Timed Essay Question 1

Timed Essay Question 1

Explain how ongoing audience interaction influences the production of video games. Refer to Minecraft to support your answer.

The production of video games such as Minecraft, are influenced by the ongoing audience interaction. The concept of the video game Minecraft was originally non-commercial and aimed for programmers however, the game started to gain attraction from gamers and started to play the game for fun and entertainment which links to the uses and gratifications theory. Gamers were enjoying playing the game that they would then stream the game to a wider audience on platforms such as YouTube, Twitch etc., this would then lead to the audience playing the game themselves if they enjoyed watching the live streams. Gamers then started to socially interact with each other which created a fan base for Minecraft. As Minecraft started to gain more popularity, the producers of the video game started to recognize this and realize that it was no longer non-commercial and not just for programmers, so they then started to make the video game much more accessible on other formats such as the mobile device version Minecraft: Pocket Edition and many other formats to access the video game. Minecraft today, has led to many other things such as merchandise and Minecraft conventions due to the popularity it has gained over the years and creating a community for fans of the video game, Microsoft even saw themselves how popular the video game was and still is becoming, that they then  brought Minecraft for 2.6 billion dollars. Minecraft will always been a popular video game because of the fan base and the community that has been created as it is an entertaining video game and it is a great way for fans of the game to socially interact with one another, even if people loose interest in the video game and are no longer fans, it will always gain new fans who start to become interested.