WORDS WORDS WORDS VIDJA GAEMZ
Meanwhile, this week's discussion topic in my Digital Art web class was about video games. Since no one has EVER replied to ANY of my discussion posts before this, despite them being thoughtful and awesome, I decided to just go completely batshit and write a freaking essay about why video games were better 10 years ago and why the atmospheres of modern video games such as WoW are opening the door for anti-social/dumb people to ruin their lives and/or do retarded things. I even titled it pretentiously. I hope someone comments on it, or that my teacher mentions how I'm a retard in her grade email. :D
Then I made a response post to someone who admittedly knew nothing about video games who said that the Wii was revolutionizing gaming. So I ranted at them about the Wii revolutionizing nothing but Nintendo's business model and customer base. HEY OH!
Lamenting the Golden Age of Video Games
KATIE at 4/16/2009 7:40 PM
I enjoy playing video games. I have worked in a video game store, and have a video game system in my room. Sometimes I even play games on my computer. However, in this day and age, I don't consider myself a part of the gaming "subculture", for a few reasons. The kind of games I enjoy are "role-playing games," telling stories while letting the player interact and in some instances tell the story; I believe I was drawn to these kinds of games when I was younger because I loved to read and write, and had a very active imagination. To this day, my favorite video game is one that came out on the Nintendo 64 when I was 11 - and telling people your favorite game is nine years old is often met with snickers, due to the rapid technological and graphical development video games have been subject to over the past decade. Sure, my favorite game is incredibly polygonal, played with an awkward controller and littered with repetitive textures. Sure, it lacks the smooth graphical finesse and standard voice acting of more contemporary games. However, the lack of "realism" and top of the line graphics is what made it my favorite game - it looked good enough at the time that it led my imagination to run wild and make up its own scenarios within the confines of this virtual world, despite the already existent plot, and whenever I go back to it, I recall the stories I made up and continue to find them there. Sure, modern games have fantastic graphics, and almost motion-picture-like cutscenes and voice acting, and allow players to "explore" entire huge, virtual continents without obvious boundaries. But I think these developments have taken away some of their charm, some of the magic.
These huge, expansive worlds and their realistic details have also contributed to many of the less savory things to happen in video games. While my game was a one player game, to allow me to star as the main character, almost every modern game for the past year or more has been multi-player or co-op - you can play with your friends over Xbox Live, or interact with people in your WoW guild to organize raids together from opposite corners of the globe, and play "together" in one area of the game world. But some people get too immersed in the worlds; they become too realistic, and they prefer to associate with digital avatars instead of real, breathing people. Spend a little time on the internet, and you can find horror stories of people who "lost" loved ones to World of Warcraft - they call themselves "WoW widows." Recently in the news there was a case of a 13 year old girl trying to run away to live with her "online boyfriend," who turned out to be a 40 year old man who lived with his mother. While events like this are not exclusive to World of Warcraft, it's certainly the best and most common example. There's definitely something to be said for modern video games and technology having the potential to divide people from each other, and the design of the game components such as the characters, landscapes, and accessories is a large factor in making the fantasy world believable.
Response post thread:
Video game is Life?
KYLE at 4/13/2009 2:41 PM
I think that video games are a very broad subject, and there are many different events, actions, activities that can explain video games. I personally have never been a video game player, so my view of video games is from the outside looking in. Video games give the player an experience that can range from realistic to "super" realistic to impossible actions. I have only played video games less than five times, and each time I played a different game which required different skills. For a long time I thought that video games as negative because of all the violence that was included. My siblings played a video game called grand theft auto which included a character that killed people and did illegal activity. I felt that this game negatively affected its players because the violence might carry into real life.
Video games let people take part in their fantasy world whether it is on the NFL football field, rocking out to millions of people, taking part in the Star Wars story to fighting in a war like in Halo. I think that people play video games to get away from their stressful lives and relax to challenge others. Many of the video games are based on movies and sports, the physical and emotional aspect are just heightened in the video game.
People can get too involved in video games. I am not sure if it was in this class of not, but I read an article where a man died after playing video games for an unreal amount of time. Also the physical aspect is taking away so this might result in health concerns. But Wii has taken physical activity and video gaming and combined them. As the economy gets worse the video game industry will continue to rise.
Re: Video game is Life?
LEAH at 4/14/2009 12:45 PM
I think you make some great points in here. Video games are a very broad subject, and I liked how you pointed out that player experiences can range from realistic to "super" realistic, and some actions aren't even feasible in reality. I mentioned in my post that despite the realistic nature of some video games, I think gamers can draw a pretty distinct line between game and reality. I think some players do have unhealthy relationships with the video gaming world, but that can be said about most things... ranging from drugs and alcohol, to unhealthy relationships with people and things like ... food. A point I want to reiterate that I've been bringing up through this semester in discussion to related topics is this: personal responsibility and awareness of how the digital world is affecting its users. Self-control is key. Some people have it and others don't. That's the way it goes. Otherwise, I don't really have negative feelings towards the growing interest in the digital world concerning video games.
I also like how you pointed out gaming systems like Wii. While someone else mentioned that the Wii games are too kid-like for their likings, I feel like I appreciate this new step in combining physical activity to the gaming like. As time goes on, I feel this interactivity or virtual reality aspect will only start to increase as developers become more advanced. It's only a matter of time when video games will not just be associate with sitting in front of a screen, but will be seen as something more interactive and physical.
Re: Re: Video game is Life?
KATIE at 4/16/2009 7:50 PM
The thing about the Wii is that many "gamers" don't consider it a real gaming system. It has had very few games aimed at the main demographics of video game players, and the types of those games are not very varied. While it was a brilliant move economically on Nintendo's part to appeal to the average consumer family, or "casual gamers," it lacks the broad library of titles and genres of its contemporary generation of game systems, and graphically it doesn't even belong to that generation. While the system is an interesting new direction for game technology and implementation, Nintendo is effectively ostracizing the majority of its customer base and practically handing them to their competition at Sony and Microsoft.
It's somewhat interesting to watch where the shift in Wii users has been, and see how its gotten so popular with people who've never even played games before (not to mention the broad range of ages it appeals to), considering that the only "casual" games for the 360 and PS2 were things like Barbie Horse Adventure or simulated bass fishing, which appealed to very specific demographics. Guitar Hero is techincally a "casual" game, but despite its widespread popularity, it's targeted at a fairly specific demographic, namely pre-teen, teenage, and young adult males. To think that not only does the Wii completely dismantle demographics, but does it with a game that comes bundled with the system seems absurd to think of, but it's a slight risk that developed into a brilliant business strategy.
Yeah, I'm retarded and gay, whatevs. :) Now I think I am going to watch Toy Story and then write a paper about it.
Then I made a response post to someone who admittedly knew nothing about video games who said that the Wii was revolutionizing gaming. So I ranted at them about the Wii revolutionizing nothing but Nintendo's business model and customer base. HEY OH!
Lamenting the Golden Age of Video Games
KATIE at 4/16/2009 7:40 PM
I enjoy playing video games. I have worked in a video game store, and have a video game system in my room. Sometimes I even play games on my computer. However, in this day and age, I don't consider myself a part of the gaming "subculture", for a few reasons. The kind of games I enjoy are "role-playing games," telling stories while letting the player interact and in some instances tell the story; I believe I was drawn to these kinds of games when I was younger because I loved to read and write, and had a very active imagination. To this day, my favorite video game is one that came out on the Nintendo 64 when I was 11 - and telling people your favorite game is nine years old is often met with snickers, due to the rapid technological and graphical development video games have been subject to over the past decade. Sure, my favorite game is incredibly polygonal, played with an awkward controller and littered with repetitive textures. Sure, it lacks the smooth graphical finesse and standard voice acting of more contemporary games. However, the lack of "realism" and top of the line graphics is what made it my favorite game - it looked good enough at the time that it led my imagination to run wild and make up its own scenarios within the confines of this virtual world, despite the already existent plot, and whenever I go back to it, I recall the stories I made up and continue to find them there. Sure, modern games have fantastic graphics, and almost motion-picture-like cutscenes and voice acting, and allow players to "explore" entire huge, virtual continents without obvious boundaries. But I think these developments have taken away some of their charm, some of the magic.
These huge, expansive worlds and their realistic details have also contributed to many of the less savory things to happen in video games. While my game was a one player game, to allow me to star as the main character, almost every modern game for the past year or more has been multi-player or co-op - you can play with your friends over Xbox Live, or interact with people in your WoW guild to organize raids together from opposite corners of the globe, and play "together" in one area of the game world. But some people get too immersed in the worlds; they become too realistic, and they prefer to associate with digital avatars instead of real, breathing people. Spend a little time on the internet, and you can find horror stories of people who "lost" loved ones to World of Warcraft - they call themselves "WoW widows." Recently in the news there was a case of a 13 year old girl trying to run away to live with her "online boyfriend," who turned out to be a 40 year old man who lived with his mother. While events like this are not exclusive to World of Warcraft, it's certainly the best and most common example. There's definitely something to be said for modern video games and technology having the potential to divide people from each other, and the design of the game components such as the characters, landscapes, and accessories is a large factor in making the fantasy world believable.
Response post thread:
Video game is Life?
KYLE at 4/13/2009 2:41 PM
I think that video games are a very broad subject, and there are many different events, actions, activities that can explain video games. I personally have never been a video game player, so my view of video games is from the outside looking in. Video games give the player an experience that can range from realistic to "super" realistic to impossible actions. I have only played video games less than five times, and each time I played a different game which required different skills. For a long time I thought that video games as negative because of all the violence that was included. My siblings played a video game called grand theft auto which included a character that killed people and did illegal activity. I felt that this game negatively affected its players because the violence might carry into real life.
Video games let people take part in their fantasy world whether it is on the NFL football field, rocking out to millions of people, taking part in the Star Wars story to fighting in a war like in Halo. I think that people play video games to get away from their stressful lives and relax to challenge others. Many of the video games are based on movies and sports, the physical and emotional aspect are just heightened in the video game.
People can get too involved in video games. I am not sure if it was in this class of not, but I read an article where a man died after playing video games for an unreal amount of time. Also the physical aspect is taking away so this might result in health concerns. But Wii has taken physical activity and video gaming and combined them. As the economy gets worse the video game industry will continue to rise.
Re: Video game is Life?
LEAH at 4/14/2009 12:45 PM
I think you make some great points in here. Video games are a very broad subject, and I liked how you pointed out that player experiences can range from realistic to "super" realistic, and some actions aren't even feasible in reality. I mentioned in my post that despite the realistic nature of some video games, I think gamers can draw a pretty distinct line between game and reality. I think some players do have unhealthy relationships with the video gaming world, but that can be said about most things... ranging from drugs and alcohol, to unhealthy relationships with people and things like ... food. A point I want to reiterate that I've been bringing up through this semester in discussion to related topics is this: personal responsibility and awareness of how the digital world is affecting its users. Self-control is key. Some people have it and others don't. That's the way it goes. Otherwise, I don't really have negative feelings towards the growing interest in the digital world concerning video games.
I also like how you pointed out gaming systems like Wii. While someone else mentioned that the Wii games are too kid-like for their likings, I feel like I appreciate this new step in combining physical activity to the gaming like. As time goes on, I feel this interactivity or virtual reality aspect will only start to increase as developers become more advanced. It's only a matter of time when video games will not just be associate with sitting in front of a screen, but will be seen as something more interactive and physical.
Re: Re: Video game is Life?
KATIE at 4/16/2009 7:50 PM
The thing about the Wii is that many "gamers" don't consider it a real gaming system. It has had very few games aimed at the main demographics of video game players, and the types of those games are not very varied. While it was a brilliant move economically on Nintendo's part to appeal to the average consumer family, or "casual gamers," it lacks the broad library of titles and genres of its contemporary generation of game systems, and graphically it doesn't even belong to that generation. While the system is an interesting new direction for game technology and implementation, Nintendo is effectively ostracizing the majority of its customer base and practically handing them to their competition at Sony and Microsoft.
It's somewhat interesting to watch where the shift in Wii users has been, and see how its gotten so popular with people who've never even played games before (not to mention the broad range of ages it appeals to), considering that the only "casual" games for the 360 and PS2 were things like Barbie Horse Adventure or simulated bass fishing, which appealed to very specific demographics. Guitar Hero is techincally a "casual" game, but despite its widespread popularity, it's targeted at a fairly specific demographic, namely pre-teen, teenage, and young adult males. To think that not only does the Wii completely dismantle demographics, but does it with a game that comes bundled with the system seems absurd to think of, but it's a slight risk that developed into a brilliant business strategy.
Yeah, I'm retarded and gay, whatevs. :) Now I think I am going to watch Toy Story and then write a paper about it.