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Video Games - Coggle Diagram
Video Games
Dreams for the Future
Why not promote healthy behaviors, such as using a stairs instead of an escalator, or making healthy eating choices, through games? For example, a stairs that looked like a piano and played a tune as you walked up would influence a lot of people to take the stairs instead.
Games such as Wii Fit harness video games to act as a sort of fitness coach, tracking calories burned, etc. These sorts of games could be taken to new levels to combat obesity and other problems. Gaming has been shown to improve vision, mental acuity, and problem solving.
Games could be used to train people for specific tasks or help them overcome health problems and disorders. One example of where this is already being done is for people Ausberger's syndrome, who have trouble reading social cues. A game allows them to simulate real-life situations such as an interview, evaluate their actions and the results, and improve their social skills.
Games engage people fully and change the way they think. They could be used for great harm, to program people to act and think in a certain way for some dubious cause.
Alternately, they could be used for good, to teach people skills that will help them in life as well as in games. Children learn through games, and so do adults.
Gamers currently spend a combined billions of hours on games a year, a trend that is growing quickly and will spread to developing countries. Why not harness everything they are learning: working together, risk and reward, creative action, and problem solving ability to work in real world problems?
Some innovative game creators have created games that immerse players in the grief of losing a son to cancer, that teach lifestyle habits of oil conservation, and that have them create innovative solutions to fix real-world problems. More games like this could potentially help to harness gamers' skills and creative energies and truly change the world.
Changing Technologies
Arcade Games moved to personal computers when arcade games could no longer keep up with the huge variety of options.
Computer games grew ever more sophisticated and interactive. Open-ended games like Grand Theft Auto allow users to do everything from stroll down the street to hiring a prostitute. The choice is completely up to the player. Games like this increased audience control.
Further developments increased audience control, as well as the sophistication of the technology, even further. Online games allow multiple players to create the virtual world of their choosing. In games such as World of Warcraft, gamers can even buy virtual assets with real-world cash.
Early mobile game consoles, especially the Game Boy, were popular for a long time.
With the advent of the smart phone, many people can game on their phones, making gaming even more mobile and easily accessible.
Earliest video games simple dots and x's on a screen, took a lot of imagination to think you were in a virtual world.
Graphics became more and more real. Today video graphic artists create stunning worlds and 3-D simulations that seem real.
New games have moved from simply using a joystick or mouse to engaging players in physical movements, fusing the virtual and real worlds.
Controversial Issues
Gaming is often linked to obesity in the popular imagination. However studies have shown that gamers are not more obese than other people.
New kinds of games calling for physical interaction, like dance games, simulated basketball or tennis games, have changed the image of video gaming as a couch potato's habit.
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Violence is often associated with video games, which are heavy in shooting and other violent scenarios such as rape and theft.
Though many studies have associated violence and video gaming, nothing has been proved. Critics of the theory believe that correlation does not equal causation. People who are prone to violence may also be prone to violent video games.
Social Aspects
Games offer a way for all people to engage in competition on an equal footing. Handicapped people can engage with athletic ones and citizens of the U.S. can engage with citizens of Japan. Ethnic group, religion, and socio-economic status are all pushed to the background in gaming situations.
Newer games such as Wii Sports and Wii fit allow multiple family members or members of another community engage in a game together.
Video game overusers may cut themselves off from the world to the detriment of themselves and their families.
At first, being a "geek" carried a stigma of being socially awkward and out of society. Nowadays, geek culture is cool and many more people have embraced virtual worlds. Rather than blocking people from society, gaming has provided another social atmosphere.
In online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft, gamers must work together to accomplish objectives. Guilds and gaming blogs have formed as players give each other tips and interact in spaces outside the game.
Gaming has fused with social media. Gamers even have the freedom to walk around and make conversation with others without working toward the game's objectives.