Concerns Such as Excessive Playing Time:
Kids who spend too much time at the computer are missing out on other activities fundamental to their physical, social, intellectual and emotional development. Time spent in front of the computer or game consoles is time taken away from playing with friends and other outside activities.
Social Isolation:
This was taken from a survey I found which measured the social skills of a child addicted to video games to one not addicted: The results showed that generally, there was a significant difference between the social skills of students addicted to computer games and normal students. The conclusion was: As the study results showed, addiction to computer games may affect the quality and quantity of social skills. In other words, the higher the addiction to computer games, the less the social skills.
Cost:
Games cost a lot to produce, a article I have read explained that the recently release of 'Destiny' reportedly cost $500m to develop. That means when children go to buy these games they are going to be vastly expensive as the price tag was much higher to produce the game as opposed to a game only costing $100m to develop. That isn't all though, some games you have to play monthly with them mainly being MMORPG's such as RuneScape, World of Warcraft and Club Penguin in which you will have to pay monthly or annually to get access to the full games which is still costing a whole lot to play a game. Below is a image of the RuneScape 3's member sign up page in which they give you certain deals if you sign up to certain things or within a certain time period.
There has been a growing concern as people have tried to mimic some of their favourite games and has result in tragic endings. Some examples of this are games that include things such as, stealing cars, racing, violence and even murder. An example of this is the game "Manhunt" in which you play a character in a strange and dangerous situations, this was also related to a murder in the UK after someone playing the game was claimed to be obsessed with the game. People attempting to mimic games usually never has a good outcome and that it is important to display warnings in games. An example is racing games having a generic warning to not race cars unless your on a race track and are a professional. Games such as 'Grand Theft Auto' have always been in the spotlight for having a bad influence on young people as they are easily accessible to under-age gamers.
From reading the previous paragraphs in this blog you wouldn't expect any good things to be mentioned about gaming but I assure you there are, for example: Hand-eye-coordination: In a recent study it proves that video games can help your hand eye coordination. Surgeons that play video games have a lot lower chance of making a mistake while performing a procedure. It is recommended that surgeons play a specially developed video game before surgery in order to “warm up”. The study found that surgeons who played video games for at least three hours a week made 37% fewer mistakes and performed the procedure 27% faster than those who did not play video games.
Thinking & Strategy Skills:
It doesn't take much imagination to see why it's such a valuable life skill. Not see the benefits of laying out a realistic five year plan? Of navigating a fulfilling career path? As long as these aren't taken to the extreme, they can be very helpful. But even more so, this kind of 'thinking ahead' is immensely important in social contexts. Don't let it overwhelm you, but it is a good skill to have in moderation. Basic strategy games such as 'Angry Birds' and 'Game of War' and even more complex ones such as 'Dota 2' and 'League of Legends' can be a great step in the right direction for developing strategy skills. Below is an image of an Dota 2 strategy, showing you the different routes and techniques.
Future Impact:
The future of gaming could go one of two ways, either for bad or for good. For Bad: this generation of children could grow up to be influenced highly by the video games of today in the way of violence, sexism and racism. Then when they become of age they could hand down these traits to their children as 'Children See, Children Do'. Or it could be for good as children of this generation could make great livings from gaming whether it be playing and filming (YouTube for example) or developing games for themselves and inspiring the younger generation to follow suit. Personally, I believe for the better and I think a very small group of people will see something violent on games and go out and actually replicate. I think it's wrong to assume that children can't decide for themselves what's real and not and to tar everyone with the same brush because one child did something silly that it means every child will do the same.
Impact on Mainstream App Development:
Apps are constantly being developed and are in constant need or more advanced hardware to develop on. Apps are a weird one when it comes to gaming in the way that anything could work; for example the popular 'Flappy Bird' became insanely popular pretty much overnight and that was the most simplest idea. This can and will inspire App Developers to think outside the box and think 'What do people really want?' and think and develop something that could very easily catch on like 'Flappy Bird' did. For the console side it's very much the same in the way that they are always looking to expand to new and different hardware, for example 'Oculus Rift' a VR piece of hardware and also now 3D games. The picture below is of the Flappy Bird review chart, as you can see it was downloaded frantically in a short space of time and become very popular, very fast.
Psychological Factors:
Sound:
Sound in Video Games is extremely important, after all, it will be one of the first things you will notice and to have a great soundtrack whether it be the menu screen, collecting item sound effects or just the music in the background whilst fighting in a boss battle it all matters. It can make or break a game having good audio in your game. It needs to make the players feel enthusiastic and epic during battles. mysterious during exploration scenes and heroic during end scenes. For example a game like Skyrim where 90% of the time you will be out in the wilderness exploring and fighting you will need great exploration music, something not too loud or crazy but something that blends nicely into the background. When they engage in Battle the music should increase in volume and also increase in dramatic effect and intensity to make the player feel empowered.
A big thing game developers can make do is add High Score Listings to make you feel like a big fish in a small pond. This is because people who are ranked near the top of a group actually feel better about themselves than those ranked near the bottom of a higher performing group. Sometimes all it takes to make you feel like the smartest person all you have to do is have the high score on Tetris.
Competitive Games.
Games are very competitive nowadays, especially online ones such as Call of Duty and MMORPGs, in which you are against other humans of course that will spring a lot of competition between everyone. In a way that is good as it's getting people to socialize and meet new people online but in majority it's bad because if someone is a bit better than you and you are getting killed a lot on games in can cause a lot of frustration and when you get frustrated you can say somethings you don't necessarily mean and act in a way you normally don't. A lot of controllers and TV's have been broken over games such as Call of Duty so it is causing a lot of the casual gamers to become frustrated or in some cases just giving up on the multiplayer side of the game because they are getting beaten all the time.
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