Late-Night Programming
The target demographic for these cartoons is males from eighteen to thirty-four. Edgy, irrev-
erent comedy, adult comedy, and anime action seem to do well in this spot. In the United
States the programming may be nostalgic, with the comedy playing off cartoons that the
viewers once watched. Off-the-wall comedy leans toward sarcasm and irony. Cable networks
allow taboo subjects, adult language, and satire. The fresh ideas may be postmodern and hip.
Shows tend to be low-budget, often with limited animation produced by a tiny staff.
Interactive Games
There’s a wide variety in the kinds of interactive games that use animation. There are arcade
games and interactive television games. The market for wireless games is growing rapidly.
There are single-player games on CD-ROMs for teens, adults, tweens, and even for
preschoolers. Those for younger players are simple and mostly educational. There are games
on DVDs and handheld games. Console-based games like Nintendo, Xbox, and Sony
PlayStation add to the mix. There are PC and console games that come with an online com-
ponent. There are a variety of websites with games for all ages, for both single players and
multiplayers. Some games are played directly in the Web browser, and some are downloaded
first. Some games challenge the player physically, requiring ducking, grabbing, and so forth.
There are multiplayer games for teens and adults on CD-ROMs and on the Internet.
Single-session, LAN-based, multiplayer games support a maximum of sixty-four players.
They begin when the players log on and end when a certain condition has been reached or
the last players log off. A few session-based games like Diabloactually permit characters to
grow and survive even though the worlds are transient.
Players can play in a persistent world that continues whether they are there or not,
playing Massively Multiplayer Games (MMPs) or Massively Multiplayer Online Games
(MMOGs) in competition with thousands of other players simultaneously. Many of these
are Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). MMPs on servers are
up and running and available for play globally twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Originally the MMPs were text-based, but the later games like Star Wars Galaxiescame out
with sophisticated graphics. In countries with extensive broadband service MMPs are a big
business. New generations of MMPs continue to come out with better graphics and more
capabilities, and some are developed to appeal to a different demographic. Socialization
makes them popular with adults. The fantasy role-playing MMPs are a special challenge to
create and write. Players customize characters with costumes and weapons to differentiate
them. The characters are guided so that in Role Playing Games (RPGs) they gain more abil-
ities and grow more powerful, accumulating wealth and weapons, or in Strategy Games they
control assets to accumulate power, wealth, and territory. Worlds are usually complex, and
players travel from one end of a virtual world to the other. Research for historical accuracy
for these games can be extensive.
Games must be developed with system limits and download time in mind. Early on, many
games avoided first-person shooting because of the time it took to get feedback (the sound of
a hit) during play. But as graphic capabilities increase, content becomes more sophisticated
with greater graphic detail available to convey the fresher and less familiar concepts.
292 Animation Writing and Development