Indie Gaming- Super Meat Boy

Independent video games (commonly referred to as indie games) are video games created by individuals or small teams without a video game publisher and financial support. Indie games often focussed on innovation and rely on digital distribution. Indie gaming has seen a rise in the last few years, primarily due to new online distribution methods and development tools.
Some indie games have become very successful financially, such as Braid, Mindcraft.
An Example of an Indie game could be Super Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy is an independent video game designed by Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes and developed by Team Meat. It is the successor to McMillen and Jonathan McEntee's October 2008 Flash game Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy was released on the Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade in October 2010 and on Windows PCs in November 2010. Also other consoles and software. Super Meat Boy is a platform game in which players control a small, dark red, cube-shaped character named Meat Boy, who must save his girlfriend Bandage Girl from Dr. Fetus. The game is divided into chapters, which together contain over 300 levels. The game is very addictive, I have played it, once I started playing I couldn't stop for a good while. Every level gets harder to complete and becomes more difficult to save Meat Boy's Bandage Girl from Dr. Fetus. The game has been compared to games such as Super Mario's as it has similar featueres and things that the player can do. For exmples jumping off walls and sliding.
Indie games are very good but take alot longer to make as you don't have all the high amounts of money to create the game such as Rockstar. But, once the game is finished being developed and created and is then published and able to buy from places like Xbox Live then you will make alot of money off it as they cost very little to make, just takes up alot of time. The downfall is though, you can not advertise Indie Games as good as games like Grand Theft Auto because you are your own developer and not as popular as developers such as Rockstar or EA.

The Hot Coffee MOD?

The Hot Coffee MOD was a built in mini-game on the 2004 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game, which is developed by Rockstar North. Public awareness of the existence of the mini-game arrived with the release of the Hot Coffee MOD created for the version released in 2005 for Microsoft Windows. This MOD enabled access to the mini-game in Grand Theft Auto. The Mini game included the main person Carl ''C'J'' Johnson having sexual intercourse with his (in-game) girlfriend. The name 'Hot Coffee' was made as Carl's girlfriend invites Carl into her house for coffee, so they called it 'Hot Coffee' which is used as a euphemism for sex.

The 'Hot Coffee' mini-game was meant to be completely disabled and the games actual existence was only found after the MOD was released on for the PC version around June 2005. The MOD was then found in the Playstation 2 and the Xbox versions of GTA: San Andreas. People (gaming freaks) then found a way to activate the mini-game in GTA via console video game hacking tools. This means, that because this was found inside the game, the game itself was then forced to be re-rated as adult or 18+ so children could not play it. A new updated version of San Andreas has been released and the 'Hot Coffee' mini-game has been completely wiped out of San Andreas.

Rockstar now had a reputation because of this being found in their game and was a threat of loosing buyers of the hot coffee game.

Social Gaming

Now that consoles are getting even cheaper, and games are becoming more and more attractive to average people and are getting easier and easier to learn how to play, the average person will play them a lot more which has been shown over the recent years. For example, the game angry birds, it is very simple yet a very enjoyable game to play for most casual gamer's to play. It is also free, so most people who have either an iPhone, iPod or Android etc will most probably have this game. This could mean casual gamer's are now much more common than they were before. A good reason why their are more and more casual gamer's is because not everybody can afford all the consoles that are out today such as the Play Station 3 or the Xbox 360. So the first chance these 'casual gamer's get to download games on their phone's or iPod's  they will as the majority of them are all very, very cheap or even free! This could mean that if everybody finds away to play all the new latest games on their phone's, iPod's or iPad's etc, then all Gamer's that usually use the Xbox or Play-station 3 will not buy the next one as they will not need to and it will save them a lot of money.

Casual gamer's may also be taking over because on the Wii people find games such as Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero, and similar games such as Wii Sports, very simple. They involve rhythmic or timed movement, and anyone can learn them. They can be played competitively which new casual gamer's may find fun and exciting. So the more simple game's coming out, the more casual gamer's their will be as they will not be to hard to play but just easy enough for everybody to know how to play them.

Next, i do also think they are taking over because all these people who do not have time to play game's like these 'hardcore' gamer's will find these new simple games such as angry birds as i have mentioned earlier a great way to pass the time and want to start trying all different games. This is good for new company's as it is a great way of making more money if they make a simple game or app for these casual gamer's to play. This is because if the game is very good and easy to play then every casual gamer will possible buy it as they may have that bit of free time to play it.

I do also think that quite a few casual gamer's will eventually turn into hardcore gamer's as they may take a very great interest in these games and may want to start playing more and more games.

On the other hand, I do not think that casual gamer's will last forever. I believe this because the new generation of people may not be the same and if all these little games such as 'temple run' or 'wii fit' start becoming very expensive, people who can't afford them may stop buying them and eventually, these companies will loose a whole market of people and the generation will be put off playing all the games because they are not very affordable and people will have a strong opinion on them and think they are all to expensive and maybe a waste of time. So if these companies start loosing to much money and make no profits, they will not have enough money to create any new games to sell as nobody is buying off them. 

Another reason i believe casual gamer's aren't taking over because people may generally just loose interest of them as they may start to get bored and think that they have had their fun playing them but may think its time to stop. But i don't know, everybody has their own opinion? 

Overall, by discussing both sides of the picture, I do believe that not all these 'casual gamer's' will always be casual gamer's because they might just get bored of playing and just stop. Yes, fair enough their are millions of new casual gamer's as its the new thing to be nowadays but not everyone will stay as casual gamer's. But again on the other hand people may stay as casual gamer's or even become hardcore gamer's, we cannot predict the future of what will happen, but their are that many casual gamer's in the world now that eventually it might stay like this. 
Lastly, my opinion is that Casual Gamer's will take over for good as it is a cheaper and easier way of gaming which everyone in this generation of gaming have all been looking for. 

Wii U

I have done alot of research on the new 'Wii U' which will be coming in 2012, Nintendo's next home console will deliver as they say, "the deeper game experiences" the aim to offer that it is something for good for everyone to use! It has a wide variety of new controls available that which makes it a crazy new controller with a 6.2-inch touchscreen embedded in it which looks fantastic. The WII U controller has a built-in front-facing cam will allow you video chat from anywhere too. Notably, you won't have to use the 6.2-inch behemoth if you don't want too. The Wii U will be compatible with all current-generation accessories and software. You will be able to use your old Wii collection as it will will play on the U version of the console as well.

The following games that are coming out on the WII U are;
Batman: Arkham City, an Assassin's Creed game, Dirt, Ghost Recon Online, Tekken, Metro Last Light, Aliens Colonial Marines, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, and Darksiders II all got a mention as coming to the Wii U when it launches.


The Wii U is now HD aswell. The fact sheet from Nintendo informs us that the Wii U can now play 1080p video over HDMI. It'll also be compatible with component, S-video and composite cables. In this new console their will be an "internal flash memory" of unspecified quantity, which will be expandable via either an SD card or external USB HDD. Four USB 2.0 slots are made available on the WII, while game media will be served up on "proprietary high-density optical discs." There's also another, worthwhile, reminder that the Wii U will play Wii games and their optical discs without a problem. 

It is scheduled for released on the following dates.
November 18, 2012 in North America, November 30, 2012 in Europe and Australia, and December 8, 2012 in Japan
The price of the console will start at £249.99 roughly to see if it will be a big hit and if it is the price may go up.

Grand Theft Auto IV

GTA IV

Developers: Rockstar North

Publishers: Rockstar Games

Price: £15-£20

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360

 Release Date: 29th April 2008

Genre: Action Adventure, Open World

Rating: Pegi 18

How is it Distibuted?: Physical and Digital

Where Can You Get It?: Game, Gamestation, Amazon, Play, HMV and Ebay

Batman Arkham City

Batman Arkham City

Developers: Rock-steady Studios

Publisher: DC Entertainment

Price: £15- £25
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, Games For Windows
Release Date: 21st October 2011
Genre: Action- Adventure, Stealth beat'em up

Rating: 16+

How is it Distributed?: Blue-ray Disk, DVD, Download and Cloud Computing
Where Can You Get It?: Game, Gamestation, Amazon, Play, Ebay and HMV

Official Trailer- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCtJsy-d9w

My Gaming Experience

I have been interested in gaming ever since I was very young but I never really have time to play any games. But, when i was younger I had a PS1 and PS2 and used to always play Crash Bandicoot, Grand Theft Auto and Fifa as I used to really enjoy playing them and took a great interest right from the start. I then bought a PSP and a Nintendo DS but I don't use them anymore. I used to love playing Super Mario on the DS but unfortunately do not have time to play on it anymore. After that I got a Nintendo Wii and used to enjoy playing Guitar Hero on it. I used to always play on it and got to the difficulty of hard but stopped as I lost interest.  I now have a PS3 and when I have the time I play on all the Fifa games, Call of Duty and Batman Arkham City etc. I am always on my ipod so to pass the time i usually play on Temple Run, Angry Birds and Doodle Jump. That is basically it, my whole gaming experience.