Video Game Addictions

Can someone really be addicted to videogames? How are they dangerous enough to lead teenagers into committing suicide- like acts, such as jumping out of a buildings and stating the reason for their doing was because of “hallucinations”, or even excessive amount of game playing to spend 18 hours a day like the 31 year old Aaron Hazell – a software designer and former game addict- ?

From the lecture today, Kevin explained about the term “addiction” and how it has been mis- appropriately used in context with gamers and that we should consider the wider social context before labeling people as “addicts”.  From my past game experience with games, I know how easy it is to play a game and have become so absorbed (or diegetically immersed) into the game, (i.e. BEJEWELLED BLITZ, FINAL FANTASY/RPG games) that a couple of hours has passed before I have realized it. It is when a person loses this ability to realize and regulate their gaming behavior so that as a consequence problems negatively impacting on one’s life occur. The lack of self control is called “problematic gaming” and the term theorist Keith Bakker suggests to use to describe this situation, rather than the term “addiction”.

The social factors of addictions are primarily psychological. Compulsions, like gambling, shopping and working excessively. It is questionable whether the biological reasoning for game addiction is due to dopamine – the neurohormone when released carry signals between the cells in the brain when a person experiences pleasurable events.  As players achieve rewards by completing certain challenges in the games, their feelings of self worth are based upon their success with videogames and so they devote more and more time to mastering the virtual game world. The games stimulate dopamine and this is addictive.

Videogame addiction still remains to be a significant problem in our society. To combat this problematic use of videogames – theorist Keith Bakker suggests we get more involved! J Gamers who have “problematic gaming” should also be educated on the warning signs of addiction and improve their social skills. Though the virtual game world is filled with fantastic and grand realistic imagery and has more to offer than the real world, the game world is still only a representation, an illusion.  One must realize this – after all looking back, who wants to be recognized for a life filled with virtual memories of splendor and achievements, but no genuine ones?

RPGs (It’s Only a Game)

RPGs (It’s Only a Game)

RPGs or Role Playing Games are my favorite genre of games to play. Perhaps it’s the turn based battle system which allows me the chance to pause time, tormenting my opponents before I lash out to attack them. Or the vast array of equipment or abilities/skills on offer to customize my character. Or maybe it’s the choices I make to determine the destiny of my character…

The concept of morality is usually to present players with a common link to identify more with the protagonist, I still care about the illusion it generates and repeatedly finding myself in the web of choices that are presented. Moreover, I always find a sense of satisfaction in doing the right path by my character and surrounding world. I even debate both the ordinary and significant impacts of my choices before taking any action. Plus it adds a great deal to replay value.

For example: Look at Fable (2003)

In Fable, a player's character has a measure of good or evil association based on the character or Hero's actions. Good deeds award good points, which produce a positive alignment, while doing evil adds evil points, producing a negative alignment. For example killing monsters or saving villagers are acts of good, whereas killing innocents, breaking laws and aiding bandits will accumulate evil points. The path of the character affects not only the responses of non-player characters around the Hero, but also the appearance of the Hero himself.  For example, a Hero with a strongly positive alignment will feature a halo and a shaft of sparkling light above his head, butterflies fluttering around him and lighter features. An evil Hero emits a red haze, draws flies, has glowing red eyes and grows horns.

 VS.

^ It is the quests in Fable that allow players to pick sides and aid either evil characters, such as bandits, or good characters, such as traders and guardsmen

Just like many video game players, I get emotionally invested in my characters and play their morality based on my own system of values. Sometime the game tend to create characters which were clearly divided into good and evil category, i.e. Fable, however I remember making many “rebellious” decisions because I felt them acceptable and justifiable. Games could also easily reset my consequences so that I could make a choice and then reload the game again to choose a choice I wouldn’t normally make so that I could see what could happen to the character and how it would affect the story later. 

But in a game with a specific narrative, the writer often wishes to characterize a character toward an “archetype”, meaning a person displaying a typical trait, so specific so that you can identify with the character, as well as recognize his representation on a grand scale in the game plot. In linear stories, the character isn’t supposed to represent the player, but one piece on the personality “scale”. That’s why most games feature a “rag-tag” group (i.e. Final Fantasy games). Each character is of a different personality, with the writer using each character from their own personality representing in each scenario.  It would be great to see more RPGs with a wider variety of choices, but this would be too expensive.. since there would be a multitude of different scenarios to be written and created (I.e for every 3 life changing options created – good, bad, neutral – another 3 scenarios would in turn need to be created… so for a narrative with 7 life-changing quests that would be 3^7 = 2187 different scenarios). 

So I guess morality draws people in to play games. It makes the character more personal, and thus, the story more immersive. But, it also restricts the story-telling of the writer by diminishing their “representative nature” thus “contradicting the allegory”. After all, a game – no matter how awesome the narrative – is only a game. 

Movie Adapations of Games...

5 or 6 years ago, I was bored and channel surfing the TV till I stumbled onto a movie which reminded me of Super Mario Bros... The characters were wearing the trademark red (Mario) and green (Luigi) costumes, the plot followed that they happened to be plumbers  and were warped to another world or something similar. There was a lady with blond hair with the name Peach who had to be saved…. It turned out it WAS a film adaptation of the game Super Mario Bros. (1993)! Here’s a trailer:

That was my first experience with games that had been adapted into a movie, so at that time I thought the movie was really cool.

Like the majority of the film adaptations which do not live up to the expectation of the book narratives, game adaptations of films have also been more or less successful. According to RottenTomatoes, the top 5 game adaptations are Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010), Resident Evil (2002), Silent Hill (2006) and Lara Craft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life (2003).

What they all have in common? Bad ass butt kicking protagonists.

The difficult thing about turning videogames into a movie is the story. It is hard to remake the plot as game players having played the movie, won’t want a movie narrative that strictly follows the game, while at the same time the plot needs to be relatable for non-fans of the game alike.  Other problems include some games which feature a plot that is too shallow to remake, the main character would probably need to feel real, have some character development, than remain the same person throughout the movie. The film would also probably need a big budget to imitate the sequences of the game as well (i.e. CGI graphics), either overdo these effects with CGI or a cheap imitation of this.

I know game fans are dying for a movie adaptation of their favourite game, but there’s a huge gap between a movie and a game.  When people play a game they define the character and you experience that person, in a movie you only watch the main character observe the character development and take in the entire experience… Sometimes it’s better to opt for a no-movie adaptation, rather than a bad movie made. 

SOPA - What is it?

This happy hyper guy is against SOPA.

Listen to his 15 minute rant:

Stop SOPA!

Goldstein’s article on Violent Videogames

In Goldstein’s article, Goldstein argues that discussions of videogames have been clouded by ambiguous definitions, poorly designed research and confusion of correlation with causality. The following points were what I found interesting/stood out from the article:

-      "The context of violent stories vary along dimensions of realism, involvement, excitement and how violence/conflict begin and end, whether they are presented in an erotic or a humorous context."

-       Variations of violence are seldom studied, lowering the suitable results which can be used for critical analysis.

-       “Meanings of Violence in Video Games” introduces a couple interesting ideas. First Goldstein talks about the Third-Person Effects in Media Research, which is the idea that media affects others, but not oneself. Additionally in this section he proposes the idea that the exaggerated use of violence in video games, film and other media is a product of the American society. I.e. in one the studies it showed non-Americans watched sessions of American television and after surveys it has been shown that they perceived the world as a scarier and meaner world. (…Maybe that’s why we’ve seen an increasing amount of drama shows about war/alien take over - i.e. the cheesy Falling Skies (2011) - to install a sense of patrioticism to those watching the show!)

-       Studying the effects of violent video games usually comprise of 3 research approaches: “correlational studies, experiments, and meta –analysis.”

-       First he goes into correlational studies and addresses right away that there is little causal information that can be pulled from these studies. Any study he mentioned, Goldstein would reinforce the view that “no significant relationship could be concluded”.

-       The more detailed and informative section is when Goldstein talks about the experiments. In one of those studies, a study conducted by Craig Anderson and Karen Dill where they tried to find two video games – Wolfenstein 3D and Myst - similar in everything but violence. Even though the experiment found some interesting things, it was criticized by Goldstein because the games, which were supposed to be similar other than violence, were not.

-       He also takes us through multiple experiments and for each of them presents their failing. Even in the meta-analysis, which is when you take the data from many studies and try to find conclusion with all of the data clumped together.

-       At the end of the article Goldstein concluded that, “the research is too inconsistent and insubstantial to allow any conclusion to be drawn.”

Overall the article is an overload of information and/on experiments about video games and violence, but it makes no conclusions. Goldstein has placed each of these studies in scrutiny of their weaknesses and strengths and according to him it has become clear that we really don't have the one solid piece of evidence that links violent games and violent behavior. 

So many theorists O_O

Just looking over some of my lecture notes and i've noticed a number of game theorists that have been looked at are increasing...

Week 1 
~ Scott McCloud (and the "infinite canvas")
~ Steven Poole
~ Marc Prensky ("digital native"/"digital immigrant")

Week 2
~ Andrew Darley
~ Martin Lister
~ Alison McMahan
~ Ron Burnett
~ Laurie N. Taylor (immersion)
~ Chris Chesher ("invocatory devices")
~ Edward A. Shanken (agency)
~ Janet Murray (agency)
~ Jane McGonigal
~ Christine Ward Gaily
~ Peter Bell
~ Johan Huizinga
~ Roger Caillois
~ Greg Costikyan
~ Katie Salen/ Eric Zimmerman
~ Gordon Calleja (immersion/ structural limitations )
~ Bruno Latour 
~Yanfang Tang (Western vs. Asian approaches to reading different poetry)


In 4 days we have covered 21 theorists... Wow.

Some of the concepts and vocabulary being taught on last friday i'm still getting my head around as the material is so many and new - I get it easily confused (i.e. Actor- Network theory..Tmesis)
...And it doesn't help if the theorists write in a way just to make everyone's lifes harder  to read and understand lol! :P Lecture 2 content is no where as deep as lecture 4 imo...

Have to catch up... >:l

FTVMS 328 – First Week at a Glance

>>>Define Gamer
“Who’s a gamer here?”

Thinks… Game + Player = Gamer

*puts hand up*

…Or am I.?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Little Bit about Me …and My On/Off Relationship with Games~

First Engagement with Videogames: ...9 years old?
Favourite Game Genre: RPGS. RPGS. RPGS.
First Favourite Game: Super Mario 64 – The creative, vast landscape of all the levels in this RPG kept me easily entertained when I was 10 years old. I.e. In Tick Tock Clock – the “pace” of the level depended on what time the clock hands stop on after Mario lands on the clockface. (..Does that make sense?) Unfortunately before I could collect all 150 Powerstars - someone broke the game...Sigh.
First Game I Ever Took Seriously: Final Fantasy X (PS2) by Square Enix. Around 15 or so, friends of mine were hyped into this Final Fantasy phase – (them having older siblings who played it and of it’s awesome-ness)- and I was lent the game to try out… and OMG the graphics during the beginning cinematic sequence totally blew me away O_O and I was caught hook, line and sinker into FF ever since. The depth of detail in the storyline impressed me too. (FF deserves its own blog entry I reckon...)
Last Game I Played & Took Seriously: Final Fantasy XII. Stopped in 2009 due to other commitments and college work. Also the game was too political for my taste. :p

= I am a huge sucker of anime styled RPGS, especially when there are girl superheroes. :D =

A list of games I've either finished, or played for a minimum of 6 hours but couldn't be bothered to finish (…yet):
Nintendo 64: Diddy Kong Racing, Super Mario 64, James Bond, Pokemon Stadium
Computer/ Online/ FB: Earthworm Jim, Neopets, Runescape, Angry Birds, Bejewelled Blitz, Word Scramble… and yes, once upon a time even Farmville and Mafia Wars.
PS2: Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts: Re: Chain of Memories, Final Fantasy X, X-2 and XII
PSP: Loco Roco, Medieval
NDS: Yoshi Island 3, Professor Layton, Warioware, Lost in Blue, Cooking Mama, and other various random games...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hmmm…Not a particularly long list for a supposedly “gamer”.

Following the questions Kevin asked- I felt unsure.
Having played games before – I knew I wasn’t a complete “noob” (a term here used to describe an unexperienced gamer) except what exactly qualifies someone as a gamer..? Even more complex is that there are further sub-groups: pro or hardcore, casual. (… There is also EVEN MORE subgroups which I won’t mention here for they are too rude/funny.XD)

This also reminded me of how a previous blogpost on how can we study videogames. “It takes one to know one” - or how bout a gamer to know games... It takes to mind that one must have adequately played a game before he/she can pass judgment in an academic manner.

Furthermore the first reading (kind of) answered this.

> “We should take a multidisciplinary perspective by analyzing the community of shared ideas and concepts.” (*Also see the 7 Problems)
That is, aside from video game academia study, Wolf and Perron suggests we should look at the early writings of computer enthusiasts and hobbyists, trade journals and in house company journals of the 1970s and in recent times. A speculative approach by the Y generation like myself (or “Digital Native”) hopefully will add to the multidisciplinary perspective.
Though I feel slightly *cough* advantageous that I have a little practical game knowledge, I know critically analysing and writing in the flowery academia language on games is entirely different thing – a skill I hope to develop more by doing this course. The blogging thing however, I find is a cool way for us students to share information and discuss videogame theory/culture, and luckily we're allowed to do so informally! *Relief* xD