Week9

My final project is going to be based upon a game/ride that is found in Walt Disney World, and is known as Toy Story Mania. This is unlike any other kind of attraction that is at the theme park, it is a ride but a game at the same time. My paper is going to be focused on what makes a game a game, and what theorist have to say about what they think makes up a game. I am then going to talk about the ways I see all the components that make up a game. I will also have interviews with my family members who also went on the ride, and see how their experiences are similar or different from each other.

The US Military & Gaming

When I think of gaming, one of the first things that pops into my head is fighting, and violence. Unlike what "U.S. Military Recruits Children: 'Americans Army' Video Games Violates International Laws" by Michael B. Reagan says how the Army makes the games seem to be. The games that the Army uses show "when hit, bullet wounds resemble puffs of red smoke, and players can take up to four hits before being killed." This would make the player less aware, or afraid to get hit by a bullet. "History of Army gaming" by Carrie McLeroy on the other hand sees these games as "an important tool used by the Military to assist in training, analysis and mission readiness." The games have changed a whole lot since when they were first made, and this really has changed the ways that people see the Army. They are now helping to see that Army is more than just fighting and killing people, they show the not so obvious task of the solders "teamwork, coordination and decision-making training." Another article "Military Training Is Just a Game" goes more so with the ideas of Reagan. This article points out that in the Army's video game, "the enemy is defeated, but no blood is spilled, no bullet casings spent." How can they really expect these players to get the real feeling of the Army, if they wont see what they will be seeing if they join? "Wii All You Can Be? Why the Military Needs the Gaming Industry" by Glenn Derene says "the gaming industry is such a huge market." This is one reason why the Army is spending so much money on coming up with these video games, just to get more people to become interested and end up joining. The Army wants to keep up with all the newer things and if making these video games is one of their ways, then so be it. "Atomic Games' Tamte Defends Six Days' Relevance" by Leigh Alexander informs the readers about a video game that was recently put out, and how some people found it to be very controversial. The game was set up "for the world to experience the true stories of the people who fought in one of the world's largest urban battles of the past half-century" says Peter Tamte.


Overall, I think that the Army should have more realistic games, and not try to cover up how war really is. Sure they might be trying to get out other important things you need in war like cooperation, teamwork, and all that, but they also need to add in defense. Not just a defense that will allow a person to live when they are shot up to four times, but a defense of how to get away from being shot, and showing how it would really look if a bad thing were to happen to you. If Atomic Games had a game that was just to teach people about the ways of war that is going on today, then I think that is great. They will be learning about what is really happening in the world, all while they are having fun playing a video game. Video games are way different than what really meets the eye. Sometimes when I am playing some kind of math video game, and I'm doing really good sometimes I think "wow I should be a math teacher!" But could I really be a math teacher just because I am good at playing a game were you have to find cards that add up to eleven? I do not think so. There is so much more that goes into being a teacher than just being able to the math, you have to be able to show and explain it. This has to go along with how after playing the Army video game some people might be tricked into thinking that the Army is the right pick for them. These games give a false face to war and how being in the Army is. It really isn't just a game.

Cheats

When I start to play a game on Webkinz World or on my Facebook account, I just play the game and I have never even thought about cheats or anything to get along farther with. Even when I attempt to play some video games over at someone else's house it never crossed my mind that there were cheats out there that could help me do better in the game. Sure I have heard of them before, but I thought "come on now, who really uses those?" You can imagine my shock after reading Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on "Gold Farming" by Richard Heeks. Heeks introduces the reader to the idea of Gold Farming being "the production of virtual goods and services for players of online games." Not only can they help the player of these games get more goods on hand, but they can also help them get further on in the game by going in and playing in place of them. There are several jobs that workers do that make this possible, and let me tell you, they make tons of money! Heeks tells us that workers make around $145.00 per month, and there are around 400,000 of these workers so all together they make around one point four billion dollars per year!

"World of development economics Warcraft" by Andrew Leonard goes along with Gold Farming article. Leonard tells us of how his son got a better feeling when he got ahead in game by another player just giving him goods he needed. His son "could have earned that gold himself by killing enemies or selling. . or he could have hooked up with a Gold Farmer." In "To Cheat or Not Cheat: Is That Even the Question?" this young boy peeked at his Christmas present, and got some negative feelings for doing so. He was not as happy for what he got because he already knew what it was going to be. If Leonard's son would have paid for someone to get him farther in the game he was playing he would not have been so proud or happy of doing so. This is just like how this young boy was not so happy because he knew what he was going to get.

"Cheaters: A Special Report" by the Game Reporter Staff tells us that Robert Bowling a Call Of Duty 4 manager thinks of cheating more as "glitching." This is anything in the game that allows other players to get ahead in an unfair manor. Like the author of "To Cheat or Not Cheat: Is That Even the Question?" brings up a good point of how rules make the game worth playing. What is the point of going out and just breaking all the rules to say you are the winner?

"The Jam, All Mod Cons" by Olli Sotamaa tells the reader that "the player becomes a fundamental feature of any game." So the ways the player picks to get around, get through obstacles, and solve problems really does play a big roll. Not only do they have the option to use cheats, they have the option of playing as a real non-cheating player. What's the enjoyment when you know you really cannot win a game unless you get a set of cheat notes along with it?

The last article we will look at for today is called "The Social Network Game Boom" written by Sande Chen. Chen tells us the thing we hear almost every day, that people are using the internet more and more these days. We are playing games on sites that are suppose to be for interacting with other people, sites such as Facebook and Myspace. With these we can play games with our friends, and the other people we have on our friends list. Chen says there are "forced invites" that these sites may make you send to your friends, so they are more like advertisements rather than just games online.

The way I see Gold Farming, is that it is such a waste of money, and cheats aren't doing you any good! Why would someone want to spend their hard earned money just for someone to help them do better in an online game? Sure Gold Farming might be a good thing in some places because there are a low number of jobs, but that makes me think who really has the money to spend on these online games and cheats. If I were to use Gold Farmers I would be scared that I would be robbed, or wake up one day to my credit card being blacked out. Most people feel much more self-worth if they reach something they have been working on for a long period of time. There are rules that help you get along in the game, and if you can't get past one level, will it really do any good to pay someone to get to onto a higher and much more difficult level? If you can't play a game on your own, then you really shouldn't be playing it!
Let's look at it this way: what if someone had a cheat for everything they did in life. They had cheats for driving, cheats for testing, cheats for cooking. . and so on. How would you feel if you were up all night studying for a test while another student was out at a party because they were going to use a cheat on the test in the morning? If people start playing with more and more cheats, I think they will expect other things in life to have cheats, or ways to get around the hard stuff.

Civics/Life and VG

When I think of educational video games, I think “oh my gosh this is going to be so boring! I bet I will fall asleep or something.” But after reading the article The Civic Potential of Video Games, my thoughts were a little changed. Joseph Kahne, Ellen Middaugh, and Chris Evans, the authors of this piece opened my eyes to how “low levels of youth civic engagement and by interest in the potential of video game play, an ubiquitous teen experience. . . can impact youth civic outcomes.” The statics they show to us prove that there are more teens going online to get information about politics when they are with the larger number of civic gaming experiences. There are several important topics they touch on such as the role of parents, youth, educators, game designers, and research that will better the games for civics in the future. If these games make the children, or teens more interested and involved with civics, causing them to do more research on them, then the American Democracy, circa 2000 will be pleasantly surprised. Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn, the authors of this writing were the ones to inform the readers that “fifty percent of internet users under the age of thirty said the Net had affected their vote.” These authors’s main purpose is to show the reader how important it really is to get information online about civics and who is it that you are really going to vote for.

Alan E. Rycroft has brought something new to the table when he writes in Virtual Public Spheres about how the internet really does inform and keep the younger adults in the loop about political issues. Most people are showing “multitasking behavior that illustrates the ease with which a variety of information and personal connections are available. . at anytime.” They can be text messaging while reading an article about some issue in the world, or talking on the phone while doing whatever else.

Brian Whitworth along with Rob Friedman in The Decline of Academic Performance, tells the reader in an unique way how things need to flow in a certain way to become good. Balance, openness, and community focus are a few that I found to be the most important in their writing. This goes hand in hand with what Why Game Studies Now by Dmitri Williams has to say. Studying games has much to do with “what’s happening outside of games, as it does with what’s happening outside of them.” Things need to change for them to become better, and change is just what we need to see in video games for the younger generation to get more into politics and what is going on in our county.

After all these readings I had to take a break and think to myself. Sure, making video games more informative for the younger people about civics and such sound like a good plan and there are some really interesting ways people would go about doing this, but something still feels weird about it to me. It all depends on how each game is constructed, or put together. People can get away with cheats and all sorts of ways to get around the hard things in a video game, so if a high school student got some kind of assignment from their civics teacher for a video game, there will always be a way for them to get out of some of the challenges the game tosses at them. This would not be an equal playing field for all the other kids in the classroom, and I do not think it is something that should be put into the classroom. Not only are there cheats and such, there are those kids who spend hours a day playing games, so they would have another advantaged from those who do not play. The ones who do not play game might have to go out and spend a ton of money getting the equipment that they need to just to finish their homework. Does this sound right to you? It sure does not sound right to me. If there were just game put out there on the market trying to educate the player on civics, I think there would be a small number of games that would be sold. Who really goes out to get a video game so they can learn more outside of the school that they already have to go to? These games sound like a really good plan to get the younger people to get with the system of civics, but I just do not understand how they would make it in the stores, or in the classrooms. A way I think would make it though would be if the people running for office were to post some sort of game onto their websites. These games should allow the person going onto the page to pick what kind of character they are depending on what kind of person they are. Some things they could choose from are how big their families are, where they live, what sort of income do they have, and so on. Depending on what kind of information they tell the game all changes the direction of the game, and would show them how the person running for office would address all the topics that would be most likely to come in contact with the voter. This game would be super cool to see in the future!

Race in VG!

Why I Didn't buy GTA: Chinatown Wars by Jaime Kuroiwa, points out that so many video games, and movies are all centered around the same kind of theme, or stereotype of certain races. Race and Video Games by Tanner tells us that the kind of stereotyping, or racism that we see in a video game all depends on what kind of video game it is. Video games racist, says study by Deborah Jones shows us that some video games "are more popular than movies" so the ways these video games stereotype races really does matter, because that is one big factor that teaches our children to act in a certain way. In Video Games the Bad Guys Come in All Shades of Stereotypes by Lynda Lin, informs the reader that "games speak to its audience interactively. . not like television and movies where stories are being told to you." Opinion: Resident Evil 5- How Does This Make You Feel, 'Partner'? by Tom Cross writes about how the setting of a video game can go much farther than that of what you would expect it to.
Some of these authors I really agree with, and some I am wondering what they are even talking about. When Cross states "West Africa is poor, dirty, and dangerous" and that being the main place the video game takes place, he thinks it is so wrong to do that. When I got to thinking about this, I just thought of how much Africa really does need help because most people there are extremely poor. Who knows, maybe after some got done playing this game they though "oh my, I should go help Africa" or "gosh I should give some money to help people who have to live life like that every day." If this is the affect that is going to be left on the player, then we need more games like that! Lin talks about how Asian characters are looked upon as the ones "who guzzle fortune cookies for power" and "prey on bathing girls, sometimes with chopsticks." I must say that these made me laugh. If we think about it, Asian people are the ones who do eat the most fortune cookies and use chopsticks, I do not see how this is a problem either. They are just using the everyday lives of a certain race to make a video game! Jones thinks that race is one of those things that are over looked when it comes to video games. Parungao was quoted in Jones' writing for saying "the games feature evil gangsters, all of them non-white." When I think of gangsters I get scared, and most of the time when you see a white gangster it is just plain funny! Let's face it, the white guys really aren't gangsters, but want to be gangsters, and maybe that is why they are not seen in these kinds of video games. Let's even take a look at some statistics given to us from the International Game Developers Association. The Game Developer Demographics Report shows us that eighty-three point three percent of players are white, two point zero percent are black, two point five percent are Hispanic/Latino, seven point five percent are Asian, and four point sever percent who picked another kind of background. Maybe we do not see as much stereotyping for the white due to the amount of white people who play video games. The game makers must think of who is most likely going to go out and buy the game they are trying to sell, and by these statistics the majority is going to be white males, around the age of thirty one. Maybe Jaime Kuroiwa has it down because he says "Chinatown Wars does not prove anything. It's just a game." Like he stated in his writing "I don't see it as a particularly new experience" because so many games are the same, with the same stereotypes. Sure some people might think race is a big problem in video games, but they are really just repeats of things we have already seen so many times before.