the heart of Kuala Lumpur at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center for the 5th time since its inaugural convention was held in 2002 at the historic Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall.

Comic Fiesta is the largest and inarguably, the most well-known event of its kind in the country, drawing in over 55,000 people over the weekend of its last convention in 2016, held at the Putra World Trade Center. Even to youths or adults alike who aren’t fans of ACG media, Comic Fiesta is still known to many people. This year, it drew crowds from as far as Singapore, Indonesia and Penang, which had it’s own Comic Fiesta Mini at the Straits Quay Convention Center last September. With its massive turnout each year, it’s clear that Comic Fiesta has grown a following not only locally but regionally as well.

One of the main attractions at Comic Fiesta is their Creative Art Market, a staple for Comic Fiesta-goers time and time again. Divided into 2 areas, the Premium Artbooth area and the Basic Artbooth area, it sees vendors of manga, anime and video game merchandise, sprawled across the entire convention center floor selling to thousands of fans and enthusiasts of various forms of media like animes such as ‘One Punch Man’ and games like ‘Assassins Creed’ or ‘Overwatch’. From branded merchandise, books and posters from movies, TV shows and games to fan-created art from equally-passionate artists from all over the region in the form of gorgeous prints, pin badges, and fan-created merchandise, the art market at Comic Fiesta, although frequently packed over the weekend, is always a highlight for the Comic Fiesta attendee.

The Basic Artbooth area houses one of Malaysia’s largest gatherings for local online artists, all of whom are just as enthusiastic about anime and video games as the customers they meet. Comic Fiesta’s motto: an “event for fans, by fans” definitely holds true here. Event attendees can always strike up a conversation with artists selling their creations about their favourite episode of the anime Yuri On Ice or a bad game mechanic in the popular battle-royale video game, ‘PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’. And it’s a true testament to the enduring nature of these fan communities that these artists keep creating marvelous pieces of fanart to be enjoyed by other fans. For most artists though, selling their creations amounts to a living for them. Scraping by on commissions or prints and unofficial posters. Comic Fiesta acts as one of the few times in a year that these artists can sell a large portion of their work, face to face with fans of not only the art’s subject, but also fans of the artists themselves.

One of these artists who was at Comic Fiesta over the weekend was Adibah Balqis, known online as ibahibut. Having a substantial following on platforms such as Instagram, Tumblr and DeviantArt, which is an online platform for sharing and selling visual art, she’s one of the many local and regional artists who came to Comic Fiesta to both enjoy the convention and to sell her creations. As a 23-year-old student attending Kolej Komuniti Selayang, she studies games art, a choice which stems from her love of video games, the popular Polish role-playing-game ‘The Witcher’ being one of her favourites.

Her roots in art began from her primary school days when a young Adibah enjoyed doodling chibi characters in class. Her beginnings in creating art in exchange for money, though came in around 2010 when she started taking requests on her social media pages. Back then, she would draw on pen and paper as buying a graphics tablet was financially out of her reach. Yet it didn’t stop her from drawing fanart from animes such as Naruto and posting scans of it on her DeviantArt page. 6 years of taking commissions and selling her art online finally gave her enough money to buy her first graphics tablet, a Wacom Intuos. Although basic, this finally paved the way for her first foray into graphic art and she hasn’t looked back since.

Even though switching from pen and paper to digital art has presented a learning curve for Adibah, like drawing physically, she says that enough practice always helps to hone artistic skill. For her, it was watching speed-art videos on YouTube and and copying other artists and their creations as a way to compare and improve her drawing skills. A devoted fan of the work of the all-female manga artist group ‘Clamp’, her passion for art ran deep to her core. For her, art was both a way to make a little bit of money and to express her love for her favourite anime, manga and video game franchises. Although she now creates art for money, it still hasn’t stopped her from drawing leisurely in her free time from bored doodles or sketches during lectures to gorgeous and masterfully coloured fan drawings posted to her Tumblr page. Seeing it as an artistic outlet, she also posits that her art is equally influenced by music as it is by subject matter or personal style. Adibah frequently listens to music while drawing and the type of music she listens to is reflected onto the page as she draws. Explaining it with an analogy, she says that cute or romantic music would translate to a cute or loveable drawing while brooding and dark music would create a darker and more intense creation.

Although successful, Adibah still doesn’t create art full-time. When asked if at her present workload, being an artist full-time would give her financial stability, she answered with a fast and assuring ‘No’. She receives a request for commissioned art every one or two days yet at her pace and the rates at which she charges for each commission, the money she earns doesn’t amount to much and this is a reality faced by many of our generation’s best, brightest and talented artists. Art is, unfortunately, a labour of love that takes time and passion, something that is almost unquantifiable by mere monetary value. For artists like Adibah and her contemporaries, art is a passion yet one which faces its fair share of challenges and hardships and takes as much dedication, as it does talent, to transform into a sustainable living.

The art scene in Malaysia and indeed in the region is still stigmatized by views of its relative uselessness or inability to be profitable. It is the result of these views that have led to the greater artistic scene in Malaysia to be one very small, underground and tight-knit, confined to groups of enthusiasts and fans alike. Adibah herself sees most of her commissions come from the United States and Europe. Yet when asked if she thinks that the graphic art and fanart communities in Malaysia will gain broader recognition as it currently does in the West and even in Japan, she confidently answered that she believes that it would happen. She believes that a generation shift in Malaysia will pave the way for the popularization of graphic design and art media. With events like Urbanscapes, various games conventions and indeed Comic Fiesta gaining broader recognition as of late in the country, especially among urban folk, it wouldn’t be wrong to think that a generational shift or at least a social change is occurring within our country toward a broader acceptance of art, literature and music and one definitely hopes that the stigma against such media would sooner, if not later, be a faint opinion of the past.

When asked whether she faced burn-out like many other young artistic minds, she says that it had occurred frequently during her time drawing art. Recalling a depressive episode she had in 2015, she said she stopped drawing both professionally and leisurely for an extended period of time and lamented how it affected many more artists, including many of her friends. Mental health is just as important to artists as it is to everyone, and it bears remembering that it affects many people and unexplainably, stops people from doing even the things that they are the most passionate about.

Comic Fiesta is an event that is impatiently awaited each year by regular attendees, fans and creators. Yet it bears remembering that Comic Fiesta is almost always viewed by Malaysians as a niche event for enthusiasts of a niche kind of media. Yet amongst fans and attendees, the sense of belonging that one feels when walking through Comic Fiesta’s packed halls each December is anything but foreign. For artists like Adibah, it presents an opportunity to find others that share her love for things like video games, anime and manga.  The highlight of Comic Fiesta, according to her, is meeting people face to face who share her love for video games and art as well as meeting fans of her work, something quite rare in her line of work and Adibah definitely, just like most others, looks forward to attending Comic Fiesta each year.

One can find Adibah and her amazing artwork on her Tumblr page and DeviantArt as well as on Instagram and Behance.