Chapter 11- Feature film and Video game industry

Then- The beginning of films and video games:

           

        There is no denying that the entertainment business is one of the most popular types of businesses out there. The invention of video games and films are huge parts of this industry and continue to keep growing. Both video games and films have a short history but have achieved so much in the short time since their invention. Video games are very popular and with so many different types of games and variety consoles to choose from its easy to find something you will enjoy playing. In the short amount of time since its invention in the late 1960’s, video games have thrived as a huge piece of the entertainment business. In 1967 a German engineer named Ralph Baer created a brown box console, which was later called the first mass market console named “The Oddyssy” (onlineeducation,2015). This console sold over 300,000 units and included a light gun game. A few years later in 1972 the very first 1st person shooter game came out called “Maze Wars” (onlineeducation,2015). It is incredible to see how far video games made it in just these six years alone. In the years to follow, games such as Pong, one of the earliest arcade games, Gran Trak 10, the first racing car vidtheaters took advantage of video games popularity and in the late 1970’s Atari opened the first Pizza Time Theater, later called Chuck E Cheese (onlineeducation,2015). The need for the latest and greatest video game consoles kept the business booming, and by mid-1980’s over 62 million units of Nintendo Entertainment consoles were sold in America. More popularity from Nintendo comes in 1985 when Super Mario Bros is released, and sold 10 millioiin copies. Nintendo released the Game Boy and it was an instant hit, selling 118 million worldwide. In the 1990’s the fans of video ga

eo game, Breakout, and Space Invaders to made it big with the public (onlineeducation,2015). Three classic video game consoles came out before the 1980’s, including the Video Game Computer System by Atari, the Intellivision video console by Mattel and Color TV Game 6 by Nintendo (onlneeducation,2015). The Video Game Computer System is the most successful video game console of its time. Even
mes wanted their video games on the cd, or compact disc. When computers became more popular, video games used it to their advantage. Games such as Myst and Wolfenstein 3D were popular video games for the computer (onlineeudaction,2015 ). In 1994 Sony released yet another version of a video game console, that of the PlayStation Console. This was the end of the cartridge and the start of the cd for video games. Games such as Final Fantasy VII became hugely successful, selling 2,300,000 copies of this pc video game with 3 cd’s (Nelson,2015). The next big seller console to come out selling 138 million units was the PlayStation 2. F

ollowing close behind with video game advances was the XBox, which came out in 2001 and sold 24 million units (Nelson,2015). Video games have always surprised us as well as entertain us and the business just keeps getting bigger as technology gets better.

            The feature film industry is another big part of the entertainment business and like video games is always changing. This business all started in the late 1800’s with penny films, where audiences paid pennies to watch moving pictures (Medoff, Kaye 215). By the end of the 1800’s, the film industry looked profitable and the audience was ready for the next big thing. A man named Edward Muybridge made the first true motion picture when he placed 12 cameras on a racetrack in 1872 and captured shots of the horses running (historycooperative article). In 1893 Thomas Edison built a studio in New Jersey called the Black Maria, which was a dark studio room that had a retractable roof in order to get as much darkness as possible. Many short films of different topics were shot here and stayed in business for 20 years (Medoff, Kaye 215). In the early 1900’s The Great Train Robbery was created an^th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures (Historycooperative,2014). During these time directors received more recognition due to filmmaking technology like trademarking personal styles in their films. By the time the 1930’s came around, Hollywood was buzzing with tons of films and is called the Golden Age of Hollywood. Before this time there was no sound in any films, and the introduction of sound created many new types of film genres, such as westerns, musicals and horror movies (Historycooperative,2014). The feature film industry took a dive around the 1940’s due to the United States involvement in WW 2 and Pearl Harbor attack, but the film industry got back on its feet in the mid 1950’s, where advances in music and pop culture helped the film business. It is estimated that by the end of the 1950’s in America, 10 million homes owned a television (Historycooperative,2014). The film industry changed its appeal to a younger audience, and created huge stars like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Ana Gardner. The 1960’s took a dive in the Hollywood film industry, and in 1963 only 120 movies were produced. This depression kept the film industry suffering until 1970’s films changed again. Its appeal was toward high action films for youth oriented pictures and produced films like Jaws and Star Wars, the highest grossing movies in film history at this time (Historycooperative,2014). The 1980’s film industry was filled with generic easy to understand and more marketable movies. The history of the feature film industry is amazing, and has so much more in store for us in the future.

d became one of the earliest and most famous movies of this time (Historycooperative, 2014). In 1911 the first studio in Hollywood was made because of the weather. Less rain as well as no snow plus lots of sunshine made it an ideal place to shoot films. And after WW 1 ended and the United States fell into a cultural boom, Hollywood became the new place for the film industry (Historycooperative,2014). Though New Jersey was the birth place of motion pictures, the birth place of movie stars and big feature films was Hollywood. The 1920’s was a prime time in Hollywood for the feature film business with hundreds of films being made each year. The earliest film companies at this time each owned their own film sets and studios, such as Warner Bother Pictures, 20

Now- Films and games in today’s technology:

           

        Today’s video games are much better in picture and quality because of new developments in technology.     Super Mario Bros is one of the most popular video games of all time, and in 2010 has sold 40,000,000 copies of this game (Nelson,2015). As video games changed with the technological world coming into the 21^st Century, playing video games online became the latest video game craze. World of Warcraft was an incredibly popular video game. Since its invention in 2004, this online video game has only increased in popularity. In less than ten years, this game had 12,000,000 subscribers in the world of Azeroth (Nelson,2015). Video games only got more popular, as consoles like the Nintendo GameCube, selling 21 million units, and an upgrade on the Xbox to the XBox 360 in 2005. Handheld portable video games were just as big as consoles, and customers everywhere wanted the latest of this technology. Advances in consoles such as PlayStation 3, PSP Go and Nintendo Wii are big parts of gamers lives (Onlineeducation, 2015). Also sports video games such as Madden Football, which started in 1988, has sold 100,000,000 copies of this very successful game. One other big fantasy video game that hit huge just a year ago is Destiny. This game ranks number 1 in new IP games, which makes it the highest pre-ordered game in GameStop history, and also collaborates with Paul McCartney that created the epic Destiny soundtrack (Nelson,2015). Video games are really in its infancy stage and who knows what the future may bring for gamers and fans everywhere.

The film industry is something that has been around for many generations. This industry has come such a long way and with technology advancing all the time, films still have a long way to go. I do not think that films and movies will ever stop, but the way we view films have changed. With things such as Netflix and Hulu, movie theaters aren’t as popular as they used to be. Even video rental stores have taken a huge dive and are pretty much gone. The 1990’s film industry was more popular for at home viewing rather than going to the movies. And in 1997 DVD’s were created and VCR’s became obsolete. By the time the 21^st Century came around, the amazing advances in technology proved a great thing for the film industry. We now have Blu-ray discs, streaming services online, and IMAX theaters for even more entertainment in the film business (Historycooperative,2014). The feature film industry has come such a long way since its invention over 150 years ago, and it’s a huge profit in the entertainment business. We now see a lot more of Blockbuster hit movies and trilogy’s that are high grossing films such as The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Bourne movies (Medoff,Kaye 216).  After the Writers Guild strike in 2007, the United States was hit with a rough recession. This had major effects on economics of the feature film industry, but this business had seen tough times before and by the end of the 2000’s, the return of 3D motion pictures appeared. The 3D movie experience caught on this time and was a big step in viewing movies (Medoff, Kaye 216). We now have televisions with 3D ability as well as streaming services and electronics with the availability to watch movies on them. Technology has worked well with the film industry and we have some incredible films with awesome special features that has the ability to take us to another world. We get the chance to be in someone else’s shoes and take a journey to places you have never been before. Video games do this as well and this is one of the big reasons this part of the entertainment business will be forever popular.

Later- The big future of video games and feature film industries

          

         With all the advancements in technology, it is hard to say exactly what video games and films will be like in the future. One big thing in the future of video games is called photorealism, a new era of realistic physical rendering (Stuart,2015). This feature of video games is something that has been in the works for years. The process from power of the multi-core processors is making the characters on the game look more real. This creates a new realm of reality, but with all new developments in technology, there comes problems and complications (Stuart,2015). The makers of these video game slots have been working on this for some time. They build groups of simulated physical objects that can sense and react to a player’s actions. A major key part in this work includes lighting.  In the past light and shadows were drawn onto the landscape by artists, but now this has changed into a realistic physical light source to simulate interaction between light and objects (Stuart, 2015). In other words, when a character on the game walks past you they create shadows under street lamps and flame in the game gives off a light as well. This is amazing technology that is seen in animated movies, but in a video game it’s a different type of entertainment. The real-time games make you feel like you are actually there and part of the game which makes playing these video games so fun and unique. Tony Tamasi is the senior vice president at graphics hardware specialist Nvidia. He says, “We’ve made amazing advances in real time rendering capability over the years. Shadows have gone from single blobs, to hard edge cast shadows, to soft edged shadow maps, to form of global illumination called ambient occlusion.” (Stuart,2015). These affects make the video game seem so much more realistic and changes the way we play games. Tamasi also talks about more improvements happening this year. Features such as real-time lighting and shadow effects and innovation on things like weather and day and night cycles. Tamasi says, “Imagine a truly simulation-based volumetric dust clouds, kicked up by a landing chopper, with player characters moving through those swirls of dust, interacting with them. Or characters blowing holes in the walls of a castle, allowing the sunlight to stream in from outside, bouncing from the floor, to the walls, to the drapes.” (Stuart,2015). Years from now who knows how video games will look and how far technology will be.

            The feature film industry has been with us for many generations and continues to expand and change with technology. When the radio thrived, the feature film industry suffered, yet still managed to stay popular. When the television was made, programs and shows changed the audience’s attention to home viewing rather than going to movies, but this didn’t end the feature film industry. It is still a big part of entertainment, but with the internet taking over the way people view movies, the film industry may suffer. The internet is now the way of the future, and it is all part of the shared experience of movie watching entertainment. The internet educates the audience, and having the opportunity to check a movies rating can affect the movie industry (Ziarmik, 2010). This in turn causes filmmakers to produce good movies so the audience will want to see it at the theater. Steven Spielberg has a different opinion when it comes to movies. He thinks the industry will implode and believes it is inevitable for films (Bond, 2013). Spielberg says, “Some ideas from young filmmakers are too fringe-y for the movies. That’s the big danger, and there’s eventually going to be an implosion- or a big meltdown. There’s going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen mega budget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that’s going to change the paradigm.” (Bond, 2013). George Lucas also commented on the future of movies, saying that television shows are more adventurous than movies nowadays. With all the hype of streaming shows and movies, television and films are decreasing in popularity. The future holds more of at home viewing and film entertainment than going out to the theater to see a movie.