I think that Aboujaoude says it all, now I know not all people are like what he said, but the majority of the people that are addicted to the internet be come what he is saying they become. The internet is a terrible place, there are so many things that you can do to get yourself in trouble, it is an easier way to get stalked. The internet has made a huge impact on peoples lives today and its taking there life in the wrong direction and Mcgonigal isn’t helping the cause. With her trying to create new games to push people in life and make sure they aren’t getting bored with their’s, thats awesome! But to have people sit on the internet or in front of a T.V. screen and waste their life playing pointless games that will get them no where in life, those aren’t the type of people we need in our society today. Once an adult gets addicted and raises there kids to be just like them it is only going to trickle down to other generations. With the way society is becoming surrounded by technology, it isn’t good for us because technology will take over our lives and we won’t know how to act like a normal person anymore. People need to be aware of what the negatives are to playing such games and watch out for the generations to come. I think that motivation is great to keep people going, but there are better ways to do this than make people sit in front of a screen and say look at me I’m making virtual money and have having sex with virtual women. That isn’t what this world needs to become. I am scared of where the society is going to take us and how people are going to change and lean more on video games than anything else.

At the Palmer Symposium today I went to a speech that had to do with the behind the scenes look at plinko. This speech was given in the Lincoln Center by three young students of Morningside College. As the students started to give their speech you could sense a little bit of nervousness from them, but I thought they handled it very well. The speech was about the probabilities of Plinko and if where your dropped the the Plinko chip at the top of the board affected where it would end up! I thought it was very interesting that the students could go about figuring out such problems and if there was a certain spot to drop to when the most amount of money! In fact if your drop it in the middle of board you have the best chance to win the big dollars. The students showed graphs to prove what they where saying was true. The feel of the room was calm until the speech was over and they asked if there where any questions. There was two men in the back right corner of the room that stepped up to ask questions about the students project. The students recovered quickly and answered the questions correctly I believe. Overall I thought it was a good speech and  I was impressed on how each on of them held their composure.

The game Evoke brings a lot to the table when talking about trying to save the issues in Africa. It is a great way to make people aware of the problems in this country but then again there are many things within our own country. I love the games idea of trying to help out other people to make them stable, that part is huge to me. I feel like this game will be only good for awhile and then people will get sick of being the difference and they will want others to do it for them. I feel like if the people are the only ones making the changes in the country then the government is going to get pushed a around or involved. The idea that there is money behind all this will make it last even longer. People will do anything for money which will be insight for them. To see people already doing things like McGonigal stats on page 335 is amazing to me. Every little bit we can get people motivated will help the world. I am just afraid that down the road there are going to be conflicts that will be tough to solve. For right now it seems like a fantastic idea, but I am interested in what will happen in a few years.

For my paper I have a couple of things I am on the edge about, first is the pollution in the world and how we has Americans can change our way to stop the pollution. Secondly the divorce rate in America and how to solve relationships.

The game I am reviewing is SSX, and the review comes from Giant Bomb.com. In this review they talk about a lot of the things that have changed and the number one thing that as changed is the speed. Instead of having time to enjoy your drop at an usual speed they bumped it up a lot. Now this can be good and bad for players. If you love challenges then the speed will be okay, where other people come in trouble is they focus on not trying to break their spine while going down the slope. Instead of trying to beat scores they just want to make it safely down. A positive note of the game is the amazing graphics that is has. The graphics of the slopes, ice, and rocks are great. It makes you feel like your are going down the side of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Second sweet thing about the game is how they have a satellite view of the earth and you have to twirl around to find the place you want to go, and the matter that they are using real mountains is cool also. A few flaws that the review points out is that the wing suit sometimes deploys itself when you don’t want it too and also the head lamp is virtually useless be cause it depends on the location of your head so you can see the direction you are going.  Giant Bomb stats this: “And then there is the rewind mechanic, that great bastion of all things racing in video games of the last several years, the thing that makes it so that no matter how bad you suck, you can just wipe away all your failure at the press of a button.” The rewind button to me is the most useful thing ever to be up on racing games. The one thing i like about it in SSX is that when you do rewind they take points away by the millisecond and when you rewind the other players keep going. So in reality rewinding does you absolutely no good be cause your going to fall behind and lose points.

Overall SSX is a fun but yet challenging game and it would definitely lots of playing to get a hang of all the controls and become good at it.

SSX brings a lot to the table for me when I was in love with SSX Trickey as a kid so I was really looking forward to this game coming out. As the game started I watched the movie they created before you get into the menu, just like any other gamer would do when they are looking forward to playing the game. I was excited to start playing because the game looked so legit. First thing that made me upset was that I couldn’t create my own player at the beginning and make him the greatest snowboarded ever. As I continued the game challenges you with a World Tour and Explore Tour that takes you on journeys that you never thought you could go to. As you are choosing the the place where you want to drop from you have to make sure you have the correct equipment for the drop. This includes skydiving suit, armor, ice grapples, and other assortments of things. As I continued to play I found out that this game has a higher speed than I thought it was going to have and they made it harder than I expected. Another thing that I thought was interesting was that you could only be a girl snowboarder right away and you and to work your way up to unlock the guy boarders. It caught me by surprise cause usually you are able to choose either one, but this time they made you choose a girl. I was amazed by the graphics that were in the game they did an outstanding job of them. As a player one thing that I hated in the new SSX was the rewind button, it was a backup button if you fell of and didn’t want to restart you could just rewind and be back where you messed up and try to recover from there. For me I hate when someone gives me grace when I am the one that messed up. Overall the game didn’t come up to my standards and was disappointed in it more than anything.

My favorite video game would have to be NBA 2K12 or any of the NCAA football games. In my cases it all depends on if I win or lo0se, if I win then I am very social and out going but if i have a hard lose then  I tend to get mad and try to play again until I get that feeling of confidence back up! I fell like it depends on the type of game if it makes me less social or more social. I feel that if it is a sports game I tend to be more social but if it is a battle type of game I find myself focusing on the game a whole lot more because there is so much going on in the game that I have to pick up on!

Elisabeth Hayes writes a fantastic article on Gender and Gaming. Women, Video Gaming & Learning: Beyond Stereotypes talks a whole lot about why people stereotype gamers and why women aren’t appreciated for playing video games. Hayes goes through and gives points of society is doing wrong and what society thinks of gamers and women playing them also. A main thing she talks about is the battle of sexes and why women get viewed differently than men. She brings up why both sexes play different games, what it means to play like a girl and what it means to play like a boy. She throws things at you that you would have never thought on your own makes you think about what your playing and why you play the games you do. I think in someway a game you play reflects the person you become and it shapes you in some way. Hayes concludes her article with four main points that stood out to me; avoid stereotypes, dont assume all women are alike, provide scaffolding for new gamers, and  do consider overall game design, not just particular elements in isolation. Hayes writes a great article on how people think gamers are viewed and what people and designers should do to change the stereotypes and make the gamer world a better place.

When you think all the ways you can socialize by using Facebook, its crazy! You can chat with somebody, write on their wall, poke them, or play a game with them. Now when your playing a game with somebody it does a lot of things for you and the other person. It brings back your relationship with that person if you haven’t seen them for awhile, or keeps a relationship going. It is also nice to be competitive with your friends. It is also more fun because your not just only talking to somebody you are engaging into a game with them. You are having fun and connecting with each other. Now if you win this game you will feel a lot of pride because you beat your friend and also if they don’t respond to the game request or don’t make their move for awhile then you will learn to have patience. Games are a great way to reconnect with somebody without formally greeting them. It is much easier to just invite them to a game instead of say “hey, how have you been?”.

Halo is a great game. It has certain goals that you will do anything to reach, and once you do you feel like your on top of the world. That why these games sell so well. They make gamers feel more connected to the game by doing things like the 10 billion kills club. I know when I feel more connected to a game and am doing good in a game I want to play it non stop.

Stronger Social Connectivity:

In chapter 5 Jane McGonigal brings up the idea of how people are becoming more connected through social things, such as Facebook. Facebook brings a lot of social interaction to the outside world, whether it is just talking to friends, creeping on crushes or keeping in contact with mom and dad. McGonigal talks about the game Lexulus on facebook and how many moms are playing their son or daughter for an easy way of communication. Everyone gets on facebook 30 plus times a day, so in sense your going to check  your notifications and game requests. This gives you a better chance of communicating with your parents because its something that you do and plus it brings a little bit of competitiveness into the picture also. This also brings patience into action because if your mom is slow on checking facebook, you have to wait for her to get onto play so it teaches you a little bit a patience, but also you may be addicted it you are refreshing the page every minute. All in all playing Lexulus gives you a lot of things to look forward to; talking your loved one, a sense of pride, and some embarrassment because of how you talk to your mom on the chat. Lexulus brings a different aspect to facebook that I never really thought of. When I play Words with Friends or Hanging with Friends, in  some sense i ask my friends to play because I know I will be able to talk to them easier.

Becoming a Part of Something Bigger Than Ourselves:

When the Halo 3 players finally reached 10 billion kills in the campaign everyone started to feel a greater accomplishment and that they finally meant something to the game. Becoming apart of something like that brings oneself to a whole other level because not everyone can say they helped reach the 10 billion kills. Sense Halo brought this major thing to life more and more games are trying start something where there is a bigger picture to help someone or achieve something personally. McGonigal uses NCAA 10 when she is talking about online dynasty and how you want to choose your favorite or alma mater and bring them to the highest level you can. I like the quote she uses “Every game you play will help your school’s cause.” Then she goes on to say “its about being of service to larger cause – one you already care about.” This is so true in the life of a gamer, if you care about how your record looks or how your character acts then you are living the life of becoming bigger than yourself because of the level of care you have for the avatar or game.

For this blog I went around asking people what there thoughts of video games where and if they played. It wasn’t a true survey, but I asked about 15-20 people about this topic and I found out that many people view video games as bad, or they don’t really care if people play them. The ones that they said that are bad gave reasons that it forms the brain to think differently for little kids if they are playing shooting games and hear swearing on it and it will effect their lives and open there eyes to so much and such a young age. For the ones that said they don’t care, there best answer was that if people enjoy them, then let them have fun in their own way, but if you don’t see anything good in them, then don’t waste your time with them. Gamers seem to be stereotyped because of how lazy they seem and how much time they put into playing video games, but what people don’t see is how much fun they can actually be having and how much stress can be relieved when you actually feel cared and welcomed. They may criticize us, but until they actually try they have no room to speak. The overall view that I got from the people I asked is that video games isn’t a terrible thing, but people also had to say that there are better ways to use your time rather than sit in front of a screen for hours on hours.