Past Exam Question (Class Practice)

The importance of cross media convergence and synergy in Production, Distribution and Marketing.

Remember to note down what the terms mean!

media convergence: various types of media coming together to produce, distribute and market your product.


Synergy: two or more agents which have come together to produce, distribute and market your product


Structure:

Introduce your question and what you will be discussing within your answer.

"Cross media convergence and synergy can be seen in all three areas of production, distribution and marketing of a video game. For this question i will be discussing the importance of synergy and media convergence in my two case studies, which are Red Dead Redemption and Angry Birds".

Discuss and analyse areas in turn: You may want to start with production and then move onto distribution and marketing.

discussion of the use of media convergence and synergy for both your case studies.
during the production stage of your case studies has the producers used media convergence and/or synergy? how important was this in the making of the game? answer via comparing the two games.

how did your two games use media convergence and/or synergy when distributing and marketing the game? how important was this at the release stage? did one company use a technique or method that the other never? why might this be the case? has this made a difference in the distribution and marketing or either game?

Conclusion: summerise your main answer, apply brief sentences which answer the question and add in own perspective

"Refering back to the two case studies i have analysed, it is apparent that both media convergence and synergy has played an important role in both RDR and in Angry Birds. Through all stages of production, distribution and marketing RockStar have proven to work with other media companies and other agents to get the game from developer to consumer. Although RockStar is a vertically intergrated company and Rovio an independent horizontally intergrated company, it is still apparent that both companies have synergised with other media agents and companies in areas such as cross promotion, working with other media companies (music industry) and during the release of the game. However, due to the scale of the budgets and company status you can identify that media convergence and synergy has been apparent in RDR at a much laregr scale. This does not however mean that Angry Birds was a failure as Angry Birds in turn also did very well in terms of popularity. "