Reflection

Overall, I thought this was one of the best projects we have done all semester. I liked the fact that we didn't have to write a paper and have it flow smoothly with the rest of our group members. Having group members made this project better in that we were able to look at our other group members posts and be able to take ideas or go in different directions based on there posts. Working with group members has taught me that communication is highly important and being able to work with others to get a job done is important because that’s something your going to have to do in life. Like Anneliese said, I also enjoyed being able to pick the topic that we wanted to blog about. By doing this it gave us freedom to make this blog personal and blog about something we thought might be interesting or something we weren't quite familiar with. I think the gaming community was an interesting community to choose because I personally am not a gamer so before even starting this project I had my stereotypes of a typical gamer, glasses, a nerd, sitting in front of there computer all day. But by taking the opportunity to get out and explore the gaming community I have learned that not everyone that plays video games is a 'nerd'. This project really helped to open me up to another community outside of my own and break those stereotypes I had. In conclusion, I really enjoyed this project, I thought it was very engaging and one of the best projects we have done all semester. 

Conclusion

After all the research that I have done over the course of this project I have come to the conclusion that video games are starting to take over the world and arcade games aren't as popular as they once were. I was also able to draw the conclusion that video gaming in the United States is more something people do for fun, in there free time. While people in other countries, South Korea for example take video gaming really seriously and it has become a major problem, even resulting in death. This made me stop and think, if video gaming can lead to death and have major consequences they why are people trying to defend video games and say they aren't bad?

Video Games Aren't Actually Bad For Kids

-Anneliese Feldner

Observation and Questionnaire

A couple days into the project I had made a decision to take a survey as to what people of varying ages thought about video gaming. The majority of the elderly people rejected the idea of gaming. Most thought it was "A waste of time" or "they are bad.", and replied with sentences such as; "They kill your brain cells"and "I don't like them. They teach the children horrid things." When I asked people between the aged of 18 and 21 most liked the concept of video games. When I asked, 8 out of 10 males had a video gaming system in their apartments/rooms. For the females the outcome was 4 out of 10. I then took the freedom to ask each person if they would categorize themselves as having good hand-eye coordination. As I predicted more males than females stated that they did indeed have good hand-eye coordination. When I asked children between the ages of 9 and 14 most of them thought of video gaming as a positive and amazing thing. Most didn't see any negatives of it. I then asked them what their favorite methods of study were. Most replied.."electronically." Most children these days are now using ipads, computers, and electronic devices to study from and educate themselves with.

I thought these observations were quite interesting. Some of them I could have predicted but other answers I was definitely not expecting.

-Anneliese Feldner

My Reflection

Looking back on this project I would say that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. My first impression of the project was that it would not be very engaging, but as the observations continued I realized that it really can be. It just depends on how much one is willing to put into it. Overall it taught me several things:
1. Never judge. Just like the saying "Never judge a book by its cover" neither can we judge people based upon their appearance. You never know what other people are going through or what they have been through in their past. I learned not to judge people by their looks because some of the people who dress poorly are some of the most intelligent, funny, and even caring people out there.
2. Observing isn't just about watching. It's about watching and engaging, interacting, and being apart of the community; whether it be solely physical or by just your presence.
3. We all have our different ways of cooping. What might seem weird to us is normal to others. Some turn to shopping while others turn to video gaming and the community of people who engage in that form of entertainment.
4. Being friendly and open is the best way to get to know someone, especially strangers.

I enjoyed this project much more than I did with the previous projects. I liked this one a lot better due to the fact that we as students were able to pick and choose our own topics to write about. It was much more free writing and experimenting than the others. I also liked how we got to work as a group yet can post our own writings and did not have the stress of collaborating everyone's ideas into a flowing paper. Personally I liked the community that we chose. Even though I myself am not a gamer, I find that community fascinating.

-Anneliese Feldner

South Korea Computer Gaming Culture

Ping Zhou states, “South Korea is a country infatuated with video games. It is a place where professional gamers earn six-figure contracts, date supermodels, and are treated as A-list celebrities. Cyber competitions are nationally televised and they fill-up stadiums. In this country, gaming is not just a hobby; it’s a way of life.

Most Koreans play their games outside of their homes in local gaming rooms called “PC bangs”. A bang is a local area network gaming center were players pay an hourly fee to play multiplayer games. Most bangs are cheap anywhere from $1.00 to $1.50. South Korea currently has over 20,000 active PC bangs.  They compared going to a bang like going to the movies or the bar.

For people in South Korea video gaming truly is a way of life. It’s considered a national sport. There are currently 10 professional gaming leagues in the country. The rewards for winning a league were enormous. Some of South Koreas most famous gamers could earn up to $400,000 a year from gaming and sponsorships.

I decided to do more research on this after my class shared the idea of how intense video gaming can be in other countries. This came as a shock, I didn't realize how big of a deal video games could be. I see video games as being more of a leisure activity something people do for fun. Never did I ever think about it being a competition.

But with so many people in South Korea involved with video gaming, gaming addiction is now one of the major problems South Koreans face. Video gaming has become a life-threatening epidemic.

“In 2005, a 28-year-old man died from cardiac arrest after playing for 50 hours straight. In 2009, a married couple got so immersed in a game where they took care of a virtual infant that they neglected to feed their real life infant, which eventually died of starvation. The parents received a two-year prison sentence”.

The country has tried to bring a stop to the heavy addiction. The government has spent money on clinics, campaigns, and programs to minimize the problem. In 2011, the government imposed a “Cinderella Law” which was a law that prevents anyone under 16 from playing online games from midnight to 6 a.m.

This was something new for me I knew nothing about competitive video gaming and the consequences it could have. But all I can say is they must be hard-core gamers in South Korea.

http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/South-Korea-Computer-Gaming-Culture.htm

Reflection

Overall I really enjoyed this project. I thought that using a blog gave me much more freedom than being limited to a paper. I was able to post links, pictures, and interviews that I had found in my research. Another thing I liked about this project was that we could work in groups. I especially enjoyed using blogger, because it gave me the opportunity to read through my group members posts and use some of the information they had learned in my posts, and vise versa. I enjoyed being able to present our progress to the class as well. This gave me a chance to hear opinions and suggestions from our classmates about what they felt would be an effective way to further progress our blog. In the long run, I would highly suggest this project over a final paper, as it gave students a chance to express their opinions and research in a way that many of us have never done before.

Conclusion

After looking farther into the culture of video games, I was able to come to a conclusion. By researching the difference between the United States and other countries it was obvious that video games where looked at very differently. In foreign countries, video games are thought to not only be a source of relaxation, but a source of income.

In my research I was able to a store clerk at the Game Room. I specifically asked him about competitive video games, after peers in my class directed me in that direction. He mentioned to me that  in some places, video games are as popular (and in some cases more) than actual sports. This news came shocking to me. I could never see something like that happening in the United States.

Previous to this project, I was aware that competitive gaming was a popular hobby to many in the U.S. And I knew that by winning these competitions, one could make a couple thousand dollars. But that was all it was to me, a hobby; I would have never guessed that people can make a career out of video games.

The conclusion I have made is that video games are more than a source of relaxation in foreign countries, its a way to make a living. And I truly believe that something like this will never be possible in the U.S. After reading and talking to video game advocates, its obvious that a culture like this is frowned upon in the U.S. People look down at people who spend their days playing video games, a deem this lifestyle socially unacceptable; unlike foreign countries where this would be completely normal.

Game Room observations

When I was walking to the Game Room over on 17th & "O" Street all I was thinking about was, really okay, I have to go spend a good amount of my time, watching preadolescences play, loud obnoxious, noise making boxes, while drinking Mountain Dew and eating Cheetos.  This type of environment or community is extremely foreign to me so honestly I was not looking forward to the next couple hours of my life.

As I approached the store I noticed a really cool, very colorful store front, with the name spelled out in what I would probably call "Pac-Man" font.  I thought hey this is kind of cool.  As I walked in I was expecting to experience sensory overload from blinking lights, and various beeping sounds, but what I found was more of a retail atmosphere, somewhat quite, more subdued and patrons focused mainly on playing gaming consoles and not so much on what I would call "arcade" games.  In fact the arcade games were located over in a back, virtually unused.

The people/patrons of the Game Room probably surprised me as much as the atmosphere did.  I found the diversity of the group to be interesting, stemming from UNL Athletes, to dead beat adults, to just a few of my dreaded preadolescences, to what I would refer to as "Gamers".

After a few minutes of observing I decided to make an observation of the general relation between gamers and that community of people to their appearance. I counted; 8 out of 10 people walked in wearing clothes too big for their form. Most smelled like smoke and when they smiled their teeth had been yellowed and worn down. Most of the women had their hair dyed un-natural colors. As for the men, about half of them had long hair, enough to pull back into a ponytail. The other half's hair was greasy and tousled. Overall their physical appearance was not in tip top condition; however, I probably heard them laugh more than the general person. It made me realize a couple things. It forced me to see that people are and can be very content and happy with life without having all the luxuries of a rich man. It also made me see a pattern in the community. The way people dress is very dependent on how the people around them dress. For example most sorority girls will curl their hair, put on a nice dress and a big blingy necklace. That is a commonality for a sorority. For the gamers here, it appeared to be the thing to dress the way they do; oversized shirts and baggy pants, maybe a pop cap and usually some sort of gold.    

The interesting thing was how all of these people interacted with each other, sharing a common interest, and relating to each other through this one commonality Gaming.

-Anneliese Feldner

The Game Room

The first thing that went through my head when I thought of arcades and video games was a stereotypical ‘nerd’, glasses, intensely focused on there game. When I first visited The Game Room, located roughly 17^th and O St. in downtown Lincoln, I didn't know what to expect or what type of people I would find. The first thing when walking in was that it was mainly a store that sold video games, and movies, with maybe a few arcade games.

I noticed that the arcade games were sitting in the corner and no one was playing them. One had a note that said, “Play at your own risk”. They were kind of pushed to the side, with the main focus on PlayStation or X-box games. This goes to show that arcade games aren’t as big of a deal as they may have been back in the day. As our society becomes more and more technologically advanced and more focused on making things smaller and more compact the idea of arcade games is sort of fading in the background.

As for the people that were found at The Game Room the majority of them to me looked like nerds, with the majority of the people wearing glasses, and looking like they would be some hard-core gamers. Most of them were older with a few younger kids looking at movies. What did surprise me as far as the type of people that would be found in a store like The Game Room was an athlete from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. That was a big surprise to me because coming in with the idea of the typical nerd was changed by seeing an athlete from the University because he was the total opposite of what a stereotypical nerd might look like.

True Arcade

These are a few pictures I found of a authentic arcade in Europe. The biggest thing I noticed are that there are no ticket booths, no prize tables, just hundreds of original arcade games for people to enjoy.

Arcade Pictures

One thing to notice is obviously the prize table, but the types of games being played at these arcades. American arcades have been tailored specifically to young children, opposed to more mature culture seen other places.

Champions Fun Center

When I visited Champions Fun Center, on Yolande Ave, I was immediately engulfed in children running around everywhere. The first thing you see is a bunch of rug-rats sprinting on what was obviously a sugar high, to the front desk where they could exchange their tickets for cheap prizes. I watched for while as the kids kept running back and forth from the arcade to the desk, always amazed at what different prizes where available.

Before I came to Champions, I had done some research into what a traditional arcade setting would look like, and realized that this 'Americanized' version of an arcade was nothing like the real thing. Everything I read about took place in ether Japan or Europe, nothing taking place in the U.S. The arcades they talked about never involved young children playing for tickets, but adults playing seriously for pride and high scores. At these arcades men and women (mostly older) have the choice at hundreds of authentic arcade games, enough to spend whole days playing. I read that at most places, one can purchase year round memberships, with access 24 hours to the arcade. Again, I read more about how seriously these games are taken. People will spend hours trying to break their/others high scores, for no prize at all.

As I watched the kids run around, I wondered what makes American arcades so different than other places. When you think of any arcade in the U.S. (Dave & Busters, Brunswik zone, ect.) everything involves prizes. It is rare to find someone who solely goes to an arcade to break someone's high score. I believe it has to do with American's being material greedy; there has to be some sort of prize, otherwise it isn't worth doing. It is obvious that in other countries, arcades are a place of refuge for individuals, a place that they can hang out with friends and be themselves.

When I entered Champions, it was clear that this was not a place of relaxation. Arcades like this are everywhere in the U.S; places for parents to occupy their young children for short periods of time. The U.S. has turned the relaxed culture of arcades, and turned them into a industry, completely taking away from what they truly are meant to be.

Violent Video Game Law Enforced

A new law is set to be enforced in Indianapolis prohibiting children from playing violent and sexually provocative video arcade games. This law requires anyone under 18 to get parental permission before playing violent or sexy video games. Arcades that violate the law face fines and could eventually be closed. A petition was sought to prevent the video game law from going into effect. But in a ruling by the U.S. District Judge David Hamilton, he ruled the law could be enforced. The law does not intend to eliminate violent games but to regulate their access by young consumers. Such games that are violent or sexually provocative must have warning labels on them, and arcade owners must keep them at least 10 feet away from nonviolent games. Violent video games must be separated by a wall or curtain. Underage kids can only play these games if accompanied by a parent o guardian. If a businesses fails to follow the law they could be fined $200 and businesses with three violations within a year have to remove the violent games altogether and could have their amusement machine licenses revoked.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95401

Struggling Arcades in the U.S.

In this interview with Brian Ashcraft, a arcade enthusiast, he talks about the thriving arcade culture in Japan, and what makes it so successful. He also touches on why Arcades have struggled in the U.S. and if we can ever expect a renewed interest in them.

Why do you think arcades failed in the USA?

"I don’t think they failed. I think they were, for a period, highly successful. But things like location hurt the industry over time. If you have to drive to an arcade, that hurts it’s business. Because that means you must plan to go there. You cannot just pop in for a quick game and then go on your merry way."

Article Link

Prevention of Alzheimers

Some studies have shown that video games help prevent or slow down mental disabilities such as Alzheimers.

Playing brain-teasing game for 2 hours a week may help slow the degree of mental decay associated with the natural aging process, according to a study this year from the University of Iowa.

A study of 681 healthy individuals ages 50 and older revealed that playing 10 hours of a specially designed video game was able to stall the natural decline of different cognitive skills by up to seven years, in some cases.

Over five to eight weeks, one group of seniors was given computerized crossword puzzles while three other groups played a computer game called "Road Tour." The game involves matching pictures of vehicles while remembering the location of a particular road sign as more and more "distractors" appear as the player advanced. The experience is meant to mirror the difficulty older drivers have when they have to process information from multiple points of view at an intersection.

"Whether it's a specially manufactured game or something like 'World of Warcraft,' games are cognitively complex and require mental energy and abilities to play them," said Jason Allaire, an associate professor in the department of psychology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who was not involved with the study. "Whenever you do anything that requires mental energy, you're exercising your abilities -- it's just like if you exercise your muscles, you get stronger."

-Anneliese Feldner 

Video Games and Jobs

This article talked about the incorporation of video games into everyday jobs. Really interesting stuff,  and it truely proves that the video game world is evolving quickly in front of our eyes.


Guy Halfteck, CEO of Knack, said in an interview with TechTarget that the games provide an infinite amount of data in a smaller amount of time than most interviews. "It's such a complex system that every millisecond of gameplay translates into hundreds of data variables," he said. "What you chose to do, what you chose not to do, how quickly you did things, how you changed your game play over time -- all those behaviors help us tease out your abilities and personality characteristics."

Article Link

Largest Arcade in the World

Funspot, was named the largest arcade in the world in 2008 by Guinness World Records. It is located in Laconia, New Hampshire. It was founded in 1952 by Bob Lawton, who still works there every day. Funspot is the home to over 600 games including 300 classic arcade games, a 20 lane bowling center, cash bingo, and indoor and outdoor mini golf.

http://www.funspotnh.com

Negative and Positive Effects of Gaming

Studies have shown that video games have a huge role to play in human behavior and have a distinctive  affect on the brain.

Negative effects:

-Obesity 
-Attention problems 
-Poor school performace 
-Video game addiction 
-Violent video games can influence violent behavior, aggressive thoughts and feelings. 

Positive Effects:
-Spatial navigation
-Memory formation
-Stragetic planning 
-Fine motor skills