Researching Gaming

Researching online games can seem like an impossible task considering that it doesn't resemble a scholarly art. However you may be surprised to find that there is a robust amount of research on the subject. If you can access the college's research databases from home there is a good deal of scholarly research on the subject. Right now I can't use them because they removed the link from the faculty portal. Who knows why they do what they do. Many reliable resources can be found on the interwebs by searching for your subject and then following the hyperlinks to the main source. For example you may find a short blurb on a gaming website about some research that was conducted. If you are viewing a reputable source they will always hyperlink their source for information. In this way you can often find the initial source of research instead of relying on someones summary of it.

Below are a few places you will be able to find many articles on line:

Game Studies

Game Research

Game
Politics.com

Pew Research Center: This is a highly respected research center with a funny name.

Games+Learning+Research

Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture

That should get you started. Be sure to post on the blog today regarding your area of research and why you decided to do it. If anyone wants to research censorship please take a look at Australia and their laws. They have basically banned any game that you would,t let your three year old play. People there are rightfully angry about it. You can find a running commentary of the issues here.

Thursday
Remember that if you did not hand in the paper or the journals yet that you are running out of time. The grades will available today on the student portal.
Keep up the good work!

Friday

I am now awaiting your final papers so i can finish the grades and start a new semester. Thanks for a great winterim and I hope to see you on campus soon.

Jeremy

Questions for Research Paper

Research for the paper is slightly different then research for other topics, as the subject of gaming isn't usually taken seriously. This seems to be notable at least for how society views gaming.

My main questions would be as follows. Are we required to have one or more academic journals for reference? What I've gathered so far, I have honestly done so from just the web. I can check Proquest, however, and see if I find any more info. Also, must our paper correlate specifically to our game, or can it just relate to gaming in general?

My research topic

I will be researching the evolution of games- from Pong to Wii Fit, how has gaming evolved? Are "bigger and better" games necessarily healthy for our society?

I think this will be an interesting topic because of the controversy surrounding games, and newer innovations like Wii Fit.

Research topic

I am going to be researching the differences in online games and what attracts different people to the different games. I am going to look at and determine between three different online games and compare them to see why i think they are popular and what attracts people to playing each game. Also i will look at whether age restrictions on games has an effect on its popularity, i personally don't think it will because a parent normally buys a child a restricted game anyway. I will be keen to see why people prefer shoot em up games like "fallen earth" opposed to a game like "world of war craft".

Gaming in relation to prosperity and democracy

I think that there are definitely ways that the information age will make a difference to democracy but i am not to sure that gaming can have an affect on this. I think that within the next 50 years people will be voting via some computer aided device, and the way that we can view all democratic issues will be looked at differently and broken down better via computers. I think that with the fact that there are now 24/7 news Channel's on the television has made a huge difference in democracy. Anything that is now an issue is now all over the news so that everyone can see. In the future i think that the Internet will start to play a bigger part to the way we look at everything, even bigger than it already has. I think that because of the Internet that no one will be able to not vote and the more detail in the analysis of everything that becomes provide because of the Internet will make sure every single aspect is not missed.

Final Project Thesis

Late Post From Yesterday

I have decided to investigate further into the possible educational, ethical and general effects of engaging in MMORPG play.

This is the thesis I plan on using:

"Although the potential for great benefit to the player in terms of education, ethical development and the ability to contribute to the community does indeed exist in many Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, (MMORPGs), the true impact to the player is dependent both upon the proper and responsible usage by the player and the game's content itself.”

I feel like this has the potential of being a very interesting project. I am very interested in all of the various applications and uses that these games contribute, and I think that in order to maximize the benefits, we must understand how to engage in gameplay responsibly and safely.

topic

My topic for my paper is about world of warcraft. I wanted to know more about how it started, and how it became such a popular game. I had a hard time picking something for my paper, I didn't really have an intrest in some of the things we already talked about. But I figured if I did it on world of warcraft, I might get more insight to the game and better understand its popularity.

Research

I am going to do my essay on the use of online gaming in the school systems. I am interested to find out the just how much they increase children's academic levels. I am also curious to find out if there is high or low percentage of schools that participate in online gaming as a learning tool.

Topic of Game Research

My topic of choice would be to research the philosophical aspects of gaming. I would like to find out, especially, how (if in any way) gaming relates to moral philosophy within modern society. I feel that gaming can be philosophical in its own way. Furthermore, I think it may be used to relate to society and possibly facilitate change. This seems like a fairly new subject, so I'm not sure as to what I will find. Even if my thesis is proven to not be accurate, I hope to find some new information.

Research

I am doing my essay on the educational view of gaming. I am very interested in how gaming are used in the classroom and how children, statistically, learn when they are interacting with games. So far my research has come up with a lot of online curriculum and different programs that are available to teachers but I want to know why educators started to use gaming to teach.

Brief Description

The subject that I am going to research are the 6 myths of gaming and I chose this topic because there are always arguements about how violent games make you violent or games with sex makes you want to do more sexual things etc. But that is not the case.

The Information Age

I think that the information age i think will change things in the world. Not everyone at first had Internet, but as it got around to people and it became something everyone had in their home, or had access to some where. This allowed people to communicate, with others from local to around the world. People are able to have information at a click of the mouse, they know things from around the world. They don't have to wait to hear it on the news, or in the paper. It's like when places began printing news papers, and when television, and the radio came out. These both changed things in the world. The Internet is just bigger.

Changes for the Future

The internet is the information highway and as long as it allowed to go to places all over the world unregulated, I believe we will see many changes in our lifetime. Countries that haven't had any outside exposure to the world around them and are now able to see how other governments are run and can now communicate with the outside world will probably see the most change in the near future.
In the article about the man that built a windmill in Malawi from seeing a picture, even though it was not the internet still shows how people benefit from exposure to any means of information, be it books, newspapers,or the internet. I was really surprised to read in that article that people were coming to "charge their cell phones" after he got the windmill running, even in the poorest places on earth people have cell phones!

What Can Gaming Do For your Country?

Expression and communication are bound to spread and blossom, there is a way, from the smallest seed planted in the roughest terrain. This obviously applies to the communication component of the games we have been studying, and the creativity and thirst for knowledge that such gaming seems to engender can act as potent fertilizer for these seeds.

In addition to the benefits mentioned, participants in this genre of gaming are often used to being part of a functional team or clan, which may help an individual to develop integrity, loyalty and ethics in general. These traits are clearly useful in helping to create and maintain a succesful group of any kind; be it a club, or a village or even national government.

The use of gaming in the Iran voting scandal is a good example of communication finding a way through adversity. As technology continues to advance at a breakneck speed, the functions of MMORPGs such as WOW or WarHammer will most probably continue to increase proportionally.

Gaming and the Internet: A Solution for the Future?

This is a very interesting subject, which I don't believe receives much attention.

In regards to the information age, I believe forum use can in actuality have a huge impact on society, if used correctly. While ideas can be shared in traditional forms, such as newspaper and through public interaction, young adults and children have the "internet age" as part of their everyday life. That said, it is pretty easy to identify that modern societies are headed in the technology-oriented direction. Keeping this in mind, one can only begin to imagine all of the possibilities that the internet can serve. One issue, however, is where it is currently. Presently, anything can be found on the internet, and no validation is necessary. While this freedom of speech is wonderful, it is nice to have some sort of accuracy behind reasoning. I think if a structured forum were to be set up, that illustrated individuals' ideas, then positive changes could come about. For example, instead of just posting random thoughts with little to no explanation, the forum could have guidelines for each post. I believe there are a lot of intelligent and creative ideas circulating within cyberspace, they just need to be brought to the forefront in an apparent manner.
As for game play, some games can help facilitate positive change. However, I don't believe current games do this very much, or at least not to the extent that I'm thinking. For example, if a game were to illustrate in detail certain problems, such as poverty and warfare from a victims point of view, I believe more people would recognize the issues as being realistic.

Q&A/Forum Thoughts

The three questions and answers that I cam up with are as follows:


1.) Do all teams/players have weapons?

A: "All troops are assumed to carry hand weapons."

2.) How does fighting work within Warhamme?

A: “Combat in WAR will be based around the concepts of normal Abilities, Morale Abilities and Tactics. Skills cost ability points, of which each character currently has a pool of 500, which regenerate quickly both in and out of combat.”

3.) What can wizards do when fighting?

A: "Wizards may cast spells when fighting in close combat."


In regards to the forum, I thought that it was well laid out and very easy to use. I've had much experience with forums for hobbies, so this wasn't too difficult. One feature which I always like for forums is to be able to edit your post, right on the main page. I like this because I often find that I may leave out details or having typos that I like to correct.

changes

I found that article on wow influencing the election in Iraq very interesting yet I am not surprised. We live in a very forward thinking world and with that comes how we communicate. If people are desperate to get news out or information they will use any means that is available. Why not hide a message in a game when that game goes around the world and it has access to millions of people who are not mandated. Personally I think that it is a very good way to send a message, who would think to look in a video game for a message able a presidential election that is held around the world? I think that online communication will defiantly change how the world government works. People will be more influenced by the media online and the computer is a huge channel of communication these days.

Future of Online Games?

The video i posted at the top of the page is mainly for laughs. It does however bring up some points we made in week one about the "reality" involved in on-line games and to what extent we consider them real. It also brings back our early discussion about the different layers of experience we can encounter and the attenuated experience we have of the world in general. This video shows yet a further remove from the experience we actually are looking for in the great satirical fashion only The Onion can deliver.

The article to read for tomorrow is pretty light stuff. I thought it was entertaining and so i decided to pass it on. As you guys should be working on your research projects i am keeping the workload light this week. I know you have a few days left before classes start and i also need to prep for my courses. Just be sure to drop in on the forum daily and make a contribution.

Here are the Top Ten ways Online Gaming Will Change the Future

If you need help with your research papers please let me know or go to The Owl at Purdue website. There are a lot of tools and information there for putting a research paper together.

Forum thoughts

This is the first time that i have ever done anything like this, i am completely new to the whole thing. I have enjoyed the last couple of weeks even though it has been a bit hard sometimes keeping up with the posts everyday when i have been working full days but when i learnt how to deal with it it wasnt so bad. I have enjoyed looking at how other people take on the different situations, i would have liked to of had open discussions about things, but i suppose the course isnt really based on that.

Forum Thougts

This has been my first online course so Ive had no previous knowledge of what I was supposed to do or even how to do it, after getting the hang of it, I have to say that I enjoyed reading all the different blogs from everyone on a daily basis, where in class you don't always get every one's take on the issue at hand. Ive also gotten a kick out of Mr.T's quotes of the day!!