CASE STUDY Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation

Text

The genre of the game is action-adventure. The main avatar is Avaline, a young woman thrown into the life of an assassin after her mother disappears one day in New Orleans. The world is set in Lousiana in the late 1700s, based on real-life events such as France's defeat which causes the city of New Orleans to be taken over by the Spanish Empire. In the game, Avaline discovers the French governor's negotiation with a Spanish Templar in order to stay as New Orleans' governor; Avaline later assassinates the French governor. The multiplayer mode, to decide whether you're with the Assassin's Brotherhood (who fight for peace with free will) or the Templars (who fight for peace through control). It consists of trying to defend different worlds on a world map, mainly dispatching troops and checking their progress, rather than fighting yourself.
The limitations of the game are mainly plot and motion wise, as the main avatar's backstory is explained on the bio with detail however the game does little to show them. Avaline's glimpses of being an interesting character, through her interaction with partners in crime and anti-slavery stance, are wasted due to the lack of exploration, leaving simpleness and shallowness. Also, the multi-avatar options, (being able to change into Avaline's assassin, lady and slave persona) are diminished as mainly, you are told which one to choose for the missions at the beginning. Lastly, in motion, the visuals are more lacklustre.

Industry

Ownership and franchise: Ubisoft is a video-game company with several development studios around the world. It is known for publishing games for several acclaimed video game franchises, such as Just Dance, Raving Rabbids and Assassin's Creed. Assassin's Creed is a franchise with a worldwide fanbase due to the advertisement in the media by Youtube and TV adverts, trailers, gaming influencers and posters on buses and billboards.
Production/ Distribution/ Format: The game was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U and Microsoft Windows on the 30th of October of 2012. Later, it was also released for Java Platform, Micro Edition, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
It was a global release, except Japan, named it "Assassin's Creed III: Lady Liberty"
On September 2013 it was announced it'd be re-released in HD in 2014, featuring updated audio, AI and facial animations. It released for PlayStation 3 on January 14, 2014, for America and January 15, 2014, for Europe. The Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 versions were released globally on the 15th as well.
Marketing and advertising:

(+ Trailer)

The poster's main focus is on the assassin, a woman, which is a strategic placement as Avaline is the series' first female protagonist. It challenges stereotypes, which will bring in more people other than the average gamer. The background features more other people dressed in a similar costume to hers, indicating the time period, which gives the buyer an idea of the basic plot. Some elements of the format focused upon are the 18 rating, which mainly fits the game's fanbase age. The company's logo is featured as a mark of quality to appeal to the buyer as well, due to the success of its published works.
The trailer's main focus is the backstory of the main avatar, which emphasises her heroism and sets up the plot, for her to be a "symbol of hope" for the people. Furthermore, there are several sentences towards the end in order to appeal to the gaming audience e.g. "all-new missions", "upgraded levels and environments", "refined gameplay", a "true HD experience", whilst showing some action scenes that highlight the game's genre and what is famous for.

Reception: initial reviews mixed to positive e.g. Metacritic: 70/100 based on 64 reviews
Shaun McInnis, reviewer for GameSpot: 6.5/10, praising the protagonist's backstory and setting but aware of how the game "takes little advantage of its own narrative format" and so the plot is "largely aimless and hastily delivered".
IGN's Greg Miller: 7.2/10, critics how the story is "boiled down to be easy to jump in and out of... [taking] away some of the excitement in playing through it"

600,000 sales
Audience/Fan feedback: about the PS Vita release, as it had a limited user base, only 4-5 million

Social & Cultural Contexts

Representation: The game is an example of good representation as the avatar is a woman, which due to the action-adventure genre means the game is breaking the stereotype of women being weak and not heroines. Furthermore, she's an African-French assassin, demonstrating there's also a good representation of ethnicity.
Theory: 

• Bandura: Bobo doll experiment- people learn by observation, imitation and modelling. In the experiment, a parent played with a doll aggressively and when it was the child's turn to do so they'd mimic the parent's behaviour. This links to the video game industry's ratings. These are set in place in order to protect children as they could mimic the violence of a game in real life due to their inability to separate between fantasy and reality.
• Fandom: Jenkins- people who are interested in a specific media product, and so they follow it. This links to the video game industry as the fandom is one of the factors that makes a product successful, e.g. if a game is "hyped up" enough it gains visibility and so more people are likely to decide whether to buy the product or not.