Thursday, March 28, 2019
Friday, March 22, 2019
The Big Theory Essay
The front covers of magazines are like adverts for the magazine, so in the same way as with advertising they tend to reflect the influence of consumerism. The Big Issue magazine is designed to help homeless people and so tends to have a more political, more altruistic and less consumerist focus. For example, one magazine front cover displayed a timeline of words stating "DON'T PANIC! HERE'S A DEAL THE COUNTRY CAN GET BEHIND" stamped over the Big Ben, which is surrounded by the EU stars.
The one image displayed on the magazine is a warped picture of Big Ben surrounded by the stars of Europe. Big Ben is attached the houses of parliament, and by warping the Big Ben to look unstable, it foreshadows that our politicians are warping the U.K to become unstable. Furthermore, Big Ben is surrounded by the stars of Europe This could represent that the U.K’s politicians are surrounded by the idea of Brexit and aren’t focusing on other important issues within our economy, such as crime, homelessness etc.The tag line under the masthead says ‘A HAND UP NOT A HAND OUT.’ As The Big Issue is a non-profit foundation for homeless people, they’re stating this isn’t a handout for them, but rather a helping hand up to a more successful life, which supports their mission statement on the website The layout of the magazine is all dependant on the flow chart covering the majority of the magazine. This flow chart is used to copy/mock flow charts created by news articles, such as BBC.
The size font used in the anchorage text varies throughout the timeline. At the start of the timeline the text is small, but includes the words ‘DON’T PANIC!’. in all caps. The small font could be used to represent the parliament trying to calm down people, however the capitals show that the issue is important and the government are trying to sugar coat it. The next time-line displays ‘A DEAL’ in a size that instantly pops to the reader. This is used to grab people’s attention when walking past. The colour of the magazine is a clash between the European flag (Blue & Yellow) and the U.K flag (Blue, Red & White). This intertextuality represents the divide between the country, one side being for Brexit, and one being against. The Plug is a description of The Big Issue, implemented in into the timeline of Brexit. This might have been implemented to in to the timeline as the timeline for The Big Issue is a simple 3 step sequence. Whereas Brexit’s timeline is full of twists and turns. The Big Issue may have done this to show that Brexit has no structure to it, whereas The Big Issue does.
Minecraft Essay
Minecraft is an open-world sandbox (construction) game that was created by the Swedish video game designer Markus Persson and then was further developed and published by companies: Mojang and 4J Studios. Minecraft was originally first created in the summer of 2009 and was released as an independent game that costed around £8, he sold around 40 copies on the first weekend. In the summer of 2010 sales reached 15,000 and the game was now no longer considered an Indie release with Markus teaming up with Mojang to make this a mainstream release. When sales reached 200,000 PayPal froze Persson's accounts for suspected fraud due to the huge transactions entering his account. In April 2011 the sales reached 2 million and now Minecraft stands as the ninth selling video game franchise in the world selling a total of 144 million copies. The game currently costs £16 and is available on many platforms such as: XBOX, PS4, iPad, Nintendo Wii and many more and has made £52 million in total revenue.
Minecraft has been highly successful because it is a very unique idea and at its time of creation the only thing that comes to close to an endless open-world sandbox game is Roblox which has many ethical issues. This is because Roblox has been the source of a multitude of investigations into indecent approaches being made between gamers as there is no limit as to where you can go into other players' game. In the game players make structures out of 3-D cubes to mine and then craft whatever structures they desire to, however you can also explore and combat. It also offers several game modes with the most popular being survival and creation mode. The survival one consists of beginning the game with nothing and you must collect all the: tools, weapons, armour and other resources in order to succeed. In the creation mode you get given all the resources needed to make any structure that you would want to.
Another reason for Minecraft's amazing rise to success is the fact that it is incomplete and constantly innovating. This is because when the game was originally designed, Markus wanted to leave it unfinished to ensure that he could cater to whatever responses he got about the game and then subsequently add them into the game. Every Friday he would take these responses and update the game in order to improve it by adding features, which led to sales rising on every occasion. Markus always stays up to date on social media as well by always discussing the needs of his audience before finding a way to get these features into the game. This builds a strong relationship between the consumer and the developer which can be passed on to friends therefore widening their customer base and increasing sales and success.
Minecraft has had a massive cultural influence on people thank to its multiplayer and social media aspects of the game. There are a plethora of Minecraft dedicated streaming channels on YouTube and Twitch which allow players to escape to a community where they can share their interests with people of similar personalities or meet people that are completely different, thanks to Minecraft's massively varied fanbase. This was helped by the fact that Persson never released instructions for the game so if players were struggling they would have to communicate with friends or through social media in order to succeed within the game which greats a positive atmosphere within the Minecraft community.
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