writing an essay about...

[Combine Hybrid]

video games on society. I need to talk about both positive and negative things about video games. But I'm totally blank. I can only think about one or two.

can anyone give me some feedbacks?

 

[Laivasse]

Be bold and say that there's nothing negative. Challenge the tired old perception that games present some kind of sinister threat to youth just because they're something that the mass media doesn't fully understand.

Or if you do have to say anything negative, say that they're still in their relative infancy compared to other mediums of entertainment, both in terms of technology and creativity, so it's not always easy to find video games that have the same maturity of vision as, say, the average novel. You could then balance that by saying that they are improving, then go on to mention a few games that push the envelope a bit and say how they do so.

Your teacher probably knows very little about video games and is expecting you to write something like 'GOOD POINTS: THEY CAN BE VERY FUN FOR US KIDZ, BAD POINTS: SOME KIDS SPEND TOO LONG PLAYING THEM + DON'T GO OUTSIDE, PLUS SOME GAMES ARE TOO VIOLENT AND THAT'S NOT GOOD'. Be brave and make an attempt to inform him/her instead of being formulaic - the best way to get a decent grade is to write passionately and pleasantly surprise your teacher/lecturer with something insightful.

Say what you want, essentially, but let's face it games are GOOD for society. Any broadening of the popular spectrum of recreation and entertainment is a good thing, especially when it is as stimulating as games have been reported to be. There's a thread around here somewhere linking to an article that says children who play a lot of games have been found to achieve very well in school and have good problem-solving skills. Maybe you could dig that up and have something to namedrop. That always ups the sophistication.

BREAK DA STEREOTYPES! FIGHT DA POWA!

 

[Combine Hybrid]

can you provide any links that has to do with why video games is good?

 

[Letters]

Video games are fun and all but they don't really contribute anything, good or bad, to society... well, it's another topic of conversation, if that counts...

Going for the whole better problem solving stuff seems like reaching to me. But I'll admit I have no clue what the hell "broadening of the popular spectrum of recreation and entertainment" is supposed to mean. Maybe they do that... thing.

The violence thing is already done to death... plus I think it has little affect on anything, which makes for a boring paper.

Too late to change your topic?

 

[Combine Hybrid]

I just need to write about video games in general that has anything to do with society.

BTW, I need some links or articles (I can't find any articles regarding games on society).

 

[Sulkdodds]

Video games and society? That's really totally boring.

It's overplayed for one thing and it's also nebulous. I guess you could find some scientific studies that claim video games are great for society. And then perhaps you could find some that would claim the opposite. Your report would have incredible integrity.

More interesting would be to analyse videogames themselves!

For example: aesthetics/game mechanics. We popularly hold that 'how it plays' is different to 'how it looks' and that the primary focus of a game should be on the former. But is that a tenable division? You could write an essay explaining the difference between the two and then argue that aesthetics are always incontrovertibly linked to, and in fact are a function of, game mechanics.

Alternatively, you could talk about the way that games, in trying to express things, have often fallen back on the tropes of drama, film, even the novel - instead of using their most unique element. A game is fundamentally about interaction, the interaction of a player with a system, and it's this system of interaction that developers must pay more attention to when they are trying to convey messages, when they are trying to convey games as art; note the free flash game which preaches an anti-war message through its mechanics (shoot terrorists, but if you hit civilians, two terrorists spawn in their place); look at Operation Flashpoint, which aims to accurately and horrifically represent war by making the player literally a cog in the machine; maybe the first half-life, where there's a pretty perfect unity of game mechanic - linear, deterministic, you can't stop yourself from doing bad things (ie test chamber) - with storyline (it's all a test for the G-man; how many trains are there? There's no such thing as choice).

You could talk about the infiltration of videogame aesthetic into film, and the way film critics often compare a film to a videogame as a negative criticism; you could show how films like Doom and Resident Evil and even non-adaptions such as Van Helsing basically try to be really bad videogames with levels and items and stupid quests and end-bosses. You could then turn the argument on its head because real videogames have to get the whole input-feedback dynamic (ie how things feel) perfect, whereas 'videogamey' in film criticism means 'weightless and plastic' which is not how a good videogame normally feels.

All of these ideas are stupid but I would say they are more interesting than 'videogames and society'.

 

[Pesmerga]

Man, what happened to essays that had to be like... specific.

 

[Letters]

Yeah if you just wanted to write about games in some way, that'd be the way to do it. Video Games and Society just screams 'hey I'm trying too hard to write about something I'm interested in by fitting it into a generic school essay topic that'll make it seem like I didn't just want to write about games'. Any of Sulk's topics are far more interesting... and when ya write about something interesting, the paper pretty much writes itself.

Good luck getting much of anything in the way of "official sources" for anything on games, though. Would likely have to get creative on that one... interviews with game developers and stuff? **** I dunno.

 

[Laivasse]

Academics always love 'social and cultural context'. No matter how irrelevant or difficult it is to relate to a given topic, it's what they want to hear about. Writing about the composition of games without relating it to the wider world might be interesting to us, but outside of a dedicated Computer Game Design course you're unlikely to find a teacher who won't just yawn and say 'lovely, but what does it mean for society?'

On the other hand, saying 'games are fun and all' simply doesn't make for a good essay. You will have to bullshit, it's a given.

 

[Combine Hybrid]

sulk, by writing about what you said is not going to let me pass the sociology class. Although, I am going to mention some stuffs you wrote in my essay...

 

[Sulkdodds]

If it's sociology, you should have picked a better topic.

But really - good luck getting anything conclusive on this matter. I'm no sociologist, but what can you say? Games are replacing books and maybe even TV as a shared childhood (everybody gets a tetris reference)? Games are isolating people? Games are connecting people because they are more active and participatory and more conducive to having friends round than just watching TV? Woohoo, great, but any of these might have required actual research and there isn't too much of it available.

You can't even talk about "games are/are not ruining society" because that's primarily psychological (comes down to examining the effect a videogame has on each person) and also a load of bullshit.

So basically: either do something else, or blag it, in which case the real question you should be asking is "hey sociology people how can I talk about videogames within the context of our shared discipline?"

 

[Pesmerga]

and also a load of bullshit.

Woah, for a class essay? Unheard of!

 

[Laivasse]

If it's sociology, you should have picked a better topic.

I disagree, this topic is a goldmine. I would have given my right arm to have essays on stuff like this instead of Silas ****ing Marner. As vague and waffly as it is, there is good mileage in any one of the soundbytes that Sulks just mentioned. If you're looking for references then books may be thin on the ground, but online everyone and their dog have said something about the effect of videogames on society - a quick dig turns up something like this or this or this.

So what if it's generic and vague, it's an essay. Find a direction you want to take it and do it convincingly, your teacher will be bowled over by the critical prowess of the digital generation, yada yada, and stamp an A on your forehead.