Let's apply some media theories to dead by daylight
So I've just woke up and I wanted to just do a thing
Curran's Power and media indutries theory : this theory basicly boilds down to the media produced by a company lacks variety and that big conglomerates control the media with profit in mind. If we look at bhvr the lack of variety is starting to show, most of the newly released killers are 115% (apart from sprit) with a power that has a cooldown that the survivors can influence (spotting a ghost face, cleansing against a plauge, causing a legion to whiff/mending to, demo's portals, forcing an oni to grab/heal quickly etc). On the profit side of this theory it could be argued that bhvr is out for profit, as the PTB versions of killers are usually made to be fun to play incentiving a purchase when they come out only for aspects of them to be nerfed on/near the date of their release to make them less fun to play (plauge, oni, demo all come to mind) however it could be arguedthat bhvr's process of reworking underperforming killers shows that they aren't out for the profit due to the financial costs of doing so. I disagree with this, the list of reworked killers goes like this. Wraith, freddy, nurse, doctor. Two of which are paid dlc killers, now I don't know the sales figures of these dlcs but assuming the negetive review bombing of the nightmare on elm Street chapter release influenced many not to buy it it's fair to assume it didn't do well, when freddy was rewokred his popularity skyrocketed, and with a popularity increase comes money due to people either buying the chapter if they could or purchasing auric cells to buy freddy, on the subject of auric cells and this chapter. Its not avaliable to be purchased on consoles as of the 11th of January 2020, meaning the only way to buy both parts of this chapter is through auric cells. Each character sells for 500 each meaning you'd have to spend around $10 to purchase a $6 dlc.
So to conclude/tldr of this point. Bhvr seems to fit into this theory perfectly which isn't a good thing at all
Lunt and livingstone's Regulation theory : this is actually something dead by daylight does well conceptually, through its licensing of popular slasher characters that parents know are from 18+ films, something their children shouldn't be playing which is good. Additionally the game itself is complex enough to diswade anyone from playing it who's mind hasn't developed enough yet, to explain the sound desgin of the entity displeased ranking in a match intends to make a player feel bad for losing, and on an audience that really shouldn't be playing the game (kids) this could cause them to never play the game again because either the sound caused a bad emotional response or they got scared of the sound, if somehow the slashers in the game didn't scare them already . But as with all video games it's hard to enforce digital purchases as someone can easily fake their age
Daving H's Cultural industries theory :
Aight this is getting too long so i'mma just bullet point this one
Adapting to Internet promotion via fog Whispers and social media account
Releasing the game on multiple platforms to attempt to reach a wider audience - coutnerpoint : consoles aren't as optimised as pc blah blah blah
Communication with their community
And here's just one last theory that dbd encompasses perfectly
The end of audience theory, from what I understand is basicly saying that audiences have an active role in the development of media, and just by reading the lasted patch notes you see that the communities complaints help to shape the game. Unless those are compliants about how killers get more impactful nerfs than survivors or complaints that playing killer is becoming more and more unfun.
Thanks for reading, if this game was on the A level media ciriculum it'd be a hell of a thing to dissect and analyse, I've got mocks at the end of January so I'm just trying to apply the theories to memory by associating them with things I see and participate in regularly
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