Topic 8

Lecture

Are computer games a waste of time?

Types of games

- arcade games (replay, timezone etc etc)

- consoles (ps2, nintento etc)

- computer games (warcraft, AOE, counter strike etc)

- MUDs 

-MOGs

=Particular types divided into different genres based on their platform (hardware or software)

=Sub-Genres: e.g First Person Shooters to Adventure Games

= People used home game consoles for computer games a long time before they used them for writing documents or keeping track of finances or web browsing.

= Military uses video games as training tools- development of hardware to power their training simulations (Stockwell and Muir 2003 for more info)

Video games- the academic approach. (Some theoretical considerations)

Media Effects and Games; The Persistence of Effect; Games and Utopia; Thinking about video games as a new form of cultural practise... in the same way we now think about old media like newspapers, radio, television, films... 

= Serious academic study of video games is a new discipline. 

= Like new media and internet studies, people have approached video games from a range of existing disciplines. 

= When studying video games, negative aspects are usually focused on (addiction or anti-social behaviour)

Other ways to look at video games

Narratology- study of video games from a perspective of them being stories or literary works.

studying video games the same way that art or music or books are studied.

Ludology- not concerned with the stroy elements of the games but rather the Game Play elements.

argue that the story element in many games are only there for decoration and is incidental to just playing the game.

= We can look at video games in a technical sense, as coming to us in the same era as computers... hence the often confused term 'computer games'. Video games is the larger genre, of which computer games, console games etc, are smaller sub-genres.

= If we think of video games as mediums of communication, or expression, it is tempting to view them as having a history that follows film and cinema, and television. 

=Early video games did contain some cinematic elements (such as cut-scenes) but the act of playing the game was usually dramatically different.

Games. They draw a history through the ages to all forms of abstract games... chess & backgammon. Are video games similar to or different traditional games?

= They have rules, instructions that you must follow to play the game

= A story is sometimes present in the game, allowing you to have a background information on the game and its characters

= The study of the video game can lead to questions such as

- Should we be studying the game itself, on its own as a self contained system of rules?

- Should the focus be on the player of the game who affects and controls the flow of the gameplay and narrative in accordance to the rules

- Or a combination of both of these things which can be hard to balance?

= Aesthetics, the virtual space/world in which the game is played.

= What makes it fun?

= Virtual Philosophy

- How are games virtual worlds?

- What is real and what is virtual??

The studies and philosophies of video games are very interesting. It's very refreshing that there are other ways to look at at video games other than the negative standpoints mentioned earlier. But I have a very psychologically and humanity driven mind and the fact of the matter is, is that video games are sometimes the causes of bad grades at school, relationship failures and anti-social behavior. They can be fun and exciting if you don't let it take over your life. Spending all your free time engaged in a make believe world of virtuality can really take a huge chunk out of your life. So take off your virtu-goggles and take a look at what reality can offer you, you never know, you might find yourself enjoying what the real world has to offer.