Reply to 'Gaming Addiction'

I liked the point you made about the clip that we do not understand anything about the child's background. The boy at the beginning who sets up the camera gives a brief explanation as to why his brother is angry and that is it. If you look at the other videos containing the same boy playing WoW you will never see the parents. My question is where are they? You can hear them occasionally telling him off, actually I will change that- you can hear them shouting at him. The parents are not teaching this child any time management. They are allowing him to do what he likes. When this is threatened because they feel he is spending too much time on his games they simply take it away. This doesn't teach him how to play so that there is a healthy balance of doing something he enjoys and doing everything else he needs to do.

Perhaps if children were taught how to approach games, that they are for relaxing and enjoyment and not a distraction and an escape then it might be possible that the children will grow up forming better habits. It really doesn't surprise me how some parents will be surprised that their child will just keep doing something that they really like. But lets be honest if it wasn't gaming it would just be something else. Parents need to stop blaming games and look at why the child is allowed to spend all their time on their computers. If parents set boundaries and stick to them then the child would not display problematic use of games.

Reply to 'Solitaire: Death of Me...'

I had realised a while ago that casual games are in my mind are evil. I completely agree with you that these games suck you in and once you start it is pretty difficult to stop. Many the night I have started playing a game I stumbled across that I have looked up from my screen to see daylight...again.

I actually did this quite recently, I decided to have a look at some of the games from the casual gaming lecture (I know, bad idea). well long story short I look up from my computer to see daylight, I thought 'wow I am really tired and its still really early'. It was early, just not the early in the night type of early. This was the early in the morning early, an entirely different thing. But I think what most people will find surprising is that I don't see myself as an addict. I won the game, spent one night playing it until I had done this and have not picked it up since. I was physically tired for one day but apart from that I have no longing to play it. I haven't missed class because I must get back home to play a video game.

I think it is a completely different think between getting so immersed in a game that you lose time and wanting to play the game. All that will happen if you don't play the game is that you simply want to play it. You wont have any physical harm because you aren't playing it unlike most recreational drugs. I therefore think that I become deeply immersed in games but I certainly don't become addicted.

Video Gaming Addiction is Beneficial

My first thoughts regarding video gaming addiction is that it is absolute nonsense. My own definition of being addicted included chemicals. Obviously games don't inject their users with drugs! So how can gamers be addicts? The more one thinks about it the more it starts to make more sense. Dopamine is known as the 'feeling good' chemical that is released in your brain when you do something you like or that you find fun. So it's all starting to make sense, there are chemicals involved.

If one was to accept that, yes there are chemicals that are released in ones brain while gaming, then obviously this would mean that, going back to my own definition, playing games creates chemicals in the brain therefore it can be something one can become addicted to. If I am to accept this, then shouldn't anything that produces dopamine in the brain be classed as a possible addiction? How about exercising, having sex, driving cars, watching television, going to the cinema, board games...and the list goes on. Why would we not ban anything that could cause its users to become addicted due to the dopamine levels created in ones brain? Once the arguement is seen in a bigger picture it all starts to look rather silly.

So the argument that video games are addictive due to their ability to increase dopamine levels in the brain has pretty much become void. Thinking about all the things that can cause dopamine levels to increase (basically anything fun), sounds like video games are being perceived as addicting because they are not being displayed in media as beneficial to society. But what if video games were beneficial to society?

Earlier on in my blogs I mentioned a video about how video gaming can make a better world (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM). What if we started to see all the possibilities that being 'addicted' to video games could provide. Imagine how eager one would be to learn if ones course work was to get a high score on a video game. What if video games could be made that would allow someone to be able to do their work in a fun way. Video gaming could solve some pretty big problems. Take a look at the link and let me know what you think.

When I start to think of the possibilities that video games hold, is it really that important that people really enjoy playing them that they don't want to stop? Perhaps consoles and PCs could have an internal regulation system that shuts out the user for a specific amount of time to ensure they maintain health and well being. I propose that in order to stop or prevent harmful play that a game be created that requires the player to come up with a solution to over playing.Perhaps then we can overcome the problems with being addicted to video games and delve into their immense possibilities.

Educational Games

I love games that have something more to offer. I love learning about something without all the effort one is normally required to put in. Whenever I have had to study or remember something I have gone on the lookout to find a game that will teach me. Sometimes I have succeeded in my search but mostly it turns up nothing useful.

I remember from somewhere in the start of the course it being said that our generation has developed with technology and that because of this if we were to be taught with technology we would be able to learn faster and easier. I believe this is true. When I did manage to find games that included maths for example, my grades always showed an improvement by two to three grades. I believe that if you are having fun while learning then you will be more likely to remember, I think it also helps that if you are having fun, you are able to concentrate for a longer period of time.

I believe that all games should provide some sort of education, whether that be historical to simple math, it would not affect the game and would be a great source for leaning.

You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

The representations of race and culture is different in every game. Race and culture is a part of our everyday lives, we cannot escape it. It is how we live our lives and perceive both ourselves and others. So the question is, how do you make a game that fairly and equally represent race and culture?

In my own opinion, you cant. You can get pretty close, but there will always be something that hasn't been made quite right. For example, when playing Skyrim the player gets to change the character to suit what the player would like the character to look like. This is great as it puts the responsibility of race and culture equality out of the developers hands and into the players. Except right from the start the first character you see is a white male. The developers have decided that the default option is therefore a white male. So what about if the computer randomly generated a character with mixed characteristics for the starting character that could be change therein? The game would have a great start, except when you would come across a character in the game.

when a player is playing a game they take their preconceived notions of race and culture and apply that understanding to the characters in the game. If the player sees a character that doesn't look human yet has a big nose and has a lot of money then some will apply the stereotype of a Jew to that character. here is where we encounter another problem then. How can developers create characters that either will not trigger preconceived notions or if they do they can be completely incidental. Perhaps the games characters should also randomly generate with different features. Is this the answer to a game world that is free from our preconceived notions of race and culture? I believe that although it would be a great step forward it would still not solve the problem. No matter what you do someone will find a flaw in game and will be able to claim that it is racial or culturally offensive.

This of course doesn't mean we don't try. A saying I have always liked is that, if aliens came down to attack humans they would not see different races they would just see humans. Just like when we see a cat, it is a cat no matter the colour. I propose that it is not only games that need to change, but us players as well. We need to stop looking at things and only see colour and instead simply see humans. This is highly unlikely to happen anytime soon so for now we will keep changing the games...

Affect

I really enjoyed learning about affect. It really got me thinking about why I play video games. Coming home from work tonight I was feeling pretty awful, I had had a bad day at work and altogether was in a pretty foul mood. When I was thinking about what I should do when I got home to lighten my mood, playing a video game popped straight into my mind.

Before tonight I had only thought about video games causing affect in the way of horrors etc. I had never really given much thought to the concept of a video game providing a form of happiness, particularly direct happiness. I planned to get home and play a game that would make me laugh and smile. Imminently, I picked Portal 2.

I had played Portal 1 about five times but was never able to actually finish it due to my save file being deleted or other similar reasons. I remembered how the game had made me laugh. I also considered that most of my games were more in the scary genres. So I put in the game and an hour later you would have never known I had been so grumpy!

Then I took a look at the rest of games I had: horrors and thrillers. I love to feel scared. Its a feeling that I generally don't get to feel. While my partner, a 180cm tall man squirms and squeals at the site of almost all insects, I the 149cm female strides along to the rescue to remove the 'huge' spider. The only things that manages to scare me are video games.

From now I think I will take more notice of how games affect me and why this is.

Reply to Daz J Wong

What a great idea! I just put up a post about learning as well. I don't think that all games need to be about learning but i think that i would let my kids play a lot more games if the game provided factual content. My brother used to play a lot of war games. He is now completing his degree in military tactics and has found what he learnt while playing all those war games as a kid a great help! He has only now realised how much he had learnt by playing those games. Also i would like to add that he knows quite a few sentences in other languages thanks to those games as well.

Immersion and education

So after having a look at the reading and then taking in the lecture I went home and starting thinking about immersion. I was trying to think about things that I become immersed in, such as sites like reddit to simple phone aps. I also started to think about why we get immersed into some things and not others. For instance i have never heard of a student say that they got so immersed by a subject that they chose to spend the majority of their time working on their education.

I then thought back to the lecture when it was discussed how people can be taken out of or incapable of becoming immersed. This made me question why we don't take what we know about video games and apply it to education. Sure there are simple games that do look at this but they rarely become immersed by the user. Not only that but they are also largely directed to a very young audience. Why do we not have games directed for older students, even at the high school level? why is it that i feel i would eagerly take a history class if the lessons were to play video games that take you through the action!

Here is a video which I highly recommend watching. If you have time then look at the other TEDtalks as a lot of them are quite eye openers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM

A new thought for an old game

Having an insight into a game that i had previously given no more time than a few days of my time was interesting to say the least. I have to admit that i thought the reading was going to be a struggle to get through but it turns out i was wrong. The article by Constance Steinkuechler titled The Mangle of Play explains very well the implications of games being used by means other than what the creators intended. I had had a limited experience with massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). My limited experience was due to the slow level increases and repetitiveness within the game. I would like to point out that I greatly enjoy online gaming, games like Resistance 2 and Portal 2 I play on a regular basis.

This brings me to question why exactly a game like Resistance 2 I enjoy but not games like World of Warcraft (WoW). From my own experiences I found that Resistance 2 allowed players to work with other from the very start whether you know each other or not. WoW however did not, it placed me on my own to approach other players and clans to ask to join them. If you were unlucky as i was, you were not accepted into any and so were left to be in a MMOG alone unable to compete with other players or to attempt greater challenges. This also brings me back to the article The Mangle of Play and of the article by Bernard Perron and Mark J. P. Wolf titled Introduction, which discusses that the gamer's experiences are different even when playing the same game. This is alike for both MMOG's and those with seemingly limited content can provide very different experiences of play.

I found both the readings very interesting and helpful, providing new insights and perspectives into videogames both online and offline. For those who do not have to read the second reading I highly recommend it.