Video games aren’t that bad

I'm not a gamer. I don't play any video games. Acronyms like RPG, FPS and MMORPGs mean absolutely nothing to me and in my imagination place themselves into a box that I have never been tempted to open and discover their meaning. Taking this paper has meant that I have to embrace my inner gamer and learn about a universe that until recently was for me too complicated, too technical and too time consuming. However, I admit that in my time I have played the odd game. I made it to at least level 4 in Theme Hospital, and I'll always play solitaire if nothing is happening on Facebook. But until a few days ago I've never taken the extra step to discover how people can endure hours playing, or spending what I consider to be obscene amounts of money on games.

The first question we were asked in lecture one asked us are video games worth studying? Before this class I wouldn't have known what there was to study about a game except for the rules of how to play, so my answer would have been a short one. No. But the technical aspect that I find so challenging is only a small part of the video games universe. When I did the first reading I was relieved to come across the quote "Games are not isolated entities that one can effectively study in vitro. Games are situated in culture and society. To truly understand the phenomenon of digital games, it is not enough to merely study the games themselves". This explained to me that there are aspects of video games that I might understand better or be more interested in like the historical development of games and why some weren’t successful. Being a film student my passion is the cinema so for me I enjoyed learning about machinema and hacking. Using someone else’s creation to make your own content welcomes in a whole new audience to the video games culture. If I came across a video on YouTube that advertised a new games features it’s safe to say I wouldn’t watch it, but I would if it was a clip of the games characters in a short movie. So it's safe to say that I've been resistant to the video games craze, but hopefully this paper will allow me to understand what it is about video games that people love and maybe even play a few games myself.

Emily J.