Media Diary Entry 6: Guilty Pleasures Week - Animal Crossing

The Nintendo game series ‘Animal Crossing’ is one that I have played and adored for many years. I received the second release from the game series in 2007 for my 8^th birthday; and since then I have been a huge fan and have owned every game since the second one. The initial concept of the game includes the player customising and creating a town for a bunch of animal villagers that will move into the town. The first game in the series that was released in the UK was on the Nintendo Gamecube and was named ‘Animal Crossing Population Growing’ and I unfortunately never owned a Gamecube so I did not get to play this game. The most recent improvement on the basic game is ‘Animal Crossing New Leaf’ for the Nintendo 3DS. I played this for a very long time and this soon became my favourite in the entire series. However, more recently Nintendo has been releasing spin-off versions of the game in which the basic concept of the series as a whole has been changed. Two spin-off games will have been released in 2015; the first one being ‘Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer’ for the Nintendo 3DS and the second one being ‘Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival’ for the Wii U.

            The target audience for this text is generally children of any gender, possibly aged between 8 and 13. However, I know of many people that do not fit this audience classification and I feel that any age or gender can enjoy this game series. I also think that this game series will apply to the ‘explorer’ type of people because this game series is very unique and the concept of it has not been impersonated by any other game series. Therefore they will receive new sensations from playing this game series. I also think that the ‘succeeder’ would enjoy this game series because their core need in life is for control and most of the games are based on creation and therefore the audience member is in full control of the happening in their town. As I do not fit with the target audience age, I fear ridicule from people who feel that the game is only for kids. However, this game series appeals to me as I have always loved the games produced and I will keep this game series as my own guilty pleasure.

            From this game series, I feel as though I have the preferred reading that the game producers want the audience to have. I play the games properly and do not cheat so that the game can naturally happen in normal UK date and time and I can also receive the full enjoyment out of the games for longer. I also follow the games with the official social media as one of the new features of the latest game includes receiving limited edition animal villagers via the internet during a certain period of time. Therefore, I think I have the preferred reading of the game as I will play the games and complete them in a logical way without cheating. The oppositional reading of the games would be that the audience member cheats and uses hacks in the games to complete them faster and access areas of the game that were not originally put there by the producers. I have used some cheats in the past to improve my gaming experience and keep my interest with the games once I had completed them all properly. However, I do not believe I have the oppositional reading of the text because I do not do this often as I do not like to use cheats.

            I think that this piece of media text would fit with the ‘Hypodermic Syringe Model’. This is because the audience will always be able to produce a positive or negative response to the game series. The audience will only be stimulated by this text in a positive way because there is no violence or gore included in the gameplay. Therefore, the audience are not going to become violent from playing any of the games. Some members of the audience may dislike the gameplay and concept behind the game and will therefore only be influenced to not play the series. Some members of the audience will have a positive response to the game and it could inspire them to help people in real life; just like the way they help the animal villagers in the game. This game series will also give people a more creative side and they will be able to think of their own creative ideas. I believe these appeals are given to the audience by the game because I feel as though I have received them through the many years of playing this game.