The term “convergence” is a buzzword, a term that is often overused and sometimes misused. Convergence, boiled down to its common meaning, refers to acts of meeting, or coming together. More recently the term has been used to refer to the alignment and overlap of digital information and services. For example, cable providers and telecoms offer consumers the option to combine telephone, cable, and Internet services into the same package, and often encourage this bundling in their promotions. Media convergence also often refers to the repurposing and redistribution of content across different delivery platforms, and here the waters get a bit muddy, because these particular practices predate the digital technologies that facilitate convergence today.
For several decades, the different entertainment industries, particularly television and film, operated as discrete industries. There was some overlap, to be sure, but rules and regulations about media ownership kept this overlap to a minimum. As Joseph Turow (1997) explains, the 1980s brought about some significant changes for the media industries. Some of these changes were technological, such as the advent of cable and the growing popularity of the VCR, as both of these developments served to turn the television into a device through which films could enjoy a lucrative secondary market. The other changes were regulatory, and with a relaxation of media ownership rules, media outlets were being bought up in record numbers and large media conglomerates were emerging. For example, in 1989 Sony purchased Columbia Pictures, and Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications. Four years prior, Rupert Murdoch bought out Twentieth Century Fox, and a year later would leverage the studio name to create a new television network. These acquisitions would continue into the 1990s, and in 1996 Disney bought up ABC, Inc.
In order to maximize the potential of all these various companies, these media conglomerates looked for new ways to repackage and redistribute popular content across different media outlets, and to use the different divisions to cross-promote the various media products of the conglomerate. Therefore, a popular film produced by the film division could generate a popular soundtrack published by the conglomerate’s music division, and the promotion of the film would augment the sale of the CD, and so on. Synergy was the term coined for these new business practices.
Then, around the turn of the millennium, the entertainment industry went digital. VHS tape gave way to DVDs, and old analog cable systems were replaced with fiber optic digital systems. It is at this point that media conglomerates began adopting the term “convergence” and a new buzzword came on the scene. But because convergence means different things to different industries, confusion often ensues. In the digital technology and IT industries, convergence is about data, whereas in the media industry, data are content. This might seem like a fine distinction, but it actually is very important, because for most media conglomerates “content is king,” and data are a means of storing, editing, packaging, and distributing that content.
Convergence and Video Games
When it comes to video games, we are dealing with an industry with one foot in technology and one foot in media. Historically speaking, the video game industry has had a close relationship with the computer industry, and in the early years of the video game industry the products were often called “computer games.” There was some early overlap with media when Warner Entertainment acquired Atari, but that overlap produced the notorious E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial game (1982). For most of the 1980s, and a good deal of the 1990s, video games were the domain of computer technology, and even some of the consoles produced at this time were marketed as home computers (Kent, 2001). When Sony introduced the first PlayStation in the 1990s, a few short years after it had acquired Columbia Pictures, it would begin an alignment between traditional media and video games that has continued to the present. This was in part because the console utilized CD-ROM technology that allowed for the development of video games that were graphically and narratively complex. Although there were game consoles utilizing CD-ROM drives that were released before the PlayStation, those consoles did not enjoy Sony’s success. When the PlayStation 2 (PS2) was released it was marketed as a convergence device that could play DVDs and video games, and the first Xbox would make the same claim. The introduction of DVD technology further heightened the complexity of game graphics and narratives, beyond the levels achieved with CDs. In addition to DVD technology facilitating the multimedia functionality of game consoles, video games themselves began to more closely mirror the production of traditional narrative media. Alexis Blanchet’s (2011, p. 14) work illustrates this important trend:
Analysing the number of simultaneous adaptations published per year brings out three distinct phases of activity: from 1975 to 1983, between one and four films per year gave rise to a simultaneous adaptation; from 1984 to 2001, the publication of simultaneous adaptations concerned on average a dozen films per year; and finally, since 2002, the average has exceeded 22 films per year. This continuous increase in the use of simultaneous adaptations bears out the interest of film producers in this type of commercial and creative synergy with video games and their commitment to it.
The fact that a spike in adaptations occurred shortly after the release of the PS2 and the Xbox is no accident, and can be attributed to the emergence of DVD technology (Brookey, 2010).
This convergence has continued with the current generation of consoles. The PlayStation 3 (PS3) and the Xbox 360 were designed to deliver HD content, just as television manufactures began ramping up HD production, and major film and television studio began rolling out HD content. In addition, the PS3 was used to market the Bluray technology that would be the primary HD format for distributing both films and television shows for the home video market (Brookey, 2010). Consequently, while the video game industry is still very much a part of the development and deployment of digital technologies, the actual content of video games is being influenced by traditional media industries, both directly (through spinoffs) and indirectly through evolving game aesthetics.
Because convergence has been used to describe a multitude of practices, the term has become ambiguous. And because convergence, as it has been applied to the video games, reflects the interests of both technology and media companies, the ambiguity of the term has been compounded. Consequently, my purpose will not be to define the phenomenon of convergence, but to review how other scholars have discussed the phenomenon. Although not exhaustive, this review will include important contributions to the discussion of convergence as it relates to video games, and I will offer observations about specific convergence practices involving the film and mobile telephony industries.
Different Perspectives on Convergence
Despite the fact that he was not focusing on video games exclusively, Henry Jenkins’s work on convergence is significant to the degree that it has become a touchstone for the discussion of convergence in video game studies literature. In his book Convergence Culture, Jenkins (2006, p. 282) defines convergence (in a glossary, no less) thus:
A word that describes technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes in the ways media circulates within our culture … Perhaps more broadly, media convergence refers to a situation in which multiple media systems coexist and where media content flows fluidly across them. Convergence is understood here as an ongoing process or series of intersections between different media systems, not a fixed relationship.
While Jenkins clearly acknowledges the centrality of the media industry to the practices of convergence, he suggests that media consumers enjoy an equal, if not more powerful, role in these practices. He maintains that in important ways, “convergence occurs in the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 3). While technology might facilitate convergence, and media corporations may design convergence strategies, it is consumers who cognitively make the intertextual connections across the associated media texts. For Jenkins, convergence opens up new, participatory forms of entertainment, and new opportunities for pleasure.
Jenkins does not completely dismiss the role of technology in convergence, and he notes how both Sony and Microsoft had ambitions for their respective game consoles (the PS3 and the Xbox 360) to function as devices through which all digital media would flow. He argues, however, that this “black box” approach to convergence, the idea that all media will be consumed through one device, is a fallacy, and that convergence has actually brought about a proliferation of devices. Jenkins’s purpose is to warn against the tendency to collapse convergence into technology (Jenkins, 2006, pp. 14–16). While technology, and digital technologies in particular, have accelerated media convergence, these practices still involve relationships between corporations and consumers, and fans and content.
Unsurprisingly, given Jenkins’s body of work, he believes that convergence will ultimately empower consumers, and the examples he provides in the book are offered to illustrate this belief. While he acknowledges the corporate motive behind convergence, he suggests that in actual practice the power of media conglomerates is often undermined by internal dysfunction, and so corporations are not always as powerful as they may seem, nor are consumers as powerless.
In contrast to Jenkins, the work of Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig de Peuter (2003) provides an approach to convergence that is decidedly less celebratory. I should note that they actually posit a model of interactivity in which convergence is a subordinate term, but their model has influenced other work on convergence, so it is worth mentioning here. Kline et al. suggest that in spite of all the new opportunities that new media has opened for consumers, this new media still has the same profit motive as the old media. They also note that immersion is often the end game for most of the technology that falls under the umbrella of “new media,” an experience in which the actual technological interface becomes transparent in the act of consumption. An example would be fully-engaged game play, when the player instinctively inputs responses in the control pod without actually thinking about those responses or the specific buttons involved. In these instances, Kline et al. argue the consumer ceases to reflect on the technology involved in the experience, or the conditions of its production and operation.
Drawing on the work of Raymond Williams, Kline et al. propose a model of interactivity that has three circuits: technology, marketing, and culture. The technological circuit, as they describe it, takes into account the work of game and computer programmers, the actual hardware, and the experience of the player as a “user of computers and consoles that are increasingly linked to a networked telecommunications environment” (2003, p. 55). The marketing circuit involves the practices of promotion that frame a cultural product and give it meaning. In terms of the video game industry, these practices can involve “phonelines, magazines, films, merchandising tie-ins, virtual tournaments, sponsorships, Web sites, game rentals and trials, and a host of other marketing synergies and public relations strategies” (2003, p. 57). Finally, the cultural circuit conceives of games a means through which meaning circulates between designers and gamers; and to the degree that games reference other forms of popular culture, games operate as means of reproducing and/or subverting cultural norms.
Barry Ip (2008) uses Kline et al.’s “three-circuit model” as a touchstone in order to develop his own model of convergence, one designed specifically to address convergence in the context of the video game industry. Ip acknowledges the complexities of the concept of convergence and references several different forms of convergence in the beginning of his essay. He suggests that the three-circuit model can be combined with the concept of convergence space, and out of this combination he develops a framework in which to analyze the areas of technology, content, and markets as they relate to video games. Where technology is concerned, new video game consoles are developed to incorporate technologies that serve several different functions; the incorporation of Blu-ray drives in the PS3 illustrates these practices. Content involves the practices of repurposing narratives and characters across forms of media (films spun-off as video games, for example). Market convergence refers to the bundling of services (Internet, television, and telephone) by telecoms and cable companies.
In his conclusion, Ip raises certain concerns with the practices of convergence in these three areas. In terms of convergence, he questions the quality of the games produced when content is repurposed. Ip also notes that the efforts to develop consoles as pieces of convergence technology has paradoxically resulted in closed gaming systems, and argues instead that convergence should be used to develop industry standards that open up gaming opportunities to consumers. Finally, he avers that while the openness of standardization may be realized in the market convergence of telecoms and cable companies, he acknowledges the various complexities of corporate, national, and international policies that may serve as roadblocks. In spite of Ip’s pessimism on this point, he shares Jenkins’s belief that convergence has shifted the balance of power where media producers and consumers are concerned. As he states, “the most exciting prospect of media convergence will be the increasing shift of power to consumers, in which usergenerated content, differing cultures, and social communities take priority over that which is prescribed by traditional content developers” (2008, p. 220).
Casey O’Donnell (2011) is not as nearly optimistic when it comes the practices of convergence, particularly as they apply to labor. In his article, which appeared in the journal Convergence, he argues that most studies of convergence, at least where video games are concerned, overlook the specific aspects of production. As he notes, conceptually convergence is often used to refer to an unfettered media flow that circulates content from one delivery platform to another. O’Donnell suggests instead that convergence in practice is better conceived as kludges and disconnections, particularly at the level of production. The level of production, as O’Donnell defines it, is very specific to the actual practice of game design and development. Subsequently, and in order to prove his point, he conducts an ethnographic study of a game studio tasked with developing the video game spin-off of the Spider-Man 3 film (Sam Raimi, 2007).
In his analysis, O’Donnell, observed several problems with the practices of convergence as they relate to the Spider-Man 3 video game (Treyarch, 2007). For example, the information flow between the film and video game productions was limited and untimely:
While filming was largely complete nine months prior to the release of the videogame, little data flowed between the companies. Much of the movie script remained out of the hands of the game producers until late in the production of the game. Basic story lines were known, but little information flowed from the team producing the movie to those producing the game.
(2011, p. 274)
O’Donnell also notes that there were significant challenges to reproducing certain aspects of the film, including the “web-slinging” used by the Spider-Man avatar. In addition, different studios (although both were owned by Activision) were tasked with producing versions of the game for the different gaming consoles. On the specific level of game data, the majority of the files had to be modified or newly created in order to port the game from one platform to another.
O’Donnell concludes that convergence needs to be primarily considered a labor practice:
Data does not flow through the system. Humans or computers process it, or it is parsed and presented on the screen mediated by software applications. Cross-media production converges less than it diverges. Data multiples and is re-created in different applications bringing new capabilities. Human labor and computer processing power are leveraged through these systems to bring the semblance of convergence.
(2011, p. 280)
Although O’Donnell never says as much, his article gives the impression that individuals who labored to produce the Spider-Man 3 video game, were not on the same level as those who produced the film. In my own research I know this to be true; when it comes to video game spin-offs, the game is considered an ancillary product, subordinate to the original film in several respects.
There are those in the video game industry who have been highly critical of convergence, in part because they believe the video game industry is losing its independent creative spirit. Even allowing for the fact that the creative independence of the video game industry is perhaps more of a myth than a reality, there is some cause here for concern. As I have argued, when games repurpose film content, the primary motive is not to create a great gaming experience; it is to promote the film (Brookey, 2010). Consequently, some of the games that are produced in this manner are not very good games. The Spider-Man 3 game is a case in point; the PS3 version received a “6” rating on IGN.com, and is described as “okay.” I have played this game, and I would agree with this assessment.
The Spider-Man 3 game, however, illustrates the extent to which convergence and synergistic practices can become entwined in a large media conglomerate such as Sony. Although the European and Japanese markets had different release dates for both the Spider-Man 3 game and the PS3 console, in the US the game was released six months after the console appeared in stores, in conjunction with the release of the film in US theaters. To the degree that the video game was a highly visible release for Sony’s game console, the video game became a product that linked Sony’s film and video game divisions. In addition, keeping in mind that the PS3 also served as an important product in which to market the Sony’s Blu-ray technology, the Spider-Man film franchise was used to promote another important Sony product. Consumers needed to look no further than the packaging of these products to see evidence of this strategy. The Spider-Man 3 film, the Spider-Man 3 video game, and the PS3 used the same Homoarakhan font in all of their brand logos.
Clearly then, the Spider-Man 3 game was just one tactic in a much broader strategy to deploy the established popularity of the Spider-Man film franchise across a variety of Sony products. The actual quality of the game was not of primary importance to this strategy, and consequently, as can at least be inferred from O’Donnell’s ethnography, it was not of primary concern to Sony either. While the convergence of the film and video game industries may have produced some questionable games, not all of the games produced through these practices are inferior. Furthermore, as Blanchet’s study indicates, the convergence of film and video game content, while not abating, has at least plateaued. Therefore, the impact of this convergence may have already been realized, and video game industry has yet to be subsumed by the film industry. There is another form of convergence that is emerging, however, and its full impact has yet to be realized.
The Mobile Future
With the advent of the 3G phone, and continuing with the ongoing deployment of 4G technology, mobile phone manufacturers and service providers have entered into the handheld games business through their various application stores. In order to promote its iPhone and iPod Touch, Apple introduced its “App” Store in July 2008. In less than three years, 10 billion applications have been downloaded from the store, and games are often among the top downloads. As Brian Caulfield (2011) notes, although Apple entered the gaming market almost accidentally, it has become a force to be reckoned with, and may overtake the traditional video game companies in the future. Caulfield also observes that Google’s Android platform is attempting to follow Apple into the gaming market. As of March 2011, Android had a significant lead over Apple in terms of the installed base of cell phone users, with 37 percent share as opposed to Apple’s 27 percent share. In addition, there are indications that the Android Market Store may overtake Apple’s App Store in terms of the number of applications offered (Murphy, 2011). As Google gives games a very prominent place on the Android platform, it too is posed to make inroads into the video game market.
Of course, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry’s RIM platforms also offer game applications, but neither has established any presence in the mobile gaming market. Apple and Google, however, are making their presence felt. A recent report from Flurry revealed the mobile game market share for iOS and Android combined grew from 19 percent in 2009 to 34 percent in 2010, while Nintendo’s market share declined from 70 percent to 57 percent and Sony’s declined from 11 percent to 9 percent (Farago, 2011). Combined, these two platforms generated $800 million in sales in 2010, up from $500 million in 2009.
At this point, it may be worth mentioning the basic business models of Apple and Google in the context of the mobile phone market. Apple manufactures a product with a proprietary software platform, and Google produces a software platform that it licenses to a variety of mobile phone manufactures. Therefore, Apple generates revenue from the sale of its phones, whereas Google generates its revenue from the licensing fees that it collects by offering applications through Android Market. In addition, both companies are able to generate revenue from a cut of the third-party app sales and access to their respective app stores. These practices are not a complete disconnection from the way Sony and Nintendo generate revenue from licensing fees, and it should be understood that game applications alone do not drive the success of either the iOS or Android platform. In terms of Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP, the success of these devices is contingent on the games that they offer. While it may seem like Apple and Google’s entry into mobile gaming opens the market, neither company has a strong, vested interest in either innovation in video gaming or the actual quality of the games.
Although the mobile telecom industry is becoming an important force in the handheld gaming market, games available for mobile phones are often locked into operating systems and specific types of phones. While Jenkins’s claim about the black box fallacy may be true when it comes to the home, 4G mobile phones are marketed as devices through which all media can be consumed. Furthermore, service providers, such as Verizon are now offering plans through which a number of devices can enjoy mobile connectivity through the same service. Apple’s legal action against Samsung in 2012 illustrates how protective it has become about its products and its iOS environment. The real fear of the black box has to do with the amount of control corporations can exercise in this marketplace. The current convergence of mobile telephone and video games reveals that a limited number of companies are battling for market dominance, and there is cause for concern about how that dominance might manifest itself in the handheld game market.
Ultimately, however, convergence is not the problem; rather it is how convergence is specifically practiced and how those practices impact consumers. Therefore, it may be more productive for video game scholars to consider convergence practices in context. Instead of comparing those practices to some predetermined taxonomy that attempts to define convergence, scholars should investigate the outcomes of specific convergence practices to determine if they open up opportunities for gamers, or if they merely close them down. There may be disagreement about the positive and negative impacts of convergence, however, we can agree that we want the practices to produce the kinds of gaming experiences that inspire both gamers and scholars.
References
Blanchet, A. (2011). A statistical analysis of the adaptation of films into video games. INA Global: The Review of Creative Industries and Media. Retrieved on August 30, 2012 from www.inaglobal.fr/en/video-games/article/statistical-analysis-adaptation-films-video-games.
Brookey, R. A. (2010). Hollywood gamers: Digital convergence in the film and video game industries. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Caulfield, B. (2011, April 25). Apple: The accidental gaming giant. Forbes.com. Retrieved on May 19, 2011 from www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0425/technology-angry-birds-apple-videogames-steve-jobs-game-on.html.
Farago, P. (2011, April 15). Apple and Google capture U.S. video game market share in 2010. Flurry. Retrieved on May 19, 2011 from http://blog.flurry.com/bid/60307/Apple-and-Google-Capture-U-S-Video-Game-Market-Share-in-2010.
Ip, B. (2008). Technological, content, and market convergence in the games industry. Games and Culture, 3(2), 199–224.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.
Kent, S. (2001). The ultimate history of video games. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Kline, S., N. Dyer-Witheford, and G. de Peuter. (2003). Digital play: The interaction of technology, culture, and marketing. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Murphy, D. (2011, May 14). Apples set Guinnes World Record for app store size … until August. PCMag.com. Retrieved on September 7, 2012 from www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385396,00.asp.
O’Donnell, C. (2011). Games are not convergence: The lost promise of digital production and convergence. Convergence, 17(3), 271–286.
Turow, J. (1997). Media systems in society. New York: Longman.