Today in the presentation we learned about the video game research lab that we have here at Morningside College. We learned about the experiments they are doing, like trying to determine how playing games affect you physiologically as well as socially and we also learned about they research experiments that are still ongoing today.  I think that the presentation was very interesting, it taught us that video games do have an affect on our everyday life, and that they can be used to affect the future. I also learned that there are people out there that are trying to prove the video games are unproductive and not worth the time and people are out there trying to prove those people wrong. I think the most interesting part that I learned today though was that telling girls that there is a gender effect while playing actually does have an affect on the way that they play. I feel like that if you tell them that it shouldn’t have an affect on the way that they play, but that it does really intrigues me. I hope to be able to find more out about it in the future.

The article I found was an article from The Economist that is titled Playing to Win that was written in 2004. The article starts out talking about how video games are becoming more and more lifelike that they can be used as training for the real world counterparts. It talks about how Dwight Freeney won the 2003 “Madden Bowl” and attributed it to his knowledge of the game from playing it. Then the article talked about how the military uses video games as training because using the actual machinery was becoming too expensive to use the real thing. I think this is a great article because it compares the video games to real life. It shows how the games can be used to affect the real life world around them. Because of this, the games can be used  as training methods for people in different professions to further themselves in life. I compare this to Nascar drivers using video game machines to learn the race tracks they are going to race at even though they are nowhere near the race tracks that they are driving on. Because of these features that video games bring to the table now, they will continue to revolutionalize the way that things are conducted around the world. Things have even changed so much that some weapons in the world are so advanced that they can be used remotely, kind of like a video game but in real life. Because of these advancements video games are becoming like real life, and real life is becoming like video games. They are almost becoming interchangable.

While hanging out with some friends, we talked about how they viewed gaming and they said that the older generation is the only one that views video games as negative. They said that the only reason that they view it as negative is because they never had the experience of them to base it off of. We believe that they view them negatively because our generation is so into them that all we do is sit on them all day long. We believe that our generation’s brains actually get a work out from our video games. We have to think our way through levels and situations which makes our mind work even when we don’t intend them to be getting a work out. The older generations don’t realize that, they just see us sitting on the gaming systems not doing anything and say that were killing brain cells because we don’t go out and do other things. We think that the only reason that someone from our generation would have a negative view would be because of the lack of physical activity that we get while playing. While our generation is getting working out our minds, we are working out our bodies which causes us to become overweight, which is one of the biggest problems that our generation has. But we decided that is the only reason that someone from our generation could have with video games and not liking them. It’s such a widespread phenomenon that its hard to find anyone who does have a negative view of video games.

Jane McGonigal says in her book Reality is Broken that games are about overcoming unnecessary obstacles. I totally agree with that statement. There is nothing more fun in a game than having little obstacles to overcome, whether it is the main point of the game or having to figure out away to get around one wall, the obstacles make the game. She mentions the game tetris, and I couldn’t agree more. All you have to do is make complete lines, but the obstacle of having odd shaped peices make it the most fun. You know you can’t win but you continue to play, and play, and play.  Even if you clear the whole board, you aren’t done more pieces keep falling and the pace that they fall with continues to speed up, which increases the difficulty but also makes the game more fun. These little obstacles give the game life and meaning. I also think of the game Skyrim. I have never played it but I hear its kind of the same deal. Its a game you can’t beat because they just keep throwing more and more obstacles and challenges at you which keep the game interesting and different. The fact of knowing that you can never beat the game is also exciting because you know that even if you beat the one you are on, the game will just throw another one at you which will only keep you playing and wanting more. The little obstacles in games that make the smallest differences are what makes a game fun and different.

I have been playing video games for about 10 years now. I received my PS2 when I was in 4th grade for a Christmas present along with the Madden game for that year. I have been playing sports games ever since then.  The first person shooters and role playing games have never really appealed to me the way that the sports games did. I grew up in an athletic family, not so much that we were athletic, but we loved to watch athletics on the tv or in person. So that’s why the athletic games are more popular with me. That is my gaming experience in a nutshell, but my view on video games is much different. Video games, in my opinion, is what is the root of some of the growing problems in the United States, not saying the are the whole problem but I do believe they account for some of it. First of all, you can start with the obesity problem in younger generations, but we have all heard about that so I am going to not delve into it to much. One that sticks out to me is the problem the younger generation has with controlling their attitudes. I think that video games affect that because you have ten year olds playing rated M games and swearing/cussing the whole time they are playing, and the parents don’t have a problem with it. Then when they get outside of the video game, the attitude carries over where they are acting like they are still in the video game/playing it, causing their behaviors to be out of sync with the way they should be. That is why I believe that video games are right for the right age group.