R6S (Rainbow Six Siege) is a 5v5 objective styled game which is very far to the style my game would be. But like above, there are still things here that I would be able to assimilate and use to improve my own. Before going into a game, you are presented with the choice of who to choose. To show these people, they are all accompanied with their own personal icons that are solely theirs. While other games use the easier face shot to show whos who, R6S shows a more creative way, and a way in which watchers can identify players. This Icon style is something I aim to learn, with this I can add a more personal touch to each character outside of their information blogs.
Smoke is one of the operators you are able to play in R6S. Smoke’s ability is to use his specialised canister to deploy poison gas to kill opponents. While this ability explains him in full, his armor and pose shows it through too. Arguably showing a more personal level. His pose shows his laid back nature, such as a gases undefendable approach acting almost complacent as it destroys its target. He also has the most iconic piece that links to his ability by wearing a gas mask, something that helps indefinitely the character.
Something I don’t like is how the character sticks to his uniform, taking away another piece of information that could lay out a characters persona. The use of a full face mask also takes this personality away but does have a link for that mysterious background feel when storytelling.
Mute is another operator of R6S. His ability revolves around the use of his jammers which takes out the other teams electronic gadgets. This is where the name comes from. His pose and style is set in a way of a silent guardian with one hand on the trigger showing a sense of confidence. The biggest part of his design is from the mask by using the white X made by tape on his helmet. This X works to metaphorically show the silencing of the enemies scouting options by jammer/disrupting them.
Again, similar to the smoke design, I find issues with taking away the facial pieces of characters that covering them up fully. However, Mute takes this to a better level by actually having personal decal on his armour giving us a sense of the character and the abilities he uses.
One of the best parts of this game in terms of research is the use of icons in game to show and signal who is where. These icons are small pieces of art that are creatively crafted to include the operators gadget and gives them their own style of badge, adding another layer of personality.
This Icon is from the operator Pulse, whose ability is that he uses his camera to identify enemies through a heartbeat scanner. This is one of the main searching abilities in the game and is shown this with this icon. The use of the eye signals the visual aspect of the ability with the inner radar shows his ability to scan for his enemies and the blips that appear with it. This tells us the persona of the character before even seeing them and gives each a unique calling card that I wish to emulate in my final work.
In my previous blog I made an attempt at explain and showing what a MOBA is. However, due to the recency of MOBAs and its blow up in the gaming world, MOBAs have never been easily identifiable. The closest we could explain the genre of this style as a subsection of Action. This means that some of the codes within creating action characters need to revised to have these in mind when creating my characters. However, rather than going into action films and series, I decided to go into a similar styled game which happened to take more action approach than more MOBAs.
overwatch
When it comes to out and out action in a MOBA game. No other tops the team battles of Overwatch, with the addition of its first person shooter style, excels in high tension competitive fights that demands action split into every character. From the dangerous charm of Mcree to the insidious danger of Reaper. These characters are designed to show each and every bit of their fighting persona.
Mcree with his gunslinger like look and his heroic looking cowboy hat demands that charm that is seen in the old western movies. Each part of clothing is a iconic take on a futuristic cowboy with even a revolver as he main weapon and a cigar in his mouth; clear homage to Clint Eastwood. But from a Action standpoint, cowboys are the olden day power ranger type characters, always display as mysterious heros with a out of this world gun ability hunting the criminals of the world. Mcree is built to be this awe inspiring hero character with this cowboy trope, the ripped poncho showing the wear and tear of his veterency. These are all pieces of in depth background that form the action hero we play as.
On the other end of the spectrum is the main villain of Overwatch who hunts the heroes, Reaper. From his pitch black colour scheme to his iconic mask, each piece is place and designed to strike fear. The action sense comes though in the dual shotgun ammo belt locked to his chest with slugs. The sharp claw like armour similar to that of the bone like skeletal hand of the grim reaper is clear correlation to death. His mask is a unique take on the scream mask keeping the skeleton look that his sharp claws enforce. The final piece of this action like death approach is his grim reaper hood that is clear homage to death itself. Reaper screams action and is seen as insidious and malevolent from simple looks.
With further research into the topic, I was able to find a article that describe the overall design of characters very well helping me understand how to express this genre while staying true to my style.
This excerpt shows the importance of taking care in the inspiration of characters making sure you can fulfil what you set out to do. Be that creating a badass hero like Soldier 76 or a evil villain like Reaper. Each must have its background mapped to effectively create characters in various genres, and for action this means that we must build battle hardened fighters with personality to compliment their clothings and looks. This will be very important when creating my Avatars of my casual characters.
When I had finally drawn out my audience I needed to make sure that the research I had made was valid and correct. Therefore I went about creating this blog in so that I may link back to that previous blog with my summarised findings and show proof of these.
AGE
My initial research was that the MOBA genre is dominated by age bracket of 17 – 25. This bracket includes teens who have first started out in the genre was the magnitude of gaming and its importance for PC gamers. While also having the older 25 year olds who have played for a while and use this system to give them a escape from everyday life.
Due to Riot games lack of open data when it comes to research, I must find other ways to prove my research point. I have been able to find users that have used the Facebook insight tool to find this average to be true.
However, they have no real proof so I must take it for their word. The only other way to show this stat is by using the average of the professional players in both League and Dota that can let me see the more direct audience.
This was created by a Reddit user in a post about the average age of pro players in League. This shows the average age of 21, the youngest being 17 and the oldest being 25. This stat proves that the top echelon of players in the game will be of this bracket. Proving my point and allowing me move on to validating my Gender research.
GENDER
When it came to the gender variation within the MOBA world, I found through research that it was a male dominated genre. This is just something that comes with the stereotypes of gamers being lonely style men. However, recent years have see the more respectful view with games, but this gender difference still dominates. I addressed my issues with this in the previous blogs but now I must prove my points.
From this research paper, we are shown the reasons for such male dominance in gaming, especially within League. Factors such as the relegations to a role because of gender, playing without a romantic partner or even the zero confidence of killing their opponent due to the communities harsh view all effect this disparity. This issue is wide spread through gaming but seen heavily in the league world. This proves my initial point and further pushes me to make sure that this game I intend to visualise will not ostrise a gender on old stereotypes.
This blog serves to validate the points I made and solidifying my target audience. From this, asking my audience will be easier and lead to more helpful information.
Apex legends is a battle royale style game, which is already one step away from my own. However, what attracts me and has pulled my interest into following this style is the way the universe is set. The legends in this game act the same way my Avatars will, in a game sense. By this I mean that the legends fight in a large arena and is broadcasted like a bloodsport, while my game will be virtual it holds the same values. The designs of each character are unique and work well with their created skill set, something I must make sure to achieve with my character as to add story and personality to them. While also making sure to find ways that the game shows
EA (2019). Apex Legends – The Next Evolution of Battle Royale – Free on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. [online] Available at: https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]
In Apex Legends we control the Legends, powerful fighters who have won multiple tournaments and are like the star players of the Apex games. Each character has vast background that is shown through their audio cues and most importantly there armour. This is something I need to make sure I am able to emulate in my Avatar and causal character creations.
Here we see one of the legends, Octane. He is a fast speed demon character who uses his speed and boosts to zoom across the map and close down enemies. This style of playing is shown through each piece of his character and armour. Starting with his helmet, we can see him wearing pressure goggles that racers wear to avoid friction damage to their eyes when moving at high speeds. His pose and torso clothing shows his outrageous personality and his jackass style. His two most important pieces of his gear is his blood dialysis machine and his legs. This machine acts to clear his blood which works in contention to his ability of using a adrenaline drug to go quicker, having this machine adds that modernism I seek to show in my own work. His legs are practically his background, to the naked eye this is just a simple robotic leg swap so that he is able to run at faster speeds. However the way he lost them and how he got robotic replacements are actually the reason to why he acts the way he does. A perfect way of adding a iconic piece to the character.
What I don’t like is his hidden face and overall style. In my work I intend to create a normal character and then their avatar which allows them to play the Exodus games through a Avatar designed by their desires and whatnot.
Another legend is Bloodhound. A character that can track his enemies due to his tracking technology. Straight away Bloodhounds character is hidden and they are easily the most mysterious in the game, however the designs and items on his armour allow us to see his style and how he acts. The additions to the tip of their helmet and the various hunting trophies that adorn them tell a story of their adventures. They are always seen with a crow which in game is how they attract opponents, with the following of crows. If there is one thing I love about the character then it would be his pose. This stoic pose shows his silent killer style that the legend plays as.
One thing I dont like with the character is the lack of humanity and overall personality. While this might be intentional, I find that having this void of humanity doesn’t allow a majority of players connect with him, only connecting when they have heard outside reasons why. Which is why I want to show personality through clothing and style allowing people to connect.
In terms of icons from this game. I find them lackluster at best. While truthfully this specific game has no need to create these, I find that using these icons just to design small versions of the characters face is a waste. Instead my choice would be to use these icons to create iconic piece to the character that allows people/the audience to find them. For Octane you could choose the design of his stim drug that is his main ability and for bloodhound you could design the crow to give a sort of calling card for them rather than the arty mugshot style.
reference
EA (2019). Apex Legends – The Next Evolution of Battle Royale – Free on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. [online] Available at: https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends [Accessed 26 feb. 2020]
In this blog I intend to look into the codes and skills to completing an effective sketch and final design. To do so I will look into tutorials online and articles that give tips for starting out. The two most important aspects of creating characters for me is to learn how to create faces and poses. Other features I will include clothes as this seems to be my weakest area.
POSES
This video explained to me the aspects of drawing out poses and adding to the initial ‘line’. The idea is to practise with other pictures of motion, like a family jumping with joy. And learning the motion line that allows myself to add parts of the character on it. This line is a basic trace of the characters shape. After I have this line I will be able to add pieces of the character such as torso and head. These pieces will be simple sketched shapes with no detail, just a foundation of what to start with. The video maker narrates the above video and explains to create quick rough pieces as these are not final pieces and only serve as the foundation to add to this to create a better piece.
Cabral, C. (2013). Cartoon Fundamentals: How to Draw a Cartoon Body. [online] Design & Illustration Envato Tuts+. Available at: https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/cartoon-fundamentals-how-to-draw-a-cartoon-body–vector-18651 [Accessed 1 Mar. 2020]When continuing this pose research I went to searching up more about the actual style I intended to go down. This style that I intend to emulate is that of a manga art / cartoon art. The reason for this is that realism in this world would not suit my way of thinking and cartoons would allow for more creative characters. This would also allow me to later on create vast future worlds without the limitations of modernism. With my previous work, I will be able to use this shape set to add to that. One important part of this style is the proportion of bodily features within the character, however I myself will not be taking these ridiculous choices as to keep a level of real life into the aspect.
FACES
When first looking at faces, I wanted to see the codes behind setting it up and executing the full image. By looking into more realistic art before my aimed cartoon style, it will allow me to see the basic foundation and build from this when learning new techniques. In this video I am shown the structure when planning a face art, the basic oval then added to by four lines to help place the facial features and to make sure that the face is not lopsided or whatnot. I am shown the different styles of females and males in the bone sharpness to the shadow and detail to the character. The different parts such as the bush of the males eyebrows to the thinness of the female, the sharp chin build to the soft jaw and finally the large broad nose to the small button like. While these are not set between the sexes, it allows me to keep an open mind to biology of the art which would otherwise be unchecked.
Cabral, C. (2013). Cartoon Fundamentals: How to Draw a Cartoon Face Correctly. [online] Design & Illustration Envato Tuts+. Available at: https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/cartoon-fundamentals-how-to-draw-a-cartoon-face-correctly–vector-15792 [Accessed 1 Mar. 2020].Now moving onto the cartoon style side of creating faces, I was able to acquire more skills and chances to practise than I had intended. Firstly, I was shown the codes and ways to form age on someone’s face. It also showed me another way to set these pieces up, by using the line system but adding things such as jaws and then onto other features build faces easier. Other features showing emotion was shown to me with the simple use of eyebrows while also showing how to set these up in a way that stays true to the original style. Much similar to the pose style of a cartoon style, it has some outworldly concepts with the huge eyes and what not. This will be countered as I will be keeping the real tone but within a cartoonish style, much like a Shonen Artists take.
CLOTHING
When it came to clothing, I needed a simple fast video on the simple mistakes to avoid to further push my improvement on the subject. I was able to do this by watching this video and taking in the information given. Being shown the mistake of over using folds and wrinkles was something I honed to. I had this issue and having this video to show me the way to flatten these issues out allows me to create a mood board of practise takes that I will complete later on down the line of my blog creation.
Having this blog has allowed me to fully see the world in which I will be creating and therefore allowed me to see the codes which I can follow to successfully complete my own work in a high fashion. With this I am able to move on to some practise later on down the line of my blogs while also allowing me to research into some already established character to see what would be the best to emulate and learn from.
As I make my way through context and research, and my overall FMP, I must make sure to maintain a source of constant reflection. To start I will be seeing at what I have accomplished and what I intend to work on next week to make sure I meet the deadlines of my work.
WEEK ONE
To start I made sure to complete my initial idea to set myself up to develop and to see how much changes when I get along to completing my proposal that will act as the finalisation of my idea so that I will be able to see the progression I have made with my work. I made sure to find my target audience with my initial questionnaires and demographic research. The short questionnaire allows me to see my audience and will let me use them in the future to help me along the way of my decision making, ensuring I keep to the intended path of my end product. The demographic and VALs blog further helped me define my audience and allowed me to argue against a theory of the conventions of the genre I was delving into, MOBAs. After finding my audience through questionnaires and looking into the stats and theories, I went about creating a historical blog of the evolution of MOBAs allowing me to show my reasons to following this genre and to give myself context on the past of my work to make sure I understand the codes and realise what I must do to make sure that this world I build falls into this age of art.
Next week I will be going more into characters around this genre and how to make sure I create them while not breaking the codes that have been set for me. I will also make sure to ask the audience on every choice I need to make to either back my choice or to explain why I have choose another way, which will act as a way for me to tackle the problem solving category.
To make sure that I am fully aware of my product and to make sure that I keep in check, I must explain my idea fully and delve into the aspects of this. My idea is not to actually form a true game, but to create the world and characters through the medium of art. To do this I must analyse other games that share the same genre as mine. My genre being MOBA, due to its tactical arena fighter like style.
THEME
The theme of my work is that of my own creation, the game of Exodus, a game that’s universe was thought by me and will be crafted through my work. The theme of my work is linked with the story of the poor country of the North as underdogs fighting in arena like battles with simulated Avatars to claim back the respect they deserve. With this in mind, I need to design my art in the way you would see a prizefighter. As such I will be looking into games that follow this MOBA genre while also looking closer as Arena like games such as Apex Legends. Both of these use the avatar system of allowing the player to play through the eyes of different champions which is something I intend to emulate. Having this theme written down and understood I will be able to move to tone, which allows me to analysis a similar piece of work and see how to learn from this.
Another main theme against this underdog style is the esports style it will emulate. In the universe, these are publicly watched games similar to that of football and other major sports. As such I need to make sure to create my art in ways that a public member would see. By this I mean the small profile shots while watching to know who’s who and other pieces of information like maps, name and health. And everything you need to understand what is going. With this I also need to remember that this is arena fighting and therefore will include team banners and such.
STYLE
Profile shots
Boards.euw.leagueoflegends.com. (2014). Boards. [online] Available at: https://boards.euw.leagueoflegends.com [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020].The styles of these selection screens differ when it comes to the two games. League has a close face portrait. These are simply up close shots of the character with the name underneath which for me is something I would rather stray away from, due to its inability to show meaning. In my world, one player will always have just one avatar but will have an image of that avatar throughout the arena like a champion banner. So looking through select screens I can first see how to create small images to show the ‘in world’ audience who is who.
(2019). Apex Legends – The Next Evolution of Battle Royale – Free on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. [online] Available at: https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]Rather to League’s way of selecting images as the selection screen, Apex has a similar portrait select idea but then shows the full character beside them. This acts like a intro pose which for this universe would be like the showmanship from fighters before the actual fight. This is something to consider when looking for the style in which I draw. Overall, the portrait system works well for creating a commentary image, much like other esports.
Ubisoft.com. (2015). Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege | Ubisoft (UK). [online] Available at: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/ [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]Another profile shot idea is to emulate the rainbow six siege option of icons. This allows for a more creative idea to go into each character with these icons to show meaning of the character. Like Rainbows Sledge who has the sledge hammer icon, simple and effective. Something to consider creating and letting my target audience deciding which would look better for the game.
Commentary Caster Image
Enter a Euw.leagueoflegends.com. (2009). League of Legends. [online] Available at: https://euw.leagueoflegends.com [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]In this image we can see that ‘Commentary’ image I mentioned. On the side we can see the profile shots that allow characters to be seen, rather than the player cam however, I would use this to display the image of the character that was in play. The below is a showcase of health, mana and overall details of the character, I see this being scrapped for a simple data card that shows kills / assists / deaths with health of the side. At the far right is the map, which is something I intend to keep which allows watches to understand the layout.
Call of Duty®. (2018). Call of Duty®. [online] Available at: https://www.callofduty.com [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]In this Call Of Duty caster image, we are given similar details. The profile shots are placed on top for both teams with the score in the middle, something I see myself taking and using in my own. The POV is that of an fps but I will be drawing this in the version of a birds eye view, similar to that of football with its moving cameras. The Map is still in use showing the public map awareness and knowledge upon the game.
TONE
With these initial styles and themes research, I only feel it right to conclude with work on the tone of my work. While the universe is a rough one of dark neo like cities, a dystopia, I feel that the tone in the actual arena must be light hearted action to a degree. This tone switch will allow me to show the harsh realities of the outside world while flipping into a game for the sport.
Satthum, C. (2017). Neo-Tokyo. [online] Chanonsatthum.com. Available at: https://www.chanonsatthum.com/work/neo-tokyo [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]The outside world is that of a luminous night life, the lights shining upon the dark grimy lifestyle that some live while the rest live in beautiful sceneries that the poor could of dream off. A quote that resonates with this world is “EAT THE RICH”.
Akopian, A. (n.d.). Cyberpunk Fashion. [online] Reddit.com. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/ImaginaryCyberpunk/comments/91faj8/cyberpunk_fashion_by_arman_akopian/ [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020]This style and tone is also shown through the characters outside the arena. This will shown the poverty and general personality. This look and fashion choice won’t dictate the looks of the Avatars hence the point of the look, think of this system like an esports player. These clothing choices will change on the birthplace of the character such to show the wealth of their social class.
With this blog completed I am able to see the theme of my MOBA dystopia world, the style in which I am able to show this and finally the tone in which the dark world is set and the best way to show this through design choices ahead of me. I am now able to look further into these similar games to see what it really is that attracts me and what I intend to learn from to further help my work. This new blog will include games written here and any others that I have seen inspiration from.
MOBA is a gaming genre meaning MASSIVE ONLINE BATTLE ARENA. This genre has been leading the esports scene through its already established arena style fitting perfectly in the real world. The two most popular MOBAs are League of legends and DOTA 2 which are also two of the most played game on PC. MOBAs are designed and seen to allows hold the same codes with different characters and universes.
THE CODES OF MOBA
The codes of every genre must be kept to create the game, like CoD with its FPS deathmatch style build that if changed would take away from its core value. The build of an MOBA is the three lane system. The game is designed so that you, in your role, work with a team to push your lanes by destroying the obstacles all the way into the other base. This style allows for aggressive plays but also rewards the slow thoughtful player who dismantles a team with strategy. The obstacles on each lane are usually turrets that inflict major damage upon entering its range, something to deter straight rushes and forces teamwork. Due to the nature of such MOBAs are mostly always very competitive which allows for esports to thrive with League of Legends being its flagship with its record breaking 44 million concurrent viewership. In terms of characters, MOBAs usually hold huge pools to choose from, each with different looks/story/skill set/weakness allowing for every type of player to feel at home.
HISTORY
The first ever MOBA game was conceived through a custom made map on the game StarCraft in 1998. Aeon of Strife was born having the three lane system that is still ingrained to this game with a few lacking parts that we have now. The next part of the story was another mod, now in Warcraft 3, in 2003 called Defense of the Ancients. DOTA had refined AoS into the more MOBA style game we play today but due to it only being a mod, the assets were limited. After this surge of modders taking turns on DOTA, companies started to look at creating stand alone games for this style. The first of these being Demigod that allowed players to have hero characters to control but fell short due to connectivity issues. This is where League of Legends joined the world, with the help of Riot games and the man who had created the DOTA add on.
After this point the floodgates opened. More and more companies came in to create their own version of this highly sort after genre and MOBA has slowly but surely the most popular game genre in both casual play and competitive.
EXAMPLES
League of legends is by far the most popular MOBA game and one of the world’s most popular game. Created in 2009 by Riot games with the help of Feak who had previously created DOTA allstars, the spiritual father to DOTA 2. LoL was well recepted when it was first released and has kept this well reception today. In 2012 it became North America’s highest played game by hours on the PC. 4 years later the game had surpassed 100 million players a month and in the 2019 world championship has broke records with its over 100 million viewership and 44 million concurrent viewers statistic.
Leagues esports has been the flagship and has put hugh distance from any other game even swallowing the likes of Fortnite and CSGO. This is due to the great players and the competitive nature that MOBAs produce so well. The action style of MOBA isn’t just that, it feels like an arena battle you could watch at home. And that is one of the main reasons why MOBA dominates the worlds competitive scene even in the physical scene by getting higher viewership than America’s Super Bowl.
DOTA 2 was released in 2013 by Value with the help of veteran IceFrog. Feak had created DOTA allstars and once he left was taken over by IceFrog. Once Feak had gone on to League, Value performed a similar move by making DOTA 2. DOTA has been universal acclaim from release and once held the record players with 330,000 concurrent. While the overall stats have been drowned out by League, it by no means implies that DOTA is the lower game. Most critics claim that DOTA is the more complex and harder game making it more rewarding, this is due to the counter play emphasis that all ‘HEROS’ have to each other.
DOTA 2 has been claimed as one of the greatest games of all time and has a well placed esports that is watched by thousands and has broke the record for reward money with 33 million as the prize amount.
Having this blog completed has allowed me to look into the background of MOBAs and has given me more than enough sources helping me to gain more experience when looking at how and who to create. Allowing me to have this blog as well works as a way to clearly explain MOBAs and why I have choose to emulate this genre and helps me to follow into Action genre research due to the genre heavy influence of such.
Looking into the demographics of viewers to similar games to mine will allow me to see a more defined and correct data bank. With such research towards my target audience, I will be able to direct refine my work to create the best product possible.
Age
Age within the MOBAs usually depends on the style and way the game acts. Games like Overwatch and Paladins. Two MOBAs that have very childish actions or atleast child friendly. While Overwatch has the large skill gap the cartoon style still attracts the younger generation while Paladins literally has a system in place to turn you into a chicken upon death taking that grim factor away, much like Fortnites avoidance of death allowing for its low age rating. Therefore, knowing that the age of these players will be low, I will make it a point to ask people at a higher range to collect educated answers of people who have played more games in general and will be able to use this to give me useful and out of the box ideas.
To further prove the standpoint that MOBA is a male dominated style helps me identify two things: The actual age range of players & clear up the sub genres of MOBAs. First, the style of a MOBA allows you as the player to take a win in two ways: Either tactically pulling the team apart or brute forcing your way. Whichever way you choose requires brilliance over the other team through skill. This gives players that sense of achievement and overall dominance. A feeling that is sought by young men who are going through there hormonal phase. This tension is a place of worship by the average teenager but doesn’t stop their. While that initial aggression wears off with time, growing up, men still see that style of beating an opponent as a satisfy victory, and with its massive competitive nature will easily hook a player til the age of around 24 -25. Due to learning of the attraction of MOBAs show us that this genre is close to action but in more of a arena battling sense. This will allow me to make the necessary work pieces towards the action genres codes and conventions when creating characters around that style.
This piece of the literature reviews dives in on genders within MOBA genres. However, I believe that it is not as simple as it seems to be. Now, no matter how many questionnaires are sent out, they can never gain a accurate response when it comes to the two genders. Females have always had to fight against the stereotype of not being able to play games, while nowadays this is not the case but still happens from time to time. With a casual female player, they usually decided to not openly show that they are in fact a woman. This is through the years of stereotypes and other factors but still shows that it can happen and therefore creates that doubtful barrier around data when collecting information about gender. But it is clear to see why this genre of game is dominated by a male populace. MOBA games are aggressively styled to tactically annihilate the enemy, due to its nature there is never a draw option, you either win or lose. This competition fits perfectly for a young male, while making it a toxic environment for female players who have a lack in aggression.
To combat this point with my work, I will make sure to add representation in my art, therefore meaning that I will create a female character. In which I will ask an only female crowd over their opinions of the matter. This is not to limit a males choice. But will allow me to create a piece that stands proof that there is no difference between sexes. Creating a bridge over a sexist river that has been allowed to flow uncontended for years.
With this issue tackled and the information gathered on how and why I will be able to confide in a more varied audience, I will be moving on to actual case study of similar products allowing me to start asking my audience on features to improve my work further down the line. Also with this complete I must next move on to see how I would be able to validate this data to ensure 100% accuracy when making choices for the target audience in my art design.
VALs is a marketing strategy thats allows for designer and creators to gain a detailed view on what their audience values allowing for creators to adjust their creations accordingly. VALs stands for ‘Values and Lifestyle’ which in sectioned into six primary motivations of consumerism.
Experiencers– These people value moods and the expression of the product. They are the youngest and most active members of the VALs. They fall for new items and spend a lot on clothing and other apparel.
Thinkers – These people value knowledge and creativity. These are the high educated professionals that center their activities around their own homes while also being well informed of the world.
Believers – These people value the social sharing and community in media. These people are the average Joes with modest incomes, however they are very predictable in that they stick with nation brands not allowing the interference of foreign products.
Achievers – These people value achievement and the functionality. These people enjoy established products and thrive off the success of the actual product and their own jobs.
Strivers – These people are much like achievers with more importance to style as these people intend to emulate those they look up to.
Makers – These people are family grounded who enjoy practical products. They have little interest in the big world but can still appreciate a good product regardless.
For my audience, I find that the closest style for my viewers would be a mixture. From Thinkers but of lower income and social standing. With this in mind I can use my creations to show off my skills to those who value such an aspect. Having this information will allow me to look into the demographics of my audience and further define them even after the initial questionnaire. To find such information, I will use secondary research to look into official statistics.
To ensure that my belief is correct, I have gone back to my target audience with these choices to see which of these they identify to in terms of viewing art work.
With this question I made sure to find original audience members and explained the three choices to them and let them choose. Having only a small group allowed me to find a clear cut answer to work from. The winner of this one question questionnaire was Thinker, but not in the traditional sense, that being that they were of high class and wealthy professionals. But instead having a low income background who watches to consume more understanding and to delve into deeper and vast worlds.
Having this confirmed will allow me to move on with what I have planned, which is to go into secondary research to find deeper demographics of my genre game art.
Final Major Project Year Two 