Category: Video Game

Project management is an integral part of running an organization that aims to bring a change that would be beneficial to the organization itself and other stakeholders. Managing projects involves allocating the necessary amount of resources, updating objectives, assessing risks, maintaining documentation, and performing many other tasks to ensure the delivery of the product by the specified deadline. Therefore, precise and efficient management is essential for the successful completion of projects in a cost-effective manner. As noted by Schwab (2019), the world is currently going through the Fourth Industrial Revolution spearheaded by digital technologies, which is why companies producing software should pay particular attention to project management. This paper outlines the issues faced by BioWare, a Canadian videogame developer owned by Electronic Arts (EA), a US videogame distributor, in the development of its recent projects. It will demonstrate that BioWare, as controlled by EA, demonstrates the ability for resource integration and continuously updated development but has issues with over-optimism, failures to provide clear scope and intent, and customer understanding.

Background Information

BioWare is a videogame development studio with headquarters in Edmonton, Canada. It was founded in 1995 and quickly found its niche in making detailed, immersive role-playing games with complex plots. The studio’s breakout hit was Baldur’s Gate, a role-playing game issued in 1998 and based on the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game (Schreier, 2017). After that, the studio issued more products based on Dungeons and Dragons and worked with other major franchises, as when making Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in cooperation with Lucas Arts (Schreier, 2017). In the 21^st century, the studio created two significant franchises of its own – the space opera series Mass Effect and a dark fantasy series Dragon Age, with the first games for both being launched in 2007 and 2009, respectively (Schreier, 2017). Since then, BioWare’s primary efforts were focused on developing these two franchises.

In 2007, EA appropriated BioWare and assumed the role of the studio’s publisher. This appropriation produced mixed results in terms of product delivery. While Dragon Age Origins, issued in 2009, was critically and commercially successful, its 2011 sequel Dragon Age 2 was widely criticized for feeling incomplete (Schreier, 2017). Dragon Age: Inquisition won the 2014 Game of the Year award, but was reported to face numerous problems in development due to poor resource allocation and management issues (Schreier, 2019, para. 7). Mass Effect series stalled, with the third installment that came out in 2012 being criticized for the weak ending, and the 2017 Andromeda – for unimaginative gameplay and numerous technical issues.

EA’s vision of how its products should be played became a source of numerous issues as well. As the publisher, EA insists on making all its major products “games as service,” meaning that they may be played continuously months and years after release, being supplied with new, potentially purchasable content (Schreier, 2019). This requirement implied massive online multiplayer and put BioWare, famed for making in-depth single-player games, at odds with the overall direction EA was heading. BioWare’s projects launch to deliver new products in accordance with EA’s demonstrated numerous issues. The Old Republic, a Star Wars MMO, kept missing its deadlines from 2009 to 2011 (Schreier, 2017). Anthem, a massively multiplayer online (MMO) shooter, encountered so many technical problems that the teams working on other projects were forced to shift to it as well (Kain. 2019). Missing deadlines, numerous troubles with resource allocation, and generally cool critical reception that indicates the insufficient quality of the products delivered, BioWare’s recent projects reveal a number of consistent management issues.

Project Management Evaluation

Project management practices demonstrated by BioWare during the work on its recent projects demonstrate the company’s capability to continuously monitor the work progress and introduce updates when necessary. Heldman (2018) notes that “monitoring and measuring project performance at regular intervals” is an essential component of controlling project work (p. 479). Organizational practices adopted in BioWare stress this component heavily. According to the company’s founders themselves, regular check-ups, meetings, and projects updates were a rule of thumb in the company since its foundation and are adhered to thoroughly (Ramsay, 2015, chap. 11). One of the initial developers of the new Dragon Age installment pointed out anonymously that the emphasis on regular updates and swift and early testing was one of the central requirements put before the team. This approach policy corresponds to a broader approach in software development when teams “deliver working software in short iterations, which results in more frequent, short-term decisions,” allowing to identify and address potential issues more quickly (Gunha, Nouro, and Vasconcellos, 2016, p. 950). Therefore, BioWare’s work on the company’s recent project demonstrates a clear understanding of monitoring and controlling projects.

Another area of project management, where BioWare, as controlled by EA, demonstrates sufficient competency is ensuring integration between projects. According to Monteiro, Santos, and Varahao (2016), multi-project coordination and integration across different projects are among the key responsibilities assumed by the Project Management Office on a tactical level. BioWare’s recent projects demonstrate multiple cases of cross-project integration. For example, Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third installment of the company’s flagship series, switched to the Frostbite engine used by most of the EA games and succeeded in delivering the product despite the technical difficulties involved (Schreier, 2017). The next installment of the Dragon Age series codenamed Morrison is reported to be “built on Anthem’s tools and codebase” (Schreier, 2019, para. 21). Considering this, project management practices adopted in BioWare ensure progressively greater cross-project integration, even when it requires overcoming considerable technical difficulties.

On the other hand, the company’s ability for multi-project coordination leaves much to be desired. BioWare started as a small independent studio, not working on more than one project simultaneously. The company’s experience before being bought by the EA included coordinating multiple remote teams working on the same project (Ramsay, 2015, chap. 11). However, managing several ambitious large-scale projects at once proved to be a considerable challenge for BioWare, as evidenced by some of its recent histories. In 2016, the company put the initial Dragon Age 4 project, codenamed Joplin, on hold, and moved the team working on it to fixing troubled Mass Effect: Andromeda that did not meet its deadlines (Schreier, 2019). The story repeated itself, as Joplin was canceled altogether, and its team once again moved to help with another struggling project, this time Anthem (Schreier, 2019). The fact that such cases occur repeatedly highlight BioWare’s difficulties in running more than one large-scale project at once and coordinating them to ensure the best outcomes.

This particular problem is directly connected to another – namely, the over-optimism demonstrated by BioWare when managing its recent projects. Stingl and Veraldi (2017) point out that over-optimistic initial forecasts are among the most notable issues that plague projects during the planning stage. Working on more than one large project often proves trying even for the companies with experienced personnel, and BioWare’s consecutive problems with its recent games demonstrate that it evaluated its possibilities too optimistically. The company’s certainty that it can take on developing several games simultaneously, as with Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age 4, backfired. It resulted in frantic ad hoc adjustments to provide the necessary workforce so that each project would deliver results on time. To summarize, BioWare’s problems with multi-project coordination in the development of their recent games likely have much to do with the over-optimistic initial forecasts that failed to estimate the company’s actual ability to run multiple projects at once.

Apart from over-optimism and the resulting issues with project coordination, BioWare also demonstrated insufficient attention to the scope of the project. As noted by Heldman (2018) and Turner (2006), a clear definition of the project scope is one of the first essentials of effective project management, as it establishes what work on the project is, and what it is not. Meredith et al. (2018) also stress the importance of clear and understandable project scope as one of the first tasks to solve when working on a project. However, BioWare’s work on Dragon Age: Inquisition demonstrated no understanding of this principle – partially due to poor resource allocation. The company initially assigned an unprecedented number of employees to work on the game, which caused the leadership to make fast decisions to provide everyone with the workload (Schreier, 2017). While it is normal for a video game to discard and add features as the production goes, the development of Dragon Age: Inquisition lacked a clear focus on the essentials. The necessity to assign tasks first and think about their applicability for the game later caused serious problems with the project scope.

Another problem related to this one was the lack of purpose and intent demonstrated in the development of Dragon Age: Inquisition. APM (2018) emphasizes the necessity of not limiting the focus to quantifiable deliverables of the project and keeping in mind its ultimate purpose and intent. They also point out that this is particularly important for major, complex projects – and, as mentioned above, Dragon Age: Inquisition was the largest project run by BioWare when it was launched. Still, after finishing the project and moving on to Dragon Age 4, the creative director Mike Laidlaw and executive producer Mark Darrah vouched to “focus on delivering an explicit, consistent vision” this time (Schreier, 2019, para. 9). It was an explicit recognition that they failed to do so while working on Dragon Age: Inquisition. The lack of purpose and intent going beyond quantifiable outputs, such as the size of maps of the number of characters and quests, was likely yet another reason why the third installment of Dragon Age did not end up as well as it could.

Apart from that, BioWare, as controlled by EA, has demonstrated consistent problems in balancing the interests of all stakeholders interested in the project. Stingl and Veraldi (2017) highlight that the adoption of an overly self-interested strategy may impact the result adversely. This was precisely the case with EA’s tightening creative control over BioWare’s project. For instance, EA’s insistence on making Dragon Age: Inquisition using the Frostbite engine led to numerous technical difficulties (Schreier, 2017). Moreover, the distributor’s insistence on making all its major projects follow the “games as service” MMO model did not coincide with BioWare’s strengths as the developer of single-player games. Moreover, this shift to an uncharacteristic product soured the relations with customers, who had their expectations from a BioWare game, which damaged the company’s reputation (Association for Project Management [APM], n.d.). Hence, the overly self-centered position taken by the EA when exercising creative control over BioWare was the cause of yet another considerable problem in managing projects to ensure better outcomes.

The Use of Qualitative and Quantitative Data

BioWare, as controlled by EA, mainly employed quantitative data to support decision-making when running its recent projects. With the traditional “games as goods” approach, the key quantifiable outcome for the project would be the estimated number of copies sold – the model described by McAfee and Brynjolfsson (2014, chap. 13). However, with the “games as service” model promoted by EA, other quantifiable outcomes also come into play. These include, first and foremost, the number of expansion packs that can be added to the main game for an additional price to provide the customers with new experiences and the company with increased revenues. BioWare took it into account when working on Dragon Age: Inquisition and supplied it with an unprecedented number of expansion packs for the studio’s game. Thus, when making decisions on its recent projects, BioWare kept in mind the numerical outputs required by the EA as the distributor.

However, the focus on the “games as service” model caused the company to neglect qualitative criteria in favor of quantitative ones. This effect was especially notable in the case of Dragon Age II. The game was created on a short schedule, which did not prevent the company from providing it with several packs of additional content for a separate price, in full accordance with EA’s preferred model. However, it was widely criticized for repetitive gameplay, lack of impactful decisions, and the overall decline in the perceived quality (Schreier, 2017). The customers, angered by the lack of authentic BioWare experience, did not buy the game as actively as the previous entry in the series, meaning that the company’s shifting focus had a negative impact on their purchase intent (M. Haverila and K. Haverila, 2019). As Bowne-Anderson (2018) noted, the understanding customer is a paramount component of delivering successful outputs of the project. Good relations with satisfied customers lead to enhanced reputation, but the failure to maintain them will affect the company’s long-term standing negatively (APM, 2018). To summarize, focusing on quantitative outputs over the qualitative ones delivered questionable results for BioWare’s projects.

Recommendations

Improving BioWare’s project management practices for the delivery of better outcomes requires addressing the issues demonstrated during the development of the company’s recent projects, such as Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Anthem. First of all, it is necessary to address the problem with resource allocation in multi-project coordination evident in the simultaneous development of Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. To avoid frantically reassigning personnel from one project to another whenever a deadline is close, the company should make more conservative estimations of its capability to run multiple projects. This approach will decrease the dangers inherent in over-optimism and stretch the personnel thin.

Additionally, the company should pay greater attention to formulating the scope of its projects, as well as purpose and intent, as early and as clearly as possible. During the development of Dragon Age: Inquisition, the amount of employees assigned to the project caused project leadership to make sub-optimal decisions to ensure they all had work to do (Schreier, 2017). The lack of clear scope, vision, and purpose caused the situation when much work was done only to be redone or discarded altogether in the later stages of development. A well-defined scope, supplemented with a specifically outlined purpose, should be an essential component of BioWare’s future projects if the company aims to improve its results.

Finally, the EA’s insistence on developing all of its major products following the “games as service” model and the resulting emphasis on quantitative factors stands in conflict with BioWare’s strength as a developer. The drive to produce games as templates to sell additional content afterward may lead to neglecting important qualitative components. As BioWare is famed for producing single-player games, pushing it to create multiplayer ones not plays against the company’s strengths, but also dissatisfies the customers. This dissatisfaction has profoundly negative long-term impacts, such as damaged reputation and plummeting sales due to the decreasing purchase intent. To avoid these consequences, EA as a distributor, should take a less self-centered position when exercising creative control, and rely on the company’s understanding of its customers more. Provided it would have such an opportunity, BioWare should concentrate on delivering the products that would offer the authentic “BioWare experience” sought by the audiences and likely conducive to better sales and critical reception.

Reference List

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Heldman, K. (2018). PMP: Project management professional exam study guide. 9th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Sybex.

Kain, E. (2019). ‘The depressing story behind The ‘Dragon Age 4’ game that we’ll never get to play’,Forbes.

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Schreier, J. (2017). Blood, sweat, and pixels: The triumphant, turbulent stories behind how video games are made. New York, NY: Harper Paperbacks.

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Schwab, K. (2019) ‘Why business must step up to shape the next Industrial Revolution’, Fortune, 179(1), pp. 45-46.

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Introduction

The value of technological invention or innovation is usually determined by the extent to which individuals understand and use innovation. This means that it is important to have an effective and appropriate deployment strategy when dealing with technological inventions or innovations. Examples of key elements used to achieve an effective deployment strategy include marketing, timing, distribution, pricing, and licensing. This paper seeks to answer questions about why companies need to craft an effective deployment strategy in the US video gaming industry.

What factors do you think enabled Sega to break Nintendo’s near-monopoly of the US video game console market in the late 1980s?

There are numerous factors that explain why Sega managed to break Nintendo’s near-monopoly in video game industry in the U.S. Nintendo’s near-monopoly can be linked to the lower prices charged by the company and enactment of very strict policies in licensing. These policies limited the number of titles that a given developer could produce in one year. It also restricted developers from developing similar games. However, Sega broke this monopoly by introducing the 16-bit Genesis video game in the U.S. market which had a higher performance than the 8-bit system. In addition, Sega ensured that all its arcade games were leveraged to the 16-bit Genesis. At the same time, they were compatible with the earlier 8-bit system games. By 1989, Sega had managed to produce 20 Genesis game titles.

Why did Nintendo choose not to make its early video game consoles backward compatible? What were the advantages and disadvantages of this strategy?

The main reason why Nintendo was against its early video game consoles was that the company feared cannibalizing the sales of its 8-bit system. This was also based on the views of the company’s developers who assumed that the technological advantages of the the16-bit system were extremely less than that of the 8-bit system. According to them, there was no reason for giving a lot of attention to the 16-bit system. This move turned out to be very advantageous to Sega since it was compelled to increase its sale of consoles to approximately 600,000 in the year 1989 while NES sales were only 200,000. In the following years, both companies increased their individual game titles, and Sega managed to realize more sales than that of the competitor.

Nintendo’s strategy had both advantages and disadvantages. It is important to note that the advantages of this strategy were less than the disadvantages. In terms of the advantages, the company was only able to maintain its current sale of the 8-bit system. On the other hand, the disadvantages included a reduction in sales of its 16-bit system and reduced customer awareness. By failing to introduce the 16-bit system in the United States, it meant that customers could only purchase the 16-bit system produced by Sega. Consumers became used to Sega’s 16-bit system to an extent that they did not shift to Nintendo’s new system even after being introduced to the U.S. market. Nintendo exited the market in the year 1991 because it failed to catch up with Sega. By 1994, Sega’s performance had greatly increased thereby making the company become the market leader in the United States.

What strengths and weaknesses did Sony have when it entered the video game market in 1995?

Sony had both strengths and weaknesses when it entered the video game market in 1995. One of the strengths was the ability of the company to enter the video game industry by introducing an advanced 32-bit system. The company also invested heavily especially in game development and leveraged its clout with the distributors. A major weakness of the company was its inability to predict new competitors (like Microsoft) who were emerging in the industry.

What strengths and weaknesses did Microsoft have when it entered the video game market in 2001?

Just like Sony, the major strength of Microsoft was its ability to enter the video game with a highly advanced 128-bit system in late 2001. This system was higher than the 32-bit system that had earlier been introduced by Sony in 1995. Other strengths of the company included the availability of advanced machines and equipment and the minimal time spent on games and marketing. It is worth to mention that Microsoft’s Playstation2 sales were more than one million units. The only weakness of the company was its inability to handle the increasing number of hits on its website.

Comparing the deployment strategies used by the firms in each of the generations, can you identify any timing, licensing, pricing, marketing, or distribution strategies that appear to have influenced firms’ success and failure in the video game industry?

The different deployment strategies used by companies in all the generations had an effect on the company in terms of both success and failure. For example, Nintendo adopted the use of lower prices and strict licensing policies. This move contributed to the company’s success because lower prices helped it to increase the demand for video games. On the other hand, the enactment of strict licensing policies made it difficult for new entrants to gain access to the industry. This meant that Nintendo enjoyed the availability of a ready market until the emergence of competitors such as Sega. When Sega entered the industry, it embarked on extensive advertising in order to increase consumer awareness of its products. In addition, Sega established favorable licensing arrangements. This move attracted several developers who had an interest to develop game titles for the company. The introduction of the 32-bit system by Philips failed to achieve the set objective because the system was quite complex and had unclear technical specifications.

Due to the fact that the movie industry has shown great potential for the last several years, the plots of numerous films became the basis for a number of games which the fans of the movies accepted with flying colors.

Thus, the video game industry is prospering now, taking into account the abundance of cinematographic masterpieces worthy interpreting in a video game. Game creation might seem quite close to movie-making, yet it possesses certain unique features which become obvious only at the stage of game-making.

However, even the most complicated movie plots can be transformed into an enticing game with help of a bit of fantasy and the most general knowledge of video game making. Linking it to a certain movie will make it ever more popular and even become a major hit in the game industry; as King explains, this can be explained rather easily:

At the level of industry more generally, the linking of the cinema and games is far from being arbitrary in an environment in which some of the key producers and distributors of both forms of entertainment are located within the same media corporations and in which game spin-offs offer substantial additional revenues to the Hollywood studios. (7)

One of the films of 2010 worthy taken as a plot for a video game is the one called A Book of Eli. Owing to the peculiarities of the movie plot, the game can be shaped in a most intriguing way, with a lot of turns of the plot which lead to the most effective denouement. Thus, the game which is going to be created comprises the elements of a quest, an action game and a puzzle game – with such an intricate structure it is bound to be a success.

Speaking of the opening scene of the game, I would suggest that there should be a short intro which initiates the gamer into who the lead character is and what brought him to the place where he is at the moment. Taking some ten to fifteen seconds, this piece will be most helpful for the people who have never seen the movie and yet are willing to play the game. As Newman marked wisely,

Another major fact to consider when using the game theory is the idea that players begin all games ignorant of the rules of that game. A game’s concept must include the information regarding how a gamer is to learn these rules and guidelines, and how strategy, difficulty and opposition will be used. (14)

Thus, the wisest decision in this case would be to drop all the scenes narrating the story of the world which survived the nuclear war. Squeezing the information to fit the introductory lines, it would be possible both to help the “newbies” get acquainted with the plot and not to irritate more experienced people.

Therefore, beginning the game at the bar, the player starts his world rescue mission as Eli, the only man who possesses the Bible. The first piece of the game is supposed to possess the elements of quest – Eli has to charge his IPod, then he must find another bar to find the water to sustain his life. Realistic to the hilt, the game must look in the most convincing way, so that the gamer could feel that Eli is his/her reincarnation. Thus, the game graphics must be taken into account when creating the game.

To complicate the matter a bit and make the game both more enticing and closer to the movie plot, it would be a good idea to include changing water for the clothes. This piece would illustrate the poverty and despair which the lost world was trapped in after the devastating war and at the same time make the game more interesting to the players.

Constructing the close-up for this part of the game, it would be a nice decision to arrange Eli’s encounter with Solara. Making this the necessary piece of Eli’s journey without which it will be impossible to continue the game, one can insert an element of puzzle into Eli’s quest and make it ever closer to a refined brain-twister.

Another two-minute episode which the game would feature certain elements of action. To add more of dramatic elements to the game, it would be a good idea to bring some action into it.

Thus, the target group of the game players can be expanded from the quest-lovers to those addicted to action pieces and enjoying scenes of fighting in video games. Thus, Eli will spend the next two minutes in the house of the old couple known as the local cannibals.

On the one hand, it could be a good idea to make the situation as tense as possible and draw various sound and visual effects to enhance the blood0thirsty impression of the scene. Yet on the other hand it seems quite unreasonable since the age group would be restricted then to an older group.

In addition, it is doubtful that the person loving quests will eagerly take part in rough action games. Thus, it will be most reasonable to make the scene of the house fight less violent than the plot of the movie demands.

Although logically, it would be most reasonable to make the lead character of the game invisible for the game player so that the latter could associate Eli with him/herself, it seems that the scene featuring the fight in the house should be made in such a way so that the game player could see Eli and control all his moves. Considering Pedersen’s idea of action games, it becomes obvious that the player must see the character in the scene of fight:

Action games are those in which you move, attack, move, react, and move again. They revolve around the gamer who is always central to the play and in control. During an action game, action is the emphasis, not storytelling (Pedersen 34)

Thus, making the emphasis on the central character, not on the fight itself, it would be possible to balance between the tough action and the absence of excessive violence in the picture.

Since the age group which the game is designed for is supposed to be diverse and include all possible elements, there must be a line toed between the “fight for justice” which is a necessary element of all action stories and blockbusters, and violence.

In spite of the fact that action games do not presuppose a lot of dialogues between the characters, there must be the ones in this scene. Bearing crucial importance for the entire storyline of the movie and the game, the conversations between Eli and Carnegie must be inserted into the body of the action.

Making the situation in the game as tense as possible, these short pieces of conversation fill the game with the philosophy which lies in the basis of the movie. Thus, most of the key phrases of Carnegie and Eli must be inserted into the action.

Quite a risky trick, it will prove the most efficient way to enhance the intrigue of the game. Such approach will contrast with the typical “helmet-mounted display”, though this will deprive the game of certain reality elements; as Jones emphasizes, it is the very effect of the information being “at once outside and inside of the visor of your character” (Jones 75).

Since Eli is the lead character of the game which the player associates him/herself with, it would not be a good idea to follow the plot of the movie blindly and make Carnegie shoot Eli. Though this will add reality to the game, such turn of the plot might upset even those who know the movie well, not to mention the people unaware of the film.

Thus, instead of being shot, Eli encounters an obstacle which makes him lose the Bible – say, the book is stolen by a member of Carnegie’s gang. At this point, it would be the wisest decision to apply the scheme of “multiple exit roots” (235), as Young puts it.

Allowing the game player to choose the ending which fits him/her best, one can help the player contribute to the game as well and feel the pulse of the game action.

The third and the final act of the game should be converted into a puzzle. In accordance with the movie plot, Eli is supposed to read the Bible, yet the game player is yet to discover that the book is written in Braille code.

To unlock the mystery of the text, the player has to decipher the mysterious scriptures, which means that (s)he is supposed to solve a game puzzle. To find the key to the weird signs, Eli must use some brainwork.

As Eli opens the book, a table with certain letters deciphered appears, yet there are not enough letters to unlock the secret writings.

Designing the riddle, it is reasonable to use the most widespread letters of the English alphabet, such as e, t, h, and a, along with a number of the most specific letter combinations, like “ph” or “cs”. Designing the puzzle, one must keep in mind that the game player must not get bored by a riddle which is too complicated to solve in less than ten minutes.

However, as Eli continues solving the puzzle, it appears that he is under a considerable time pressure – such turn of the plot will add acuteness to the situation and evoke another adrenalin surge – isn’t this what an avid game player is waiting for? However, not to make people too overwhelmed with emotions and give them the opportunity to win the game, Eli gets time bonuses with each letter guessed correctly.

While Eli deciphers the scriptures, he realizes that what has been deciphered so far is not enough – most of the text is missing. It turns out that he is supposed to recollect the rest of the Bible text. At this turn of the plot, the game player will have to solve another puzzle and read the text concealed in Eli’s memory.

Thus, the game turns from harsh and rather tough action to quite complicated yet intriguing puzzle. It is clear that those who are keen on playing various games will love the way the game parts switch and interact with each other, and the turns of the plot will add to the overall excitement.

Trapped in his own memory, Eli becomes an integral part of the game player – it is the matter of life and death for the player now as well to make Eli recollect the forgotten Bible.

However, this puzzle turns out to be much easier than the previous one. Making Eli pick the Bible and look at the poster on the wall will lead to the solution – Eli will see the snatch of a phrase reading “lies ahead”, which triggers the recollection process: “No matter what lies ahead. Hold onto your faith”. At this point the book which Eli holds turns into the Bible written in English, and the game ends with the triumph of the mankind.

Lines up with the licensed music from the motion picture, this scene would look in the most impressive way; as Rogers emphasizes, music is of paramount importance for the game: “Emphasis shifted from the programmatic issues with music and sound to what to do with it creatively” (394).

Although this game might seem another attempt to advertise a movie brand, there is more than meets the eye in it. Suggesting a picture of the distant future of the mankind, it persuades people to hold fats to their knowledge and beliefs, and not to give up even when the world is collapsing down. Once playing this game, one will feel that there is always a way out, no matter how hard the journey might seem.

Works Cited

Jones, Steven Edward. The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Studies. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis, 2008. Print.

King, Geoff, and Tanya Krzywinska. Screenplay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces. Brighton, UK: Wallflower Press, 2002. Print.

Newman, Rick. Cinematic Game Secrets for Creative Directors and Producers: Inspired Techniques from Industry Legends. Burlington, MA: Focal Press, 2008. Print.

Pedersen, Roger E. Game Design Foundations. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2009. Print.

Rogers, Scott. Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Print.

Young, Paul. The Cinema Dreams in Its Rivals: Media Fantasy Films from Radio to the Internet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Print.

Ethics is the field of moral philosophy involving systematic defending as well as recommendations of behavior either as wrong or right(Gunter,234). Currently, philosophers have classified ethics into several categories such as metaethics which is concern with investigating the origin of ethical principles and normative ethics which helps to regulate what is wrong or right within a given society and therefore helps to regulate what is generally accepted in the whole society (Vorderer, 280).

Game design is a process of creating the the total content and rules of the game played through a medium and entails both the game and its documentations; the process needs artistic and technical competence within human ethics (Gunter, 237).

The video games have increasingly replaced the movies that have been enjoyed for several generations. This is because first, video game gives the audience the responsibility to participate in the game by manipulating the characters thus crating his own storyline very time he is playing the a game hence making it more enjoyable and one pays more attentive on playing(Vorderer,286) .

Secondly, the outcome of the video game is unpredictable as compared to movie in which the audience can predict the point at which the story would end thus making the video games more interesting to the audience as who keeps gazing the continuously changing plots of the game, the programmers give the audience a few hours of to relax as the players find themselves becoming part of the story(Vorderer,290).

However, the game designers must maintain high level of social responsibility on designing these games due to their adverse negative effects on the recipients especially children and teenagers. The negative impacts include; excessive inclusion of violent activities in the games such as gun shootings and gender violence evoke anger making players especially children to become aggressive in real life and get motivated to apply the activities in real life (Vorderer, 296).

The child develops a feeling that shooting is a normal and does not feel guilty of having killed another. Playing violent games may also result to proactive aggression which is a deliberate behavior controlled by external forces to achieve certain objective such as robbery with violence(Gunter,260).The child may adopt such behavior as a result of learning from the violent plays that he may tend to copy.

Secondly, violent video games encourage egocentric culture to the children who tend to ignore the sense of brotherhood and treat themselves as competitive identities with limited or no relationship from other people who might be their close relations (Vorderer, 312) .They consider themselves better placed and more experienced to carry out any activity regardless to the consequences that inhuman in nature such as killing. In addition, young players may develop a tendency of sitting to play the game for along period without sharing with other members of the family the gadgets for playing the games. The egocentrism nature therefore requires the intervention of parents to create a soul centric lifestyle in which family members are frequently encouraged to adopt life of love and free to assist one another (Gunter, 256).

In addition, violent video games leads to physiological arousal which is a kind of psychological excitation one feels when he is afraid or must defend himself and therefore feels either to run away or must fight back (Gunter,259). It is a “fight back fight back situation” as the violent video games make children feel insecure making it easier for them to cause great harm and danger whenever they are faced with challenges in which they feel their life is in danger (Gunter, 306).

Similarly, video games negatively affect the physical health of the children since they have to sit down for longer time playing the game hence likely to developed complications such as carpal tunnel syndrome which is a muscular disease and skeletal disorder in kids (Vorderer, 235).

The designers should therefore create games that are less captivating to keep the attention of the children for less hours while playing so as to enable them maintain their health. Parental control is also necessary in controlling the activities of children while playing the games to avoid the harm to their children.

The games designers should create more educative video games at the expense of the violent ones since over playing of violent games reduce children’s academic performance in school (Gunter, 327). The violent games conflicts what the child learns in school and therefore makes it difficult for him to apply what is taught by the teacher.

The game designers should emphasize on games that educate children on healthy skills such as self-care and imparting positive attitude towards life for example playing a video on surgery makes children develop positive attitude and future aspirations in life as compared to shooting movie (Vorderer, 346).

In conclusion, several researchers questioned the impact of video games to lives of children and noted the grave effects in the lives of young children. Playing a violent game for several hours per day could results to poor performance in school as well as increase aggressive behavior that might further lead to engagement into antisocial activities such as murder (Vorderer, 350).

Game designers should therefore consider the social and long term implications of the games before they are released to the market for the children and teenagers who might develop confusion in life. Parents on the other hand should recognize the great effect violent movies are likely to cause in the lives of their children and guide them anytime they get into play (Gunter, 360).

Works Cited

Gunter, Barrie .The effects of video games on children: the myth unmasked‎. New Jersey: The Rosen Publishing Group, 1998.Print.

Vorderer, Peter .Playing video games: motives, responses, and consequences‎. New York: Norton and company, 2006.Print.

The technologies of the modern world open up new opportunities, including the market for current professions, which introduces new directions and expands existing industries. One of the most relevant vacancies today is video game development: the laborious process of the project’s implementation involves creating a new reality. Physicists and philosophers discuss a related issue by understanding the mechanisms behind the creation of video games. Drawing parallels between the real and the virtual world, one can admit the unreality of the existence of the planet and people and compare everything that happens with the simulation in which we are.

Some scientists consider humans can be programmed by a higher intelligence and compare the Universe with the simulation and plot of “The Matrix.” A theoretical physicist uses the same codes to correct browser errors that work for “quarks and electrons and supersymmetry,” which gives him reason to draw similar conclusions. (Moskowitz, 2016, par. 5) Refuting the point of view, scientists who disagree with it argue that this may be “just the fad of the moment.” (Moskowitz, 2016, par. 6) It is emphasized that the given hypotheses sometimes sound existential and cannot be verified in practice. It is impossible to get evidence that we are not in a simulation because any evidence can be simulated. The controversial issue provides food for thought but predominantly skepticism.

As the gaming industry evolves, specific mechanisms for creating video games can be repeated and give rise to analogies. Working with game design, a person does not have the opportunity to feel in the place of a great creator, but this is “a way to gain control” over specific actions or situations in virtual reality. (Animation Arena, 2021, par. 3) If a failure occurs, the system’s error can be corrected, which cannot be applied to the real world in which we live. A life simulation can be created by a specialist whose desire and skills are sharpened to develop video games and virtual reality, but it is impossible to admit our reality is simulated.

References

Animation Arena. (2021). How to become a video game designer. Web.

Moskowitz, C. (2016). Are we living in a computer simulation&? Scientific American. Web.

Barlett, Christopher, et al. “Video Game Effects–Confirmed, Suspected, and Speculative: A Review of the Evidence.” Simulation & Gaming, vol. 40, no. 3, 2009, pp. 377-403.

According to Barlett et al., when it comes to discussing the potential effects of playing video games, it is important to understand how they can be properly categorized. The authors suggest that the effects of playing video games can be classified as confirmed, suspected and speculative.

Given the fact that there is indeed a logically sound rationale to such a suggestion, throughout the course of conducting my study, I remained thoroughly observant of the article’s classification-related suggestions, in regards to the effects of people’s exposure to video games.

De Lisi, Richard and Jenifer Wolford. “Improving Children’s Mental Rotation Accuracy with Computer Game Playing.” Journal of Genetic Psychology, vol. 163, no. 3, 2002, pp. 272-282.

In their study, De Lisi and Wolford aimed to test the hypothesis that children’s continual exposure to video games helps them to address mental tasks, associated with the spatial arrangement of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. After having conducted a number of field experiments over the sampled participants, the authors concluded that, as opposed to what it is being the case with video game non-players, game players appear more effective in tackling these tasks. De Lisi and Wolford succeeded in ensuring the study’s methodological soundness, and their conclusions can be referred to as such that represent an objective scientific value.

Gentile, Douglas and Ronald Gentile. “Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 37, no. 2, 2008, pp. 127-141.

In their study, Gentile and Gentile strived to identify the possible predictors of children’s violent behavior, in regards to the qualitative subtleties of their exposure to pro-social video games, on the one hand, and to violent video games, on the other.

According to the authors, there is indeed a dialectical link between children’s tendency to exhibit violent attitudes and the strength of their commitment to playing violent video games. Nevertheless, given the fact that Gentile and Gentile addressed the subject matter in question from a clearly behaviorist perspective, their study’s conclusions cannot be regarded ideologically neutral.

Golden, Bernard. Healthy Anger: How to Help Children and Teens Manage Their Anger. Oxford UP, 2003.

The foremost thesis of Golden’s book can be formulated as follows. In order for children to be able to grow into psychologically stable individuals, they must be provided with an opportunity to learn how to release their anger in a socially appropriate manner.

Golden considers the activity of playing video games as such that is being thoroughly consistent with the basic provisions of the majority of anger management strategies. Given the fact that, throughout the book’s entirety, Golden succeeded in supporting his line of reasoning logically, this book can be indeed considered as such that contains a number of valuable clues, as to what may account for the beneficial effects of playing video games.

Green, Shawn and Daphne Bavelier. “Action Video Game Modified Visual Selective Attention.” Nature no. 423, 2003, pp. 534-537.

In their study, Shawn and Bavelier performed the empirical testing of the hypothesis that the activity of playing video games enhances people’s ability to successfully address a variety of different visual tasks. According to the study’s empirical findings, this hypothesis can indeed be considered thoroughly legitimate.

As opposed to the study’s participants that were required not to play video games for duration of two weeks, the study’s partakers that were encouraged to indulge in playing these games for the same period of time, did exhibit a considerable improvement to their ability to cope with the tasks of visual recognition.

Given the fact that, while conducting their study, the authors did succeed in ensuring the methodological appropriateness of the hypothesis-testing; the obtained data can be referred to as being implicationally objective.

Griffith, Jerry, et al. “Differences in Eye-Hand Motor Coordination of Video-Game Users and Non-Users.” Perception and Motor Skills vol. 57, 1983, pp. 155–58.

In his study, Griffith wanted to test the validity of the hypothesis that video game-players have better hand-eye coordination, as compared to their non-playing peers. After having evaluated the sampled participants’ (31 game-players and 31 non-players) motor skills, Griffith confirmed the legitimacy of the study’s initial hypothesis.

Because Griffith’s study does not contain any speculative statements, while being methodologically sound, there can be very little doubt as to the fact that it does contain a number of discursively relevant analytical insights.

Levin, Diane and Nancy Carlsson-Paige. “Marketing Violence: The Special Toll on Young Children of Color.” The Journal of Negro Education, vol. 72, no. 4, 2003, pp. 427-437.

In their article, Levin and Carlsson-Paige argued that one of the reasons why American society is becoming ever more violent is that, ever since their early years, Americans (especially the people of color) never cease being exposed to graphically portrayed media-violence. In particular, both authors emphasize the socially dangerous effects of playing video games with a violent content.

Nevertheless, even though Levin and Carlsson-Paige’s article does contain a number of valuable observations, relevant to our study’s subject matter, the overall line of argumentation, deployed throughout the article’s entirety, does not stand much ground, due to its an essentially speculative nature. The fact that, in their article both authors had made a point in utilizing a pretentiously sophisticate politically correct terminology, undermines the extent of their discursive argumentation’s credibility even further.

Michael, David and Sandra Chen. Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform. Course Technology, 2005.

In their book, Michael and Chen strived to promote the idea that, whereas, playing pro-social video games can indeed be considered thoroughly beneficial to the concerned individuals’ psychological well-being, the same cannot be said about the activity of playing violent video games.

Even though that both authors did succeed in presenting their line of argumentation in a thoroughly analytical manner, they nevertheless failed at understanding the simple fact that people are being primarily motivated to play video games for entertainment-related purposes and not for the purpose of becoming more educated.

Walker, Jesse. “Birth of a Medium.” Reason, vol. 35, no. 3, 2003, p. 57.

In his article, Walker aimed to expose the growing popularity of video games as such that has been predetermined by the very laws of history. Therefore, according to the author, it is specifically the lessened extent of some people’s intellectual advancement, which causes them to adopt a strongly defined negative attitude towards the activity of playing video games.

The Walker article’s foremost feature is the fact that, along with being thoroughly analytical, this article also represents a high rhetorical value. Moreover, the reading of Walker’s article reveals what may account for the discursive significance of video games in the future. This is the reason why I think this particular article should be recommended for reading by just about anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the video games’ phenomenological essence.

Williams, Dmitri, et al. “Can you hear me now? The impact of voice in an online gaming community.” Human Communication Research, vol. 33, no. 4, 2007, pp. 427-449.

In their article, Williams et al. argued that people’s exposure to video games does teach them how to socialize. The authors explore the validity of this suggestion in regards to the fact that, as of today, the overwhelming majority of modern video games allow players to use voice, while communicating with each other.

In its turn, this naturally causes players to strengthen the integrity of their communicational skills. Given the fact that, while presenting readers with their line of argumentation, in this respect, William et al. had referred to a number of discursively relevant academic studies, their article’s conclusions can be considered scientifically legitimate.

Works Cited

Barlett, Christopher, et al. “Video Game Effects–Confirmed, Suspected, and Speculative: A Review of the Evidence.” Simulation & Gaming, vol. 40, no. 3, 2009, pp. 377-403.

De Lisi, Richard and Jenifer Wolford. “Improving Children’s Mental Rotation Accuracy with Computer Game Playing.” Journal of Genetic Psychology, vol. 163, no. 3, 2002, pp. 272-282.

Gentile, Douglas and Ronald Gentile. “Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 37, no. 2, 2008, pp. 127-141.

Golden, Bernard. Healthy Anger: How to Help Children and Teens Manage Their Anger. Oxford UP, 2003.

Green, Shawn and Daphne Bavelier. “Action Video Game Modified Visual Selective Attention.” Nature no. 423, 2003, pp. 534-537.

Griffith, Jerry, et al. “Differences in Eye-Hand Motor Coordination of Video-Game Users and Non-Users.” Perception and Motor Skills vol. 57, 1983, pp. 155–58.

Levin, Diane and Nancy Carlsson-Paige. “Marketing Violence: The Special Toll on Young Children of Color.” The Journal of Negro Education, vol. 72, no. 4, 2003, pp. 427-437.

Michael, David and Sandra Chen. Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform. Course Technology, 2005.

Walker, Jesse. “Birth of a Medium.” Reason, vol. 35, no. 3, 2003, p. 57.

Williams, Dmitri, et al. “Can you hear me now? The impact of voice in an online gaming community.” Human Communication Research, vol. 33, no. 4, 2007, pp. 427-449.

Video games are well-suited for promoting a more extensive product in the sports industry, especially among the younger demographic. For example, Formula 1 uses official F1 games to introduce young fans to the sport (Walker, 2017). This decision is seemingly paying off, as Formula 1 steadily takes the younger audience away from NASCAR (Moriello, 2021). The following project management plan adapted from Verzuh (2021) describes the development stages of a NASCAR video game. The plan attempts to draw the features and gameplay mechanics by replicating the thought process of a potential player.

Initiation

The game would feature three NASCAR divisions: Truck Series, Xfinity Series, and Cup Series. The optimal genre is a combination of a racing simulator and an arcade. Children and teenagers, the core audience, should be able to have fun at an average difficulty level. Finally, the game would be released on PC and consoles, the two main gaming platforms.

Preproduction

The feature list would include several game modes, such as single race, championship, career, and multiplayer. An immersive career mode where a player would be able to create their own team and rise through the ranks to win the Cup championship would be a priority. The gameplay would be neither too realistic nor too simplistic. A top-level car should let players compete for wins even on harder difficulties.

Production

Designers and artists would create immersive, realistic-looking models of tracks and cars. The programmers would make a moderately challenging and aggressive AI that would become brutal only on the hardest difficulty. The list of core mechanics would include stage racing, timely cautions, a semi-realistic damage model, and a rival mechanic when AI drivers would try to retaliate if a player races them too aggressively.

Testing

Before release, the game should be adequately tested and well-optimized for consoles and medium- and high-end PCs. The testers should play the game on all difficulties and race length percentages and examine all career modes. Evaluating AI behavior at various racetracks and circumstances would be a priority.

Release

The marketing campaign would go on for several months before release to the public. At this stage, the game should be well-advertised and ready for release. Bug fixing and patching would continue following the release, according to feedback from the player base.

Post Mortem

At the final stage, the team would assess the feedback and draw a list of potential improvements for the next installment in the series.

References

Moriello, J. (2021). Formula 1 is winning over a key audience after a $4.4 billion gamble while the NFL and NASCAR struggle. Web.

Verzuh, E. (2021). The fast-forward MBA in project management (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley

Walker, K. (2017). F1 turns its attention to Esports and its younger fans.The New York Times. Web.

The cost of life is one of the most crucial issues facing families in the present society. In the game, I managed to keep my family members alive for a period of four years. However, I only managed to finish up with 139 gouds. I discovered that the key strategy to survival is the maintenance of good health. Although I initially tried balancing my family by allowing some members to attend to work while letting others go to school, I found this strategy to be quite a challenge. Apart from the living costs that I selected as poor, there were also other additional costs that played a role in balancing between work and health. At this point, I decided to keep my family alive for a prolonged period of time by trying to make some members go to work while keeping others in low-cost clinics. After this, I kept on raising them up after every season. This strategy worked but not to the topmost level simply because the burden of the living cost was gradually weighing down the overall income of my family.

What surprises me most about this game is that it is very realistic as far as my personal life is concerned. The game is actually a true representative of the experience we had as a family while in Canada. We had decided to migrate and settle in Canada. My father, who was an operational engineer failed to secure a well-paying job simply because his expertise and experience failed to coincide with the requirements of the operational engineers in Canada. My mother was a qualified doctor but also failed to meet the standards set in Canada for medical practitioners. Because of failure to meet the experience and education requirements, my parents failed to get good jobs. However, they had to resort to lower labor jobs since this was the only remaining option for us to earn a living. My dad has severally considered going back to school to get an additional degree in operational engineering so that he can be able to meet the educational requirements for better employment. On the other hand, this has not been possible since he is the breadwinner and any adjustments to his work program would mean not enough income for the family to survive. My parents kept on struggling and were able to buy our first family car in 1990 worth $45000. This was three years down the line after migrating to Canada. However, my sincere appreciation goes to the universal health service in Canada which ensured that personal health was not at stake. Their existence brought meaning to our lives as a family of three since none of us seriously got ill. In addition, Canada has a very advanced social support network that assisted us in meeting most of our necessities of life despite the fact that we were living below the poverty line.

The situation depicted in this game is quite surprising since I did not expect it to be so much related to my personal life experience. I guess this is the main reason why I found myself playing the game up to the end.

I appreciate this wonderful activity as it elaborates on the cost of successful living and other aspects of living different from the ones we experience in our daily life. The activity is a lesson to more fortunate individuals who do not understand the meaning of hardship.

Introduction

Childhood is a crucial period in people’s development because toddlers, children, and adolescents have a plethora of important choices and challenges to face. For instance, they have to choose new friends, hobbies, toys, and other activities or objects that will help them develop and socialize in their future lives. Therefore, this paper is to discuss and cover the topic of children’s interests and other things that young people usually have a passion for analyzing and compare them with different hobbies that these individuals might have as adults.

Discussion

Every child has some valuable toy or another object that one cannot give up under any circumstances. Usually, children like specific toys that are extremely interesting to them or something that they have been given as a present from beloved individuals (Smith, Cowie, & Blades, 2015). Moreover, young people do not understand the cost or physical value of different objects because their minds are not obsessed by a desire to show their income or success yet.

A Favourite Hobby

As to me, I was interested in video games when I was a child because this industry was at its beginning and almost every pupil was involved in it. Various computer and console games became very popular among young people due to an opportunity they have been giving to live a life of someone else in virtual reality (Smith et al., 2015). Perhaps, some children from my circles of fellowship were interested in gaming because they had boring lives due to particular financial problems.

Description of the Well-Loved Childhood Game

Although I was playing a plethora of various video games in my childhood, The Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was my favorite. This game was incredibly addicting when it just released because it introduced people to the nether world of murderous and greedy bandits. This game required a player to steal different vehicles, such as cars, motorcycles, boats, and even helicopters. Moreover, it contained a wide variety of weapons that were used for killing other characters, exploding automobiles, and fighting the local police.

Discussing Specific Qualities of the GTA Game

The first aspect that I liked about the game mentioned above was the fact that all my peers and friends were spending most of their spare time in front of computer screens because of it. Nevertheless, this game had so many objects or activities that I have never done in my life but strove to experience. The Grand Theft Auto was overwhelmed with mad missions that required killing the main character’s enemies, robbing various facilities, or stealing some valuable properties. These things were very attractive to children, as they did not understand what consequences the aforementioned activities might have in their lives (Smith et al., 2015). Almost every child that had a computer or any other video console was always discussing tricky missions or special achievements that one has gained in the game.

A Suitable Developmental Theory

The GTA video game had a major influence on my childhood and life in general because sometimes I could spend more than twelve hours per day in front of my computer screen to accomplish as many missions as it was possible. According to Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual development, children between the age of six and their puberty gain the most memorable knowledge, memories, and experiences in their lives that will be referred to as nostalgia as they become mature (Newman, & Newman, 2017). This activity had a significant impact on my life and vital philosophy as well. For instance, if I am involved in something new to me, I always want to become the best in a particular activity, and I am always ready to apply myself to various jobs or tasks to the full extent of my energy.

In my opinion, the addiction mentioned above can be explained with the help of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. This notable psychologist says that people need to satisfy their vital needs to feel happy (Maslow, 2014). Moreover, a higher need cannot be achieved if the lower ones are not stable yet. In my opinion, video game addiction refers to the third level of Maslow’s famous pyramid that implies the love and belonging of a person to something material in his or her life (Maslow, 2014). Usually, children do not face any difficulties in satisfying the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy that describe individuals’ physiological factors and people’s safety.

As was discussed above, I do not think that my addiction to video games in childhood has a significant influence on my life as an adult because I am not interested in such activities anymore. Nevertheless, it gave me some vital qualities, habits, and other factors that children gain to form their personal opinions or philosophies (Berger, 2016). However, certain childhood preferences remain a part of me until the present moment. For instance, I was interested in cooking, and I still like to develop new tastes and recipes. I always had to stay at home alone when I was a child because my parents had to work. The absence of their help made me start cooking. When I grew up, I noticed that I like making various experiments and unusual combinations of products.

Conclusion

As children do not have much experience in a plethora of activities in their lives, they always strive to obtain new emotions. Therefore, it is almost effortless to get young people interested and involved in a particular hobby. It is essential to develop and realize children’s desires because they might become professionals in a certain sphere. It is a well-known fact that people who have chosen their occupations in childhood are more successful and are much happier than their peers.

References

Berger, K. S. (2016). Invitation to the life span (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Worth.

Maslow, A. H. (2014). Toward a psychology of being. Bensenville, IL: Lushena Books.

Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (2017). Development through life: A psychosocial approach. Sydney, AU: Cengage Learning.

Smith, P. K., Cowie, H., & Blades, M. (2015). Undersatnding Children’s Development (6th ed.). Chichester, UK: Jonh Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Like other products of information technologies, video games penetrate modern reality and influence the behavior of the various groups that embrace them. Among the gaming community, children participate vigorously in absorbing the plethora of entertaining content, including age-restricted ones where the scenes of violence are abundant. Although some people claim that such depictions might provoke aggressive behavior, the evidence does not support it. Moreover, video games could be a useful device for drawing children’s attention to educational texts if presented properly.

First of all, a misconception concerning the ability of children to discern the reality and gaming world is often promoted by their disturbed parents. However, multiple experiments have been conducted on kindergarten children that attest their capacity to determine electronic devices’ video content on the subject of actuality (Li & et al., 2019). Therefore, children have cognitive abilities to exclude gaming experience from real-life occurring.

In the same manner, researchers might disprove the involvement of video games in increasing destructiveness. As observed in the research of Dowsett and Jackson (2019), “competition rather than violence within video games impacts aggression” (para. 1). More precisely, the rivalrous gameplay usually suggests defeat, which inflames the gamer in its turn. In brief, the tournament structure of a game could be the source of discontent and further aggression, not violence.

Above all, a video game might be an activity that instigates interests in various subjects of knowledge. The authors of narrative and concepts in the gaming industry aim to work on their products thoroughly, inserting in their ideas and facts from history, philosophy, linguistics, and natural science. Subsequently, such plentitude of connected conceits invites a gamer to begin an extra investigation that can lead to genuine engagement with an educational field. Thus, gaming is probably a presentable novelty of entertainment that contains information beneficial for children.

As has been stated, diverse views surround the gaming process, many of which are presumably misleading. One of these is consistent belief in children’s inability to perceive games as fantasy; nevertheless, children are apt to this from an early age. Also, a competitive attitude while gaming results in aggressive behavior, whereas violence does not produce such an effect. Finally, the gaming industry has the potential to educate children, which could be seen as its positive influence.

References

Dowsett, A., & Jackson, M. (2019). The Effect of violence and competition within video games on aggression. Computers in Human Behavior, 99, 22–27. Web.

Li, H., Liu, T., Woolley, J. D., & Zhang, P. (2019). Reality status judgments of real and fantastical events in children’s prefrontal cortex: An fNIRS study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13(444). Web.