Candidates should name the chosen media products and identify their genre. They should explain using examples how the genre has:
• changed in style
• changed in content
• changed in audience/consumer
• been changed by new technology
• met changes in sales and funding for production.
YOUR RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE IS TO BE DONE ON YOUR BLOG AND MUST BE TAGGED 'UNIT 01'.
1. Choose the genre of videogame you wish to study. It has to be a clear and appropriate choice of genre so FPS, handheld, platformers, sims, strategies, survival horror, beat-em-ups, racing games are all good choices. Mario games, CoD, 'games with Zombies in' are not genres so you can't just study that.
2. Get researching. The most obvious thing to do is to type in 'History of...' into to Google and a recommend you do just that as the net is teaming with stuff about games. Whatever information you need, some fanatic has uploaded it for you.
Read the articles you find - but follow links (especially if you use Wikipedia) so you can get information from a number of sources.
As you read - make notes, build up the information so you know what to include and what not to.
3. Structure your response. My suggestion is that you break-up your response historically - videogames are only 40 years old so you could split your research in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, present day.
Then select key games (you should be thinking around 3) that are significant in development the genre. They could be signifcant for various reasons:
- The most popular of the time
- Led they way in terms of use of new technology
- Attracting a new audience
- Different content or style
- Led the genre in a new direction
Then in your own words explain why they are significant and how they developed the genre.
4. Make it interesting to read: you're telling the story of how a game genre has developed so if there are any interesting personalities or anecdotes - include them.
Illustrate your work with relevant videos, pictures and hyperlinks.
5. Make it detailed - so for each game mention who made it, which year it came out, which machine it was playable on.
6. Try hard - the better you do it, the more chance you have of getting a disnction. Do the bare minimum and you risk not passing one of the mandatory Units.
Example of last years Merit work: