Social innovation, is a new idea or activity that improves the options or choice for a group of people in the population with the aim of improving their overall quality of life. (Pol, 2009). It is from this definition stated above that drove the intentions of Brew Box and its purpose. Brew Box is an app that allows individuals to advertise their coffee machines to the public, where they can be located on a map for an efficient friendly coffee interaction.
With already many coffee shops available, there is scepticism as to how it will actually improve the quality of peoples lives. Brew Box’s social innovation is achieved digitally as it is targeted towards digital natives, as the apps usability relies heavily on technology to help change peoples social conditions.
What makes it unique ?
Brew Box is different than any other traditional cafe or coffee app in the industry through the value and innovation it provides to users of the app.
Consumer experience & business innovation
Brew Box’s focus on consumer experience is an important aspect of how the app is changing the coffee industry, with the app now allowing the production of coffee to be produced and consumed in the ease of peoples homes. The intention behind this change is the effort the app makes to create a virtual community for users, where I believe that by moving coffee consumption into a different space such as homes and away from traditional cafe setups, the app will produce an environment that is less transaction focused and more community and consumer driven. Aiming to bring neighbours and local people together to form a place of inclusive membership and discussion.
With its intentions on creating a virtual community, Brew Box’s design was also lead from a shared economy approach, using a platform economy, through the use of the internet to connect people. This can be highlighted through the app using a locational setting for users to direct them to their nearest cafe. Brew Box’s desire to change consumer experience within the coffee industry in Australia came from the intention of wanting to produce something more meaningful to individuals than just a typical transactional cafe experience. This move was also backed by current industry trends where statements and consumer insights from online article Next avenue, showcased that ‘takeaway purchasing has lowered post pandemic as more people are wanting to associate their coffee experience with a meaningful social interaction’ (Stern, 2022).
It is through the combination of the locational feature and Brew Box’s ability to provide a positive social environment, that it will enable users to have a more authentic interaction and this increase their well-being and add a new beneficial social quality to their daily lives.
Overall
Brew Box is an innovation, that I have spent crafting with my peers and I believe it will provide positive and impactful social change to users. However I am aware that these disruption to the industry, will take time for people to trust and feel safe using the app but once people move away from the traditional consumption of coffee they will experience the value this app provides.
Pol, E. (2009) Social Innovation: Buzzword or enduring term? S. Ville (ed.) Journal of Socio-economics. 38,878-885. Viewed 30 May 2023.
Ritter, M & Schanz, H 2018, ‘The Sharing Economy: A comprehensive business model Framework’, Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 213, pp. 1-39. Viewed 26 May 2023.
Coupla is a film based photography and graphic design page on Instagram. The pages content is centred around images and graphic design pieces that I have designed and taken myself. The page also includes a collaborative element that has been strictly applied to the photography section of the page, where I have teamed up with a close friend and fellow photographer to share their imagery on the page in hopes of giving it more depth and diversity.
The reasoning behind creating this digital artefact (DA) is due to the large passion I hold for both film photography and graphic design. When making any project, the time and attention you give to it, will largely depend on interest, where there is more interest the quality is higher. It is for this reason with many other ideas and options for my DA, I decided to create something that I was passionate about, in the hope of making something of higher quality and more meaning. Alongside this interest, the creation of Coupla as been influenced by a few artist that I have drawn inspiration from when designing and curating content for the page. The links to these artist have been attached below.
This artefact works through the posting of pictures or designs to the Instagram page on a regular basis, that have been:
Produced by me or my partner
Is film photography not digital
Are to the theme of the page
I put these process in place to ensure the content of the page is easy to understand for followers and potential viewers, making the pages theme simple to grasp and engage with. By understanding how my DA works, I have been able to use consistent methodologies around uploading the pages content, enabling a clearer value and theme to be seen by the users.
Iterations/Progressions
From Couplablokes to Coupla
The first iteration to this digital artefact took place at the very beginning, as Coupla is actually a recreation from my previous artefact Couplablokes. This iteration was made due to myself wanting to redesign the pages theme and utility to now align with its current purpose of including graphic design pieces and more selective imagery, moving away from colour to predominately posting black and white.
Couplablokes: layout theme
Coupla: layout theme
The iteration that were made to the artefacts imagery based content come from the analytics from the page prior, that showcased that the black and white photos that were uploaded received more interaction and engagement then ones with colour. The another iteration based around the page now including graphic design works come from trying to evolve the artefacts value creatively and broader its reach towards a community that is not only interested in photography. From this progression of the page I learnt the importance of the need to always refine and evolve your artefact to make it align with its value and utility
Improving engagement
Throughout the artefacts initial stages, I was a little disappointed with the pages engagement. To fix this I started to change what I did with the content I upload to the page, with uploads no also including captions and tagging people that were relevant to specific uploads of content to the page. I made these iterations to the content to make it more relevant by providing context so that followers could be more drawn to the page. Also by tagging people, I was hopeful it would be shared and the help the artefact reach new audiences that my network may not have had.
After adopting these iterations to the page, I found that all content that provide captions (context) or had been tagged, show an increase in engagement from followers.
Content analytics that HAD NOT been tagged or given a caption
Content analytics that HAD been tagged and given a caption
From making these adjustments to my artefact, it taught me that it was necessary to evaluate it analytical in order to find ways to improve it.
The presence of this themes influence within Coupla can be seen through its imagery and design pieces, where due to somewhat adopting this lifestyle myself I often took pictures and created pieces that reflected this network. Overall, the emergent network of Vanlife is a theme that can be clearly seen within my digital artefact, due to my own self interest in trying to capture and create a lifestyle similar to this and showcase it through a visual medium.
How the theme can be visually seen throughout the page within its content.
Utility and value of Coupla
Coupla provides it value towards people who enjoy film photography and graphic design, I also believe it holds an intrinsic value to inspire individuals own creative works. Outside of holding a value for this specific community online, this project has also provided me with the opportunity to create a portfolio for my work and help my future career in design or possibly gain freelance photograpghy work.
The future trajectory of Coupla
The artefact will continue to keep with its current purpose of displaying graphic design work and film photography and will not be reiterated at this present stage. I am hopefully to keep growing the pages audience and interactions into the future by working on strategies and methodologies from reviewing the pages analytics and feedback to make necessary adjustments to avoid loosing relevance.
Aside from this development I will also be pursuing on with the page as a passion project of sorts, with both film photography and graphic designs being such large passions of mine I have enjoyed creating a creative platform where I can share these interests.
Overall I have found the development of this digital artefact at times to be difficult as you are always trying to find ways to make it better, but still found it be a very rewarding experience.
My DA, was centred around FIFA by EA Sports , which looked thoroughly at the progression of the games graphics between the time period of 08 – 22 through a four post blog series that include how technology, fandom, esportsand advertisement had influenced the games graphics during this time periods.
How it works ?
This project worked through weekly uploads of each blog topic for five weeks between the 2nd of Septemberto the 5th of October.
All blogs were heavily researched and formatted around the chosen topic of that week before being uploaded to my WordPress site. Once uploaded it was immediately shared and promoted via my twitter account and done once again three days later.
Inspiration for the series
As mentioned earlier, within gaming I have always loved watching the industry progress, particularly when looking at the graphics and the quality of experience it can now provide in contrast to the mid nineties. This is why I also picked FIFA as it was developed by EA sports and this organisation provides the most realistic experiences within the Esports genre for over a decade, it was the driving reason for me to come up with a project that would enable me to research and explore this progression in a greater detail.
Progression of FIFA’s graphics can be seen through the games covers.
Analytical framework
Within my DA, I critically analysed the games graphic progression through the games texts and para-textualelements. Although throughout the series more time and research was spent exploring the games para-textual elements, this involves looking at how the audiences understands and makes sense of the main text. This as a result shaped what content about the game I explored and researched and involved, looking at how the games covers, special features, menu and more impact the way the audience interacted with and perceived FIFA’s graphics between 08 and 22. It also built which concepts I would need to research in order to find more about how the audience was engaging with the game outside the primary text.
Concepts
The four concepts I used to analysis FIFA’s graphic progression were:
Technology, this concept was by far the biggest influence towards FIFA’s graphic progression and made it essential that I analysed it for my DA. With progression of technology it made FIFA’s graphics progress with it or risked being left behind.
Fandom, this aspect of academic research is becoming increasingly more important as it offers insight into connections between fan social structures and overarching social, cultural transformations in the world. Due to its integral part of modern life, directly affecting global patterns of consumption, identification, communication and creation, I thought it was necessary to analysis for my DA in order to expand my knowledge on the impact it has had on FIFA’s graphics. Due to the games strong fandom, EA needed to improve its graphics to ensure continued consumption.
Genre, is used in the analysis of popular media due to its ability to provide patterns of a genre and find more easily defining features making it a very important analysis within my DA. From understanding the features of the genre FIFA knew what priorities to improve within its graphics.
Advertisement, despite having no direct involvement in the progression of the games graphic in comparison to technology, these updates in graphics still needed to be communicated to the public which is why advertisement was so impactful to the game.FIFA needed to communicate to fans what was better about their game and it’s graphics than others.
Ultimately I chose these four concepts as I felt it most impacted what I wanted to share through my artefact.
Iterations/progressions
The biggest iteration that I made to this series was the final decision to no longer include researching the progression of FIFA’s consoling system along with the games graphics as stated in my pitch. This was shared in the first post of the series was made due to the fact I wanted the opportunity for my research to be more in depth to have greater value for the gaming industry and believed I could not achieve this when researching two elements of the game. Another factor in this decision was the believe that the graphics in contrast to controlling have greatly increased between the time period of 2008 – 2022, with this progression also having more of an impact on the game and players then its controlling systems. From this adjustment I learnt the significance in changing my artefact as it progresses to better align with what you would like it to achieve.
Another iteration that was made to my DA, was created due to audience interaction, where for the first blog post I was left feeling underwhelmed, this provided me with the opportunity to identify areas for progression and make some early iterations. With many blogs and online articles offering audio options as well, my first post did not despite offering visuals and in-text links it was also four minutes to read in total, which I felt may have deterred potential readers from visiting the article. To see if my audience would prefer audio for the next post, I decided to create a poll through my twitter account which had also been promoting the series and providing updates.
Twitter post to help see if I should make these iterations.
Unfortunately the poll recieved zero engagement, but I made the intrinsic choice to include audio for the remainder of the series. This resulted in the second post and also three and four receiving higher viewership, with no other changes to the articles format, I believe that through adding audio it helped increase the viewership of the series.
Blog post ones views
Blog post twos views
From this, I learnt the importance of continuing to make changes to the series in order to make it easier for it to reach its audience. Where after this I was also trying to find areas of the articles to improve to make engagement increase.
Another change I made throughout the creation of my artefact, came after the second blog post of the series, another iteration to the artefact felt necessary due to the feeling that my reach was still not were it could be. The next change I made to the artefact was centred around its promotion with both blogs one and two only being shared on my twitter account once. I decided to increase the sharing of the blogs three and four to twice in order to increase its reach.
Sharing of blog two only once.
Increased sharing of blog three.
Despite an increase of the sharing via my twitter, blog post three and four unfortunately received the same and less viewing in comparison to the second blog.
Blog post two’s reach
Blog post three’s reach
Blog post four’s reach
Even though this change, did not progress the series overall reach, it did provide me an important lesson regarding the need to analysis my artefact and to always try ways to develop it.
Value/ Utility
My aim when starting this artefact was to be able to create something of value to the games industry community. Although my it may not have appealed to a large majority within the community, I believe it provided great value to those who enjoy FIFA, Esports graphics and gamings progression over the recent decade. Regardless of low views I still think the value of this series can be found in the quality of research that each article provides and the work that I have put into it.
Moving forward with the artefact I am unsure what its next direction will be, in order to gain more of an understanding for areas of improvement I posted a poll via twitter which can be seen below.
twitter poll to help guide the series moving forward.
Even though the future of this artefact is still uncertain, I think it still needs further iterations to help it progress. Overall I found the creation of this DA to be very rewarding and a learning curve in how to better develop one in the future.
An interview is a structured or non-structured conversation, where one participant ask questions and the other provides answers. Generally interviews also involves the conversation being only one-on-one. Not long ago, I was tasked with this exact process of interviewing someone for a subject within my studies. This interview process was also slightly different to a conventional conversation, where the guest was just not required to answer the questions but also provide a story. The purpose of storytelling throughout this interview was to help me understand what values that the person identifies with and as been shaped by, making the words my guest selected very important in determining what these values where. Values are the principles or standards of behaviour that help one make judgements of what is important in life. It is from storytelling that I was able to identify my guests and my own values.
When preparing this interview, I wanted to ensure that I asked my guest a question around their work in which they could answer using some form of personal experience. The reason I wanted my guest to draw from personal experience when answering certain questions is because much of our ethics as people are shaped from experiences that have happened to us, with 90% of people being able to think of one experience that as defined their beliefs within the space of five minutes. I wanted my guest to share this during our interview so I could better understand what formed and shaped the values that they held and if they applied to my own. Throughout the preparation of this interview I also decided to think which values I held most important, this is because when listening to others share their stories we often tend to identify with the words or actions in others that also resonate with our own beliefs. This process is called communities of acknowledgement. I found the component of preparing for this interview to be essential towards the overall quality of conversation that would be gained. Overall I think that throughout the interview storytelling was achieved and that throughout the story telling I was able to spot the values of my guest quicker by thinking of what my own were.
Stories reflect our humanity, they shape our lives and it is from looking at the past it gives us a clearer look towards what we want from our future, I choose this guest as I find their story to be really inspiring and also wanted the opportunity to showcase this to others. When listening to the story of my guest I really wanted to deliver a presentation that I knew would highlight these values, this is why during the conversation process I would repeat a word within the story they had just told, to go over how I thought it related to a value that they held. It is by doing this that I am hopeful that it will make it clearer to viewer to see these ethic’s.
Overall, I feel as though the presentation highlights key values that my guest holds, by getting them to share and reflect upon their own experiences. It is also through listening to my guests conversation that I also learnt how important listening to someone else story can be in the process to forming and identifying my own values. Moving forward I found having this conversation to be a very useful tool in showcasing how important storytelling can be for people to exchange and find values but also better understand were they would like their future to be heading.
References
The Guardian, 2015. Defining moments: share an experience that has shaped your values (Accessed October 3rd 2022)
Lixionary, 2021. How do life experiences shape our values. (Accessed October 3rd 2022)
Ethics Sage, 2018. What are values?. (Accessed October 3rd 2022)
Hi and welcome back to the final of the four blog post series, the series wanted to provide an in depth look and analysis of the progression of FIFA’s gaming graphics between the year 2008 and 2022. If this is your first read of the blog series, the first three posts looked at how technology, fandom and genre have impacted the graphics during this time period. If these topic’s interest you I have attached the three blogs below. To wrap up this blog series I will be exploring a para-textual element within video games of advertisement.
Advertising is a marketing communication method that provides an announcement or notice through a public medium to promote a product, service or event. Naturally along with any product gaming companies to begin advertisement in order to reach audiences and out do their rival competitors within the industry. A relevant example of this would be the battle between console giants Xbox and Playstation on which is the superior consoling system. It is through this industry competition that we have seen advertisement within the game media industry progress to a point that there is now advertisement within the game itself.
Advertisings impact on FIFAs graphics
Despite advertisement having no direct involvement in the progression of the games graphic in comparison to technology, these updates in graphics still needed to be communicated to the public which is why advertisement was so impactful to the game.
When FIFA released FIFA 20 following 19, it would not have been enough to entice customers to buy the updated 20 if it was not advertised as they would have felt nothing in the game had changed. Which is why EA knew they couldn’t rely just on the upgrades themselves and therefore must advertise these improvements in order to get customers to purchase the new releases.
For the release of FIFA 22, EA used a Youtube trailer as a form of advertisement to showcase the upgrade graphics from the improvement of hyper motion technology to fans and customers so that they could visually see the difference in quality and compare it to last seasons.
FIFA 22 trailer.
According to an online article by the Drum, EA the previous year (FIFA 21) also used professional footballers to play and share the game as a part of its advertisement, so that they could use people of relevance with a large influence to talk about the game and its updates to fans and customers.
Imagine provide by The Independent: Pro soccer players, testing FIFA 21.
The FIFA series by EA, has been one of the most successful video games and as a result even become part of popular culture. It is from this analysis of the game, that it graphics contribution to the games success can not be understated. As the game continued to upgraded it graphics alongside technology and stay relevant within its genre whilst also listening to the fans to make necessary upgrades and market these changes to the game better than their competitors.
This will conclude the blog post series, I hope you found this to be informative and interesting , feel free to leave question or comments below.
Thanks for your time :))
References
Barnes, M., 2021. The Past, Present & Future of Advertising Within VIdeogames. Trendjackers. (Accessed 15th September 2022)
Banejee, P., 2021. Fifa 22 review: New Marketing tagline
Mccarthy, J., 2021. Fifa, product placement and the future of ads in video games. (Accessed 16th September 2022)
Owen, D., 2021. FIFA looks to have generated more from video gaming than football in 2020. (Accessed 16th September 2022)
Work often creates moments that have higher value than realised until reflected upon, this is why the process of narrating ones work experiences verbally are so useful. It is by listening to these stories told by an individual that can provide value, as it is through these stories that we are able to pick up details that also relate to our own values.
By encouraging the recollection of significant, forgotten details, it seeks to generate more nuanced accounts of peoples lives, enabling both them and the lister to consider wider ranges of possibilities in the future. It is by sharing these conversations that people are better able to make judgement and shape their own values in accordance to how they are likely to act in the future and make plans around this.
I had recently been tasked with this exact opportunity, which required me to listen and dissect a guests speakers experience within their work and relate it back to my own experiences and the future of work I would like to create for myself. It is during this exercise that made a strong effort to listen for the specific words the guest was using in order to help connect this meaningful to my own work experiences and morals.
Throughout this exercise, I heard my guest use the term “jumping between lots of small things” within their current work role. This particular term really resonated with me due to my current working position in customer service. Where I am too jumping between lots of small tasks having to multi-tasks and manage different areas of customer interaction points such as emails, live chats and phones. Though while listing I heard the speaker state that when overwhelmed between tasks they seek the support of trusted individuals.
For me, this aligned greatly with a specific work experience, where within the first month of starting my new role I often leaned on trusted individuals. This could also been know as using the strategy of “club of life“, the club of life consists of an inner circle of people that you can count on for guidance and advice. My club life consists of family, friends and selective co-workers that I hold a collaborative conversation when stressed or need guidance. These conversations helped me during my first month of work to provide a structure and plan of how I will manage this role in the future. I found that due to the reciprocal nature of conversation with people from my club of life in my first month of work that it actually helped me build relationships and form a club of people within the work-space that I could trust due to the sharing of similar values and objectives.
Listening to others stories enables us to find and discover our own value by seeing what resinates most with us. This process is often referred to as “outsider witness” where through listening to the guest I found that I picked up on details of openness and accountability. Both of these values have been an important during my working career so far as I think it is vital to seek guidance when needed but also the realisation that the performance of your work is your own responsibility.
The tasks of listening is critical to the way stories work, as this practise is founded on the idea that these stories can be of societal use. This reflection allows us more time to re-evaluate or confirm our ethics. By exploring others stories we find which values are of importance to use, using it as a compass to be implement towards the future of our careers.
References
Dulwich Centre Publications, 2020,. Outsider-witness practises: some answers to commonly asked questions.The Dulwich Centre (Accessed 23rd September 2022)
Russell, S & Carey, M., 2021. Narrative practices.com.au (Accessed 23rd September 2022)
Corson-Knowles, T., 2021. Stories Matter: Why Stories Are Important to Our Lives and Culture – TCK Publishing (Accessed 23rd September 2022)
Hi, welcome back to thethirdof the forth blog post from this series, if this is your first read, this blog series aims to cover how different factors within game media have impacted FIFA’s graphic progression between the years 2008 – 2022. This third post will be looking critically at how the genre of Esportsimpacted on FIFA’s graphics during 2008-2022.
Also if you are one of the readers who have just joined and would like to read from the start I have attached the first two blog post of this series in a link below.
The FIFA series, is a virtual soccer game that falls into the category of esports, for a game to fall into this genre it must stimulate the practise of a specific sport in some way.
Esports impact on FIFA’s graphics
It is in2008, thanks to EA, that FIFA 08 made advancements to the athletes so that they could move more realistically, this update was the result of advancement in motion capturing software. EA invested in this advancement during the period of the early 2000’s to ensure it remained dominate in the esports genre and out rival competitors games.
FIFA 08
The esports genre also graphics also progressed again around 2010 from the creation of motion activated controls. This unfortunately could not be applied to FIFA’s consoling system and found an alternative way to remain competitive, by improving its gameplay by bringing in new features and careers modes into the game to continue to entice their fans. But once consoles got more innovative around 2014 EA was able to focus on FIFA improving its graphics to become more hyper-realistic, in order to give their players the best experience possible.
FIFA 20
With the genre of esports in video games being so large consumers had a large vairety to chose from and would often be drawn to the latest release in a game that could provide the most realistic experience of the sport they liked. FIFA since its release in 1994as always been dominate in video games played by fans of the genre and soccer lovers as it moved its graphics continuously with the advancements of technology to ensure that the game provided the most realistic experience and therefore was able to out do its competitors, it is for this reason that the FIFA series have been and continue to be at the pinnacle of the esports genre.
Thanks for reading to post three of the series I hope you enjoyed and look forward to the final one.
Reference
Jacobson, J., 2022. The Evolution of Sports Games. Sports Gamers Online (Accessed 14th September)
Farry, W., 2022. The Evolution of FIFA Graphics: From 1994 to 2022. JOE.co.uk (Accessed 14th September)
Team, P., 2020. The Evolution of Sports Video Games. VPB. (Accessed 14th September)
Jul, J., 2014. Genre in Video Games (and Why We Don’t Talk about it) – The Ludologist. Jesperjuul.net. (Accessed 14th September)
To understand an emergent future network, it is important to have an understanding of what a future network means. A future network is information that varies from humans to technology that we have created, that us shaped the world we live in. By information producing technologies and information producing practices, things such as the internet and technologies presence as a whole as become ever more apparent in todays society. Where due to these future networks becoming more evident in daily lives we can now see its future trajectory starting to emerge.
Emergent future networks
As mentioned above, emergent future networks involves the process of how technology and information is becoming increasingly more present. Where instead of looking and speculation on the future trajectory of these networks it looks at the ones that are evolving around us currently. There are currently numerous emerging networks forming, but I will specifically be looking at the networks of Solarpunk and VanLife. These networks hold slight differences but are grouped together due to its shared alternative vision that due to social, economic and political crisis, it is leading people to reconsider typical modern living conventions that focus more on environmentalism and sustainability.
What is VanLife?
VanLife, is an alternative lifestyle adapted by people looking to live basic, environmental orientated lifestyle, the extent to which one choose to live by these principles vary depending on the individual. This old practise has made a huge comeback with millennials due to the increasing emergence of technology and information in societies daily life. This network has comeback as a method to minimise the rapid trajectory of technology and information and opted for a lifestyle that is more modest and technology free to disconnect from these networks.
VanLife photography
With photography being a very large passion of mine, I often enjoy looking at how concepts can be explored and demonstrated through this visual medium. Because of this passion I have explored VanLife through its imagery and how it uses this to showcase the emergent network of modest, limited technology and environmentally orientated living.
Through some research of this topic, I found a really informative article by website Shutterstock that provides a guide to VanLife lifestyle and photography from Australian photographer Charlie Blacker. In this article he explains the beauty of photographing VanLife is that it is basically documenting your lifestyle. He also notes that Australia is one of the best landscapes to photograph as a lot of the destinations that the society within this community tend to seek are remote and often naturalistic locations. Stating that the reason for this, is for his imagery to showcase the disconnection that this genre holds for the current trajectory of technology and societies fast paced environment.
Feeling inspired by the article and Blacker’s images I decided to put a collage together off all my VanLife inspired images, I have attached this via the twitter link below.
Solarpunk is a sub-genre and art movement that envisions how the future might look if humanity succeed in solving major contemporary challenges with an emphasis on sustainable human impact on the environment, addressing climate change and pollution. This sub-genre is largely a contrast to the cyberpunk genre and focuses on an emerging network that uses technology within create a more eco-friendly society.
Graphic Design in Solarpunk
Artists often hold the power to create and visually showcase new ways of living within the world. It is for this reason that I hold such a large passion for graphic design and its ability to express ideas and concepts without any literacy. This is why I found exploring solarpunk through graphic design so interesting as it provides people with the opportunity to see a society that could not have imaged without some form of visual assists.
These designs can be seen through the work of artists Dustin Jacobs, where he illustrates an emerging futurism to people of a society that can live functionally off a change that is not impossible or dysfunctional.
Work by Dustin Jacobs
Due to Dustins work being so useful in envision this concept, I posted it on my twitter and have linked it below.
Dustin Jacobs would have to be one of my favourite graphic designers within the genre of Solarpunk, give his work a look in the link below. #bcm206https://t.co/TAPUd1Xh1W
Importance of VanLife and Solarpunk to speculative future networks
Looking at emerging visual networks visually allows people to picture an altered society then what is currently available and provide them the chance to see patterns and directions of the world we could chose to live in.
References
Shutterstock, 2021. Van-Life photographer Charlie Blarker. (Accessed 20th September 2022)
Hamilton, J., 2017. Explainer: ‘solarpunk’, or how to be an optimistic radical. (Accessed 20th September 2022)
Throughout this semester of my study, I have been developing and curating a digital artefact (DA) with the intention for the information to provide value to the game media industry. This value will come in the form of a four post blog series based solely around the “Progression of FIFA’s graphics” between the years 2008 to 2022 that will be shared on my WordPress.
The three concepts I have used to analysis FIFAs graphics include:
Fandom
Genre
Technology
I have chosen these three as I feel they most impact my media text and will provide greater opportunity to create and expand my DA.
Fandom
This is the process of culture being generated by fans, that is characterised by the feeling of camaraderie with others who share the same common interest. Fandom of video games as always been apart of the game media culture and started as these fans wanted a way in which to share their love of particular video game with each other.
Fandom is a perfect example of participatory culture and can be related not only to video games but to bands, sporting teams, TV shows and more. This aspect of academic research is becoming increasingly more important as it offers insight into connections between fan social structures and overarching social, cultural transformations in the world. Due to its integral part of modern life, directly affecting global patterns of consumption, identification, communication and creation, I thought it was necessary to analysis for my DA in order to expand my knowledge on the impact it has had on FIFA’s graphics. For example, due to FIFA’s strong fandom culture, it has forced EA to continually invest in its technological to provide better graphics every release to ensure consumption from fans and as a result it is one of the most successful video games in the sports genre.
Visual representation of the global fandom FIFA holds.
Genre
A genre is style or category that is grouped together due to a particular set of characteristics. This concept is not only limited to video games but can be applied to music, art, literature amongst other things. This concept as been employed outside of the game media industry and have been used in the analysis of popular media due to its ability to provide patterns of a genre and find more easily defining features making it a very important analysis within my DA. For example FIFA looked into the priorities of fans within the sports genre to ensure they progressed their technology and graphics to meet these priorities and remain leaders within the sporting category.
Technology
Technology, is the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life, where it is not only the game media industry as experienced benefits but also the other mediums of radio, television and social media. This concept is by far the biggest influence towards FIFA’s graphic progression and made it essential that I analysed it for my DA. For instance, the progression of technology has enabled FIFA to make changes to update its game and provide fans a new realistic experience within the genre.
Progression of FIFA from 09 -15
That is all for this blog post I hope you enjoyed.
References
Medium. 2019. The Rise of Fandom. (Accessed 12th September 2022)
Sociology. 2021. Fan Culture – Sociology of Culture – IResearchNet (Accessed 12th September 2022)
Fowler, C., Why Study Fans? / Fandom In The Academy. (Accessed 12th September 2022)
UToledo.edu.2021 (Accessed 12th September 2022)
Jul, J., 2014. Genre in Video Games (and Why We Don’t Talk about it) – The Ludologist.Jesperjuul.net. (Accessed 12th September 2022)
Consalvo, Mia 2003. Zelda 64 and video game fans a walkthrough of games, intertextuality and narrative. (Accessed 12th September 2022)
Hello and welcome to the second of the fourblog post series, that look into the progression of FIFA’s graphics from the year 2008 – 2022. In blog post two, it will be looking at a para-textual form of the game media in fandom and the role it has played on FIFA’s graphics during this time period.
What is fandom?
This is a culture generated by fans that is characterised by the feeling of camaraderie with others who share the same common interest. Fandom of video games as always been apart of the game media culture and was started as these fans wanted a way in which to share their love of video games, which resulted in a secondary industry being born. Where moving into this decade, there is now an entire culture surrounding fandom through the platforms such as YouTube, that provide enough relevance to influence a games marketing campaign.
Fandom in FIFA
Soccer, is one of the few truely global sports and with its popularity it made sense when it first appeared as a video game in 1994. This was ground breaking according to an article by BBC, as it used isometric technology instead of 16-bit style which was popular at the time. It was due to soccers large scale fan base that the game was created, with this popularity it provided the video-game a massive audience in which it could target. The game has now been made for over 25 years, but I will be looking at how fandom drove the graphics between 2008 and 2022.
The continuing popularity of soccer alongside EA’s passion to provide the most realistic playing experience it could provide the players show meant updates to the graphics constantly. As it wanted to provide the most realistic playing experience between the period of 2008 and 2022 it would follow player ranking and contracts and update them in accordance to what was happening the soccer world to ensure players felt as though they were playing the game that reflected the current state of the game.
The most evident example of how fandom impacted FIFA graphics was in the release of the 2009 game where it introduced an Ultimate Team option for its players. The website FIFAPlay says this feature enabled players to build and manage their own club, where they could buy packs to receive players in which to contract their own team. This introduction into the games graphics and software was due to the fandom of the game not being generated by soccer lovers but from the fandom that was solely centred around the game. This provided fans with the opportunity to compare and socialise with other players about their own teams and form a community for fans who enjoyed playing the game.
Team of the season from 2022
It is from FIFA’s dedicated to provide continuous improvement to its graphics and the game in general that is has been rewarded with one of the most loyal and large fan bases within the game media industry and is a massive part of the reason why this game is so successful year in and year out.
That is all for blog post two, be sure to keep an eye out for blog post three next week that will look into how the genre as impacted the progression of FIFA’s graphics.
Reference
MCPherson, S., 2018. FIFA and Fantasy and Fandom. MNUFC (Accessed 6th September 2022)
Xfire. 2021. FIFA Archives. Xfire (Accessed 6th September 2022)
Fansided. 2022. Barcelona, Real Madrid, FIFA headline latest Fandom 250 nominees. (Accessed 6th September)
highfieldonline.photo.blog 