Hi,
My gaming experience has been limited to one period in my life.When my daughter was six I bought her a Nintendo for Christmas. I'm embarrassed to say that I became addicted to it for a brief time. I loved playing super Mario brothers and the legend of Zelda,but once I mastered them I lost interest with them. That was twenty years ago, my son Collin is thirteen and has a x-box 360, which he plays call of duty on and doesn't seem to spend a whole lot of time on unless it is live.I have no interest even though it was enjoyable at the time, maybe it's my age?
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Introduction
My gaming experience has been a rather mixed one there have been times when that has been my favourite thing to do and there has been times when i haven't touched a gaming station for months on end. I got my first gaming system of my uncle who had got a brand new one when i was about 6 (1995) it was a Sega Mega drive, where the only real games that i can remember playing on it was sonic the hedgehog or the only soccer game for it. I would only seem to play this when i wasn't aloud to go play with my friends outside because it would be raining or something like that. It seemed to be like that for the next couple years until i remember asking for a PlayStation one Christmas when i was about 10 because it was the new big thing. I do remember for the first year that i had that i was on it religiously when i got a chance to mainly playing the latest FIFA game and completing a season with my favourite teams. I was like this for around a year and half and then i only ever seemed to play my PlayStation when i had friends over. I seemed to fall out of interests with computer games when i got to secondary school and must of gone about four years without really touching one, until a group of my friends started to play in an online shooting game which turned out to be a lot of fun for a number of months. In about 2005 i managed to trade a DVD player with my uncle for his PlayStation 2 and had the same sort of feeling as i had done with the PlayStation one. I only ever seemed to play on that console when i had friends over. Two Christmas ago my family got a Wii and i played sonic Olympics for the first two weeks we had it religiously but ever since then i haven't really spent much time with computer games except when spending time with friends.
Introduction
Also being a child of the seventies, I feel that my life and my life style has been greatly impacted, possibly even defined, by my use of electronics, games in particular. The range of gaming products that have often been a significant portion of my everyday life is astounding, starting with PAC -Man and the lovely Miss PAC -Man, maturing through some early PlayStation and PC games such as Unreal Tournament and The Sims. My family now possess an XBox 360, a Wii along with the Wii Fit and all of it's various components, a PlayStation 2 and four computers, and any kind of game imaginable can be found in our living room.
Throughout the years I have spent hours upon hours playing god to my Sims and engaging in dangerous high speed races in million dollar race cars equipped with nitrous. These games have offered not only entertainment, but distraction, even escape as I spent days on end at home caring for my young children. Many periods of my life can be recalled by the game I was into at the time, or what new electronic gadget I was currently entertaining myself, be it my Walkman, my beeper, or later, my cell phone and i-pod. As I have progressed throughout my married life and the true non- stop-risk-taking game of raising two sons entering their preteen years, these games have metamorphosed into an outstanding 3-d version of their predecessors, and games such as Halo and the new NBA and NFL Xbox video games look like airbrushed versions of reality.
The shadows that Socrates speaks of in the Plato reading "Allegory of a Cave" can be seen through what these games provide to the consumer: a chance to not only glimpse, but to actually become a part of a new life, whether the new lifestyle is silly, dangerous or glamorous. These onscreen realities are the shadows, which, being seen as reality for long enough, becomes the perception of what really is.
As the years have passed, the technologies used in the production of various kinds of video games, both online or not, have grown by leaps and bounds. As this growth has occurred, availability of gameplaying has dramatically increased, ultimately becoming a large part of most Americans' everyday life. In my own family, every member has certain games they prefer and play often, and almost every evening our family spends at least an hour playing Wii sports games together.
This accesibility has allowed gaming to essentially reach across generations, as there are games and systems tailored for every age group. As I write this my nine year old son is playing a game on an internet gaming site for children as my thirty six year old husband is enjoying a football game using XBox Live.
The exploration of these games which are now an integral part of our society will be a very enlightening journey. It will be very interesting to look into this aspect of our culture and understand how it has affected our relationships, our communication and our effectiveness in general, both positively and negatively.
Throughout the years I have spent hours upon hours playing god to my Sims and engaging in dangerous high speed races in million dollar race cars equipped with nitrous. These games have offered not only entertainment, but distraction, even escape as I spent days on end at home caring for my young children. Many periods of my life can be recalled by the game I was into at the time, or what new electronic gadget I was currently entertaining myself, be it my Walkman, my beeper, or later, my cell phone and i-pod. As I have progressed throughout my married life and the true non- stop-risk-taking game of raising two sons entering their preteen years, these games have metamorphosed into an outstanding 3-d version of their predecessors, and games such as Halo and the new NBA and NFL Xbox video games look like airbrushed versions of reality.
The shadows that Socrates speaks of in the Plato reading "Allegory of a Cave" can be seen through what these games provide to the consumer: a chance to not only glimpse, but to actually become a part of a new life, whether the new lifestyle is silly, dangerous or glamorous. These onscreen realities are the shadows, which, being seen as reality for long enough, becomes the perception of what really is.
As the years have passed, the technologies used in the production of various kinds of video games, both online or not, have grown by leaps and bounds. As this growth has occurred, availability of gameplaying has dramatically increased, ultimately becoming a large part of most Americans' everyday life. In my own family, every member has certain games they prefer and play often, and almost every evening our family spends at least an hour playing Wii sports games together.
This accesibility has allowed gaming to essentially reach across generations, as there are games and systems tailored for every age group. As I write this my nine year old son is playing a game on an internet gaming site for children as my thirty six year old husband is enjoying a football game using XBox Live.
The exploration of these games which are now an integral part of our society will be a very enlightening journey. It will be very interesting to look into this aspect of our culture and understand how it has affected our relationships, our communication and our effectiveness in general, both positively and negatively.
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