Impact of computer games on society
Concerns such as excess playing time:
They are many concerns about how much time a child spends playing video games.
There are various articles and much news coverage on how much time people spend
on playing video games. Furthermore, many parents worry about their children
spending too much time on a game and wonders what the effects are.
http://www.babycenter.com/404_can-spending-too-much-time-playing-video-games-hurt-my-child_69631.bc
This article is accordingly written by a development psychologist and lists the
psychological effects of what could happen to child when it grows and what the
child is currently missing out on.
Many games do offer a time where you can take a break, for example, Animal Crossing new leaf 3DS.
In South Korea, they have a law which is called the “Cinderella law” which is also known as the “Shutdown Law”. Also in South Korea, they are people that are so addicted to playing games and spending so much time on playing the games that people have become seriously injured or have died in result. This link explains what the “Shutdown Law” is and tells you some of the stories of what has happened to people’s lives due to playing games excessively. http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/South-Korea-Computer-Gaming-Culture.htm
Many games do offer a time where you can take a break, for example, Animal Crossing new leaf 3DS.
In South Korea, they have a law which is called the “Cinderella law” which is also known as the “Shutdown Law”. Also in South Korea, they are people that are so addicted to playing games and spending so much time on playing the games that people have become seriously injured or have died in result. This link explains what the “Shutdown Law” is and tells you some of the stories of what has happened to people’s lives due to playing games excessively. http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/South-Korea-Computer-Gaming-Culture.htm
Social
Isolation and separation from reality:
Video games can result to social isolation. People can
isolate themselves from others because they want to play a particular game or
complete a certain level. This takes them away from reality and puts them in
this gaming world of their own. However, some games do “help them engage with friends and community”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7619372.stmApparently, Nottingham Trent University has done research on gamers who can and can’t tell reality from fantasy. Their research has revealed that some gamers are so stuck into the fantasy world of a particular game that they are unable to distinguish the real world now. One story is that a 15 year old called Simon, had admitted in a interview to “wanting to use a gravity gun” to retrieve something from his “fridge”. http://metro.co.uk/2011/09/20/nottingham-trent-university-researchers-gamers-cant-tell-real-world-from-fantasy-164943/
Costs:
There are direct costs and indirect costs. Many gamers spend a lot of money buying games and such. The things which costs are the consoles, PCs, upgrading parts of a PC so the game runs better, paying for broadband, paying electricity bills, buying DLCs for that particular game, paying to get rid of ads and so on. “Video games are a fun hobby, but no one ever said it was an inexpensive one: a brand new video game for the Xbox can run you $60, and a hardcore gaming rig can cost upward of $2000”. A lot of people do tend to spend a lot of money buying things so that they can progress in their game or make the game perform better (PC).
The indirect costs include time. Gamers spend quite a lot of time playing a
game. During this time, gamers lose out on development and interaction within
reality. The costs of time integrates with the concerns of excess playing. There
are costs in which effect children, they can either be really exhausted and
late for their next day in school, and they lose out on playing outside and
interacting with family members. There is also costs in the real world after playing so many games for many hours, this link is a story in which a guy had lost his girlfriend and job due to spending to much time playing videos games and kept wanting to play Everquest. http://kotaku.com/5384643/i-kept-playing--the-costs-of-my-gaming-addiction?utm_expid=66866090-52.r5txldOmRkqnbJxnyozIeA.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F
Benefits
(hand-eye coordination, brain thinking)/thinking and strategy skills:
There are many different genres of games in which can improve some skills.
Such as puzzle games and strategic games. COD is a great example for team work
developing. To win most of the games you have to work well in a team. Usually
you give one another call outs and tell them where the enemies are and so on.
Working in a team on this game will help you win the game so resulting in
success. Other games such as the Professor Layton series are puzzle games.
About every few minutes in the game there are puzzles that you need to complete
to continue with the story line. These puzzles involve using maths and English
skills and problem solving skills. Another problem solving game is portal.
Every level you do is a puzzle and you have to reach your end goal for you to
progress. Others say that video games have health benefits from playing video
games. Apparently it can reduce stress and depression, improve your decision
making skills and can provide pain relief (emotional and apparently physical).
http://theweek.com/articles/466852/7-health-benefits-playing-video-games
Future impact/Impact on ‘mainstream’ application
development:
Games have already came a long way and
development of them is phenomenal. Something called the Oculus rift has took a
huge step up from playing games on monitors and TVs. The Oculus rift is a
headset that you wear over your eyes and you are put into a virtual reality.
With this you are given a controller or two controllers (one for each hand) and
you use all of your body. The way your head moves, the games moves with it, so
if you look left, then your character looks left too. I feel like with this
newer technology, more gamers will not be able to define what reality is and
what reality to them isn’t anymore. This link is a review on the Oculus rift
and explains what you use and how you use it.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/gaming-accessories/oculus-rift-1123963/review
Psychological Factors
Sound:
Sounds can produce emotional reactions from the gamer, in
horror games particularly, they use sounds to make the gamer feel fear and to
notify you that something is happening or going to happen. For example, the
game “The Outlast” when you get caught by one of the mental patients, the music
is very tense and loud, you hear the breathing of your character is very harsh
and you can hear the fear breathing. Sound is very important in horror games in
particular as you would want to portray those sorts of feeling to the gamer in
which the character is experiencing, this making the game scarier.
http://www.amplifon.co.uk/resources/playing-with-your-mind/This link below is the soundtrack of the game "Outlast".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p19RO5368pY
High score listings:
High score listings can either leave you
with a positive psychological effect or a negative one. High score listings are
nearly in every game, especially competitive ones. If you are top of the leader
board you are most likely to feel better about yourself than be bottom of the
leader board. To find out that you are bottom of the leader board, you might
feel pretty down about it although some gamers can revert that feeling from
being down and changing it to determination of wanting to retrieve a high
score. I am one of those particular gamers. A gamer who in which is at the top
of leader board would feel “pleased” with themselves. According to this source
of information, researchers had found out that someone who did “supposedly the
best on the task, people had lower self-esteem than those who were the top
performing on the losing team – even if they did better”.
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2012/07/the-psychology-of-high-scores-in-edge-magazine/
Competitive games:
Competitive gaming can leave a few psychological effects. If
you are on a team of 5 or 6 (dependant of the game) and you are the one that
makes the team lose, not everyone is really going to be nice to you after the
match. Possibly, constant losing could lead to aggressive behaviour, this resulting
in them losing their temper on when they lose a match.However, there are some psychological benefits in competitive gaming in which may boost self-esteem and developing social skills. When winning a lot of matches, gamers tend to feel quite happy whereas others might be quite boastful which will aggravate the players in which are losing the matches. http://www.contentedwriter.com/psychological-effects-of-computer-gaming-on-individuals-and-society/
Peer
Pressure:
A
lot of gamers are peer pressured into buying a certain game. They usually get
peer pressured by their friends. Their friends would get them to buy a
particular game because they need someone to play with or because it’s an
amazing game and they should buy it. Also, there is peer pressure to not play a
particular game or buy one. This is because of someone telling you the game is
bad or telling you not to play that particular game and so it results in the
gamer not playing it in case their friends notice. There is also a huge amount
of pressure to buy the latest consoles and to choose the right one. As there
are console wars, people would tell you to buy a particular console because
they don’t the other one which is out; for example Xbox One and PlayStation 4. 
Fun:Casual gamers play for fun whereas competitive gamers play to win. However, overall, the majority of gamers do play games for fun. What makes games fun is the fact that these games let you do things that you can't necessarily do in the real world. For example, the game called "i am bread" this game is a steam game where you are slice of bread and the objective is you need to become toast. This is a very fun game as you need to move yourself around a certain room and find something you can "toast" yourself on/in. With other games, that you play as a certain character, you are able to act out that characters life in an unusual world. The fact that games designers make the games fun to play leaves a very positive emotional effect on the gamer.
Educational Value:
"Epistemic games are computer games that are essentially about learning to think in innovative ways. They’re designed to be pedagogical tools for the digital age where the player learns to think like professionals by playing a simulated game of such professions as management, engineering, journalism or urban planning."
There are also games which are made to teach a particular skill or problem. The maths website in which I used when I was in secondary school was cool maths games. A lot of these games help develop many maths skills in my opinion. I feel as if educational games do have a big impact on society more now than before.
http://www.coolmath-games.com
Expectations:
The majority of gamers have certain expectations for particular games that they are interested in. I believe that series such as COD receive very high expectations each time they bring out a new COD game every November. Gamers like to see many improvements and better graphics each time a new game comes out. As a gamer, I always have high expectations of newer games to have better graphics and fairer gameplay. Furthermore, gamers who have played a previous series of a certain game leave comments and reviews in which the game designers can read and take ideas from. I believe that game expectations leave a positive effect on the society in which they can improve their games and possible employ more people to help make these improvements.
Levelling:
Levelling leaves a positive but also negative psychological effect on gamers. Lets start with the positives. The positive effect it can have is self achievement and achievement in the game. In the majority of games, they have a levelling system in which you can improve your particular character over time or completely levels you can get rewards from. Levelling might make the gamer feel pretty happy about levelling up stats and such. However, the negative effect this can have is the addiction of wanting to carry on levelling up. Therefor, the gamer staying awake possibly to finish their game or not attending to any other duties except from trying to complete a certain level. To conclude, levelling can have a positive psychological effect and a negative psychological effect. One good be for the enjoyment of the game or you may lose your job and the closeness of family around you being to determined to a level.
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