Skylanders Giants

Skylanders: Giants is a 2012 video game in the Skylanders series, and a direct sequel to the 2011 game Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. It was released on October 17, 2012 in Australia, on October 19, 2012 in Europe, and was released on October 21, 2012 in North America, and will be released on November 22, 2012 in South America, by Neoplay. 
The game will introduce over 40 new toy figures, some of which are more than twice the size of the original Skylanders cast in both physical and virtual form. The game involves connecting a physical toy to the video game console through a "Portal of Power"; whichever toy is used creates a respective character in the game, Toy figures from the first game are also forward compatible with Giants, although there also new versions, called "Series 2" versions, of all previous toys, which have more powerful attributes than the originals.

The game also has a new and improved "Battle Mode", for head-to-head play, featuring more areas and gameplay options.

The game's plot is centered around the backstory between how the ancient Skylanders, who are the "Giants", were separated from the rest of the normal sized Skylanders.

It is available on the following platforms...

• Nintendo 3DD
• Playstation 3
• Wii
• Wii U
• Xbox 360

Farmville 2

On 26 June 2012, Farmville 2 was unveiled. This version of Farmville will be more 3d, and will allow viewing from multiple angles. Also, Zynga mentioned that the items farmed in game are going to be able to be used to make other items.Farmville 2 was released in September 2012.Farmville 2  was announced at Zynga's Unleashed press event at its San Francisco headquarters. the new game has a 3D view point which will allow the player to see the game from different and more interesting angles.

Indie Games

Independent video games (commonly referred to as indie games) are video games created by individuals or small teams without video game publisher financial support. Indie games is usually done on-line and relys on digital distribution.  Indie game developers are not financially backed by publishers and usually have little to no budget available, thereby generally relying on Internet digital distribution schemes. 

• indie developers are generally more product-oriented than hobbyist game writers

• Many hobbyist developers create mods of existing games, or work with specific technologies or game parts however indie gamers develop whole new games

Examples of Indie games..

• Super Meat Boy

• flower

• limbo

• angry birds

• braid

• minecraft

Tentpole Business Model

Tentpole Business Model
The Tentpole model is when a developer who has a triple A title uses the succsess of that triple A game to advertise their other games. This is mainly used by developers such asRockstar  who can afford to be a little riskier with their development, as this business model saves money on marketing when a big developer creates a new IP

Zynga

. Zynga is a gaming company that develops games for mobile phone platforms like Apple iOS and Android, as well as developing games for social networking sites such as Facebook, which are free to play. Zynga's profit comes from two sources: debit/ credit card payments and business partnerships. Zynga can make money through add ons in which people can purchase add ons (credits) with there cards by online payments. Another way zynga makes money is through advertsing, companys pay zynga to advertise there company/ products on the zynga games

Synergy and Symbosis

Synergy
Synergy is when two sections of the same organaisation work togther, in gaming it is where two developers work together, possibly to form a game or create a product

Symbosis
Symbosis is where to different things or two different organsisations work together and form a realashionship together

Rockstar studios

Rockstar North
Rockstar North (formerly DMA Design Ltd) is a British video game developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland, best known for creating the Grand Theft Auto and Lemmings franchises in its earlier guise as DMA.
in 1997 DMA was bought by British publisher Gremlin games. In 1999 Gremlin games was bought buy  French publisher Infogrames for £24 million. Infogrames sold DMA Design to Take-Two. DMA and BMG merged to form Rockstar.


Rockstar Toronto
Rockstar Toronto was named this in 2002 after Rockstar Games bought Barking Dog Studios and renamed it Rockstar Vancouver

Rockstar San Diego
Rockstar San Diego started off as Angel Studios, it then was aquirred by Rockstar in 2002

Rockstar Leeds
was former Mobius Entertainment, was bought by Rockstar in 2004

Rockstar Lincoln

was once Tarantula Games

Hot Coffee Mod

1)  What is the Hot Coffee Mod?In GTA San Andreas there was a mini game called Hot Coffee where main character Carl "CJ" Johnson has sex with his girlfriend, the mini game was based on sexual relations between the couple. This caused contraversey so it was made unaccesible in the game. However it was still in the game and on the disc and became accesible through hacking and modding.

2) How did the mod affect San Andreas's age rating?
When the mod was discovered the games rating was made to change from mature to adult only.

3) How did it affect developers/platform holders?
Rockstars parent company Take 2 Interactive became angry with Rockstar because the Hot Coffee Mod damaged there reputation