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This book examines how the video game industry's economic strategies have changed over the past decade (2006-2016) from a media effects and game design perspective. It also features discussions and analyses on the social impact of these changes and how consumers have reacted to evolving marketing and design strategies.

Blues on Stage presents a new history of the development of the \"Classic Blues\" of the 1920s, offering a comprehensive review of various Black singers who recorded and were influential in this era, including Bessie Smith, Trixie Smith, Butterbeans and Susie, and Ma Rainey. The business of music recording and publishing, including songwriting and touring theater circuits, is explored as part of the narrative of how and when these artists became nationally popular. The most highly regarded singers of this period were not folk or rural artists, but rather highly experienced stage professionals whose careers often extended two decades or more prior to their first recordings. These artists, some of the most famous acts on the Black vaudeville and tent show circuits, were preceded in the recording studio by many cabaret and nightclub singers with a different entertainment perspective and were followed by artists who came from a more rural, less professional background. For anyone interested in the roots of jazz and blues, Blues on Stage offers a new and comprehensive introduction to the development of this American musical style.

As gestural interfaces emerged as a new type of user interface, their use has been vastly explored by the entertainment industry to better immerse the player in games. Despite being mainly used in dance and sports games, little use was made of gestural interaction in more slow-paced genres, such as board games. In this work, we present a Kinect-based gestural interface for an online and multiplayer chess game and describe a case study with users with different playing skill levels. Comparing the mouse/keyboard interaction with the gesture-based interaction, the results of the activity were synthesized into lessons learned regarding general usability and design of game control mechanisms. These results could be applied to slow-paced board games like chess. Our findings indicate that gestural interfaces may not be suitable for competitive chess matches, yet it can be fun to play while using them in casual matches.

Digital entertainment games frequently address current societal issues that are also dealt with in geography education, such as climate change or sustainable city development, and give various opportunities for learning. However, in order to be fully able to determine the games’ educational potential and to instruct meaningful reflection on them in class, the designers’ approaches to realism regarding these topics need to be understood. Therefore, [the authors] have developed a model of realism in games and conducted 9 interviews with 10 experts from the entertainment game industry about their understanding of and dealing with realism concerning the represented geographical topics. In many cases, the interviewees’ approach to incorporating real-world issues can be regarded as beneficial for their games’ educational potential, and some designers even pursued learning goals. However, [the authors] also identified approaches that can result in questionable presentations of real societal issues. [The authors] found the most problematic one to be the prioritization of player expectations for the sake of perceived realism. This approach may lead to the depiction of stereotypes and common misconceptions. The results presented in our study may help teachers to prepare reflection on such misrepresentations in class, or designers to become more aware of the educational implications of different forms of game realism. (Orig.).

Video games have had a greater impact on our society than almost any other leisure activity. They not only consume a large portion of our free time, they influence cultural trends, drive microprocessor development, and help train pilots and soldiers. Now, with the Nintendo Wii and DS, they are helping people stay fit, facilitating rehabilitation, and creating new learning opportunities. Innovation has played a major role in the long term success of the video game industry, as software developers and hardware engineers attempt to design products that meet the needs of ever widening segments of the population. At the same time, companies with the most advanced products are often proving to be less successful than their competitors. Innovation and Marketing in the Video Game Industry identifies patterns that will help engineers, developers, and marketing executives to formulate better business strategies and successfully bring new products to market. Readers will also discover how some video game companies are challenging normal industry rules by using radical innovations to attract new customers. Finally, this revealing book sheds light on why some innovations have attracted legions of followers among populations that have never before been viewed as gamers, including parents and senior citizens and how video games have come to be used in a variety of socially beneficial ways. David Wesley and Gloria Barczak's comparison of product features, marketing strategies, and the supply chain will appeal to marketing professionals, business managers, and product design engineers in technology intensive industries, to government officials who are under increasing pressure to understand and regulate video games, and to anyone who wants to understand the inner workings of one of the most important industries to emerge in modern times. In addition, as video games become an ever more pervasive aspect of media entertainment, managers from companies of all stripes need to understand video gaming as a way to reach potential customers. David Wesley is a Research Manager at Northeastern University's College of Business Administration in Boston. His award-winning case studies on companies like Adidas, Hewlett-Packard, and Nintendo have appeared in numerous management textbooks and have been consistently ranked among the best-selling cases at Harvard Business School Publishing and Ivey Publishing. Mr. Wesley has an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Victoria. Professor Gloria Barczak is Professor and Chair of the marketing department at Northeastern University and former director of the Executive MBA program. She has published over 25 articles and several book chapters in the area of innovation and new product development and was recently recognized as one of the top innovation management scholars in the world by the Journal of Product Innovation Management and has been awarded the Robert D. Klein University Lecturer for 2009-2010 award by Northeastern University. She is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Product Innovation Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and Creativity and Innovation Management.

Today, consumers of video games spend over 22.4 billion each year; using more complex and multi-layered strategies, game developers attempt to extend the profitability of their products from a simple one-time sale, to continuous engagement with the consumer.

Since the 1980s, the theme park industry has developed into a global phenomenon, with everything from large, worldwide theme parks to countless smaller ventures. From the first pleasure gardens to the global theme park companies, this book provides an understanding of the nature and function of theme parks as spaces of entertainment. Illustrated throughout by worldwide case studies, empirical data and practical examples, the book portrays the impacts of theme parks as global competitive actors, agents of global development and cultural symbols, particularly in the context of their role in the developing experience economy. In conclusion, this book is a practical guide to the planning and development of theme parks.

Intro -- Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- Preface -- Introduction: American Success -- 1. The Players -- 2. Television: A Parting of the Ways -- 3. The Pay Media: A Shower of Money -- 4. Controlling the Release Sequence -- 5. Rising American Dominance -- 6. What Has Hollywood Done with the Money? -- 7. Hollywood's Digital Future -- Appendixes -- A. Market Shares of Domestic Box Office/Rentals and Video Revenues -- B. Stability of World Theatrical Rentals, 1948-1975 -- C. U.S. Distributor Revenue by Source -- D. Prices, Distributor Revenue, and Viewing Estimates,1948, 1975, and 2002 -- E. Video Windows, 1988-2002 -- F. Comparative Analysis of Movie Industries and Trade in the United States and the EUJ5 Countries,Statistical Data, 1950-2003 -- G. Determinants of U.S. Box Office Market Sharesin the EUJ5, 1950-2003 -- H. Movie Production Costs and Animated Movie Data -- I. Motion Picture Industry Employment -- J. Credits Analysis, Top Ten Movies, 1971 and 2001 -- K. Movie Genre Analysis -- Notes -- Index.

This book explores contemporary club and dance cultures as a manifestation of aesthetic and prosthetic forms of life. Rief addresses the questions of how practices of clubbing help cultivate particular forms of reflexivity and modes of experience, and how these shape new devices for reconfiguring the boundaries around youth cultural and other social identities. She contributes empirical analyses of how such forms of experience are mediated by the particular structures of night-clubbing economies, the organizational regulation and the local organization of experience in club spaces, the media discourses and imageries, the technologies intervening into the sense system of the body (e.g. music, visuals, drugs) and the academic discourses on dance culture. Although the book draws from local club scenes in London and elsewhere in the UK, it also reflects on similarities and differences between nightclubbing cultures across geographical contexts. 1. Introduction 2. Urban Renewal and Night Life Governance: London and Istanbul 3. Club Cultural Production and the Night-time Economy Market in the UK 4. Sensing and Meaning the Body: The Local Organization of Clubbing Practices 5. Thresholds of Reality: Clubbing, Drugs and Agency 6. Identity Projects and Spectacular Selves 7. Between Style and Desire: Sexual Scenarios in Clubbing Magazines 8. Allegorical Anarchy, Symbolic Hierarchy: Sexual Boundaries in Two London Dance Clubs 9. Conclusion. Appendix. Silvia Rief is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Innsbruck.

Mass Appeal describes the changing world of American popular culture from the first sound movies through the age of television. In short vignettes, the book reveals the career patterns of people who became big movie, TV, or radio stars. Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson symbolize the early stars of sound movies. Groucho Marx and Fred Astaire represent the movie stars of the 1930s, and Jack Benny stands in for the 1930s performers who achieved their success on radio. Katharine Hepburn, a stage and film star, illustrates the cultural trends of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Humphrey Bogart and Bob Hope serve as examples of performers who achieved great success during the Second World War. Walt Disney, Woody Allen, and Lucille Ball, among others, become the representative figures of the postwar world. Through these vignettes, the reader comes to understand the development of American mass media in the twentieth century.