Learning from Video Games and The ESRB

Learning from Video Games

Can we learn from videogames? Can we get better eye-hand coordination? Can we get smarter? I believe so and research has shown that this happens. We know that three things matter when it comes to learning from video games thanks to a study by Doctor Edward Downs. The first thing that matters is the control, to be able to develop a short-term muscle memory the control with matter so it will fit the ergonomics of a person. To be able to build a muscle memory you need to repeat your routine as many times as possible, the more you do a thing the stronger your muscle memory will get. You can learn through two ways; the first is implicit learning and that is when you learn something without knowing that you are learning. The second is explicit learning and that is when you consciously do something to learn it. You have a motive to do something right. The second thing that matters is presence; how are things presented to you? If you learn together with more attributes from the modality that I talked about earlier in my blog you will learn faster and more efficient. The more things that speak to your senses will help you to learn instead of just one attribute such as sound or just feel. The third thing that matters is liking; you would have to like what you are doing or else you are not going to do it, and if you don’t do it you will not learn from it. If a video game is more realistic there is a bigger chance that you will learn from video games.

The ESRB

The ESRB was established in 1994 because of parents were concerned with what their children were watching. They were also concerned that the government would take the privileges away from playing video games. The ESRB stands for Entertainment Software Rating Board and what it tries to do is “To empower parents with the ability to make informed decisions about the computer and video games they choose for their families through the assignment of age and content ratings, and to hold the computer and video game industry accountable for responsible marketing practices” (www.esrb.org).

Instinct and Drive Theories

Instinct Theory

Some may argue that us humans are programmed to be violent creatures, but some may argue against it. Instinct theory says that violence stems from built in tendencies for humans to aggress against other humans. This theory argues the Nature versus the Nurture theories. Richard Rhodes and Lonnie Athens are on the Nurture side; they claim that it is how we grow up that is going to show what type of person we are going to be. Konrad Lorenz on the other hand claims that every mammal has aggression, but they are not meant to kill other mammals. The reasons why instinct theories are not supported is that human aggression stems from a large number of factors including Lorenz’s idea that is saying that most species, fighting do not lead to death or injury. Also, human aggression takes a range of forms from ignoring or spreading rumors to death. There are several people that fight and kill people across different nations and cultures as well as violence is changing with social conditions. So you cannot blame violence on media with help of the instinct theory.

Drive Theories

Drive theories says that humans have an internal motive or drive to harm other humans, which normally lays dormant. When certain people are exposed to certain external conditions, drive theory is aroused and the result will be aggression. There are other variables that take place in drive theories such as external conditions include loss of face or frustration that might help the person to aggressive. Drive theory suggests that aggression stems from external conditions that arouse the motive to harm or injure others so Rhodes and Athens would support this theory. Out of the drive theory the Frustration-Aggression hypothesis happens and that hypothesis explains that frustration leads to arousal of a drive whose basic goals are to harm some other human being. This hypothesis says that frustration always leads to some sort of aggression. You would start with an external condition that makes a person aggressive and that would lead to an aggressive behavior. However, too much importance is placed on frustration and also frustration can lead to sadness and depression. Not all aggression stems from frustration and the Frustration-Aggression hypothesis is not always supported because of these factors.

Presence

Theory of Action

To be able to understand a theory you would have to cross two gulfs. The first one is the gulf of evaluation and that is the degree to which a system provides representations that can be perceived and interpreted in terms of the expectations and intentions of a user. You can really summarize it with asking yourself: What is it? The second gulf is the gulf of execution and that is the degree to which you can understand it and could be summarized to: What does it do?

Presence can be seen as six different points:

1. Presence as social richness

2. Presence as realism

3. Presence as transportation

4. Presence as immersion

5. Presence as social actor within a medium

6. Presence as medium as a social actor

When we talk about presence we talk about a psychological manifestation of the self being projected into a mediated environment in such as; loss of time, motion sickness, and seamless travel between real and virtual reality environment. Telepresence on the other hand is the ability of a technology to make you feeling like “you are there” at a remote site of operation with variables such as; full field of vision, force feedback, surround sound, and large screen size. To summarize it you could say that presence deals with the psychological aspect and that telepresence deals with technological aspect of things.

Co presence is the ability to detect presence of another quasi-intelligent being in the virtual landscape for an example it could be bombs, grenades, or other things you could pick up in a virtual environment.

Social presence is the ability to form a relationship with a Para authentic actor or avatar in a virtual environment. That relationship is usual warm and a personal interaction.

Spatial presence is the experience of a para-authentic self in a virtual environment where you can be aware about where your limbs are, the availability to reach things, and the perception of body space in that virtual reality.

BIRGing and CORFing

Cialdini is known for his astute observations of sports fans that could be correlated with video gamers’ and their transformations in personalities and egos. He noticed that as people played games they liked, they began to identify with the avatars that they controlled. These individuals often changed their appearance, the way they spoke, and the way they acted depending on success or failure. Using sports teams and their fans as the objects of study, Cialdini was able to connect a relationship between individuals’ appearances to the public world, with their virtual reality.

BIRGing and CORFing

Throughout his theory he came up with the concepts BIRGing and CORFing. BIRG stands for Basking In Reflected Glory, and simple enough that would mean that when something goes well for a sports team that a fan would reflect himself with the team as one(1). For an example I am a HUGE Phoenix Suns fan and now when they are doing really well deep in the Playoffs I like to say that WE are playing well. Even though I am not a part of the Phoenix Suns, I am just a fan. So the theory says that when things go well for a team that you idolize the person likes to reflect themselves in the glory of the team so they feel better about themselves.

CORFing on the other hand would be the opposite. CORF stands for Cutting Off Reflected Failure. And what you do with CORFing is that instead of put yourself together with a team that is doing well. You set yourself apart from a team that is doing bad. So if you are a Boston Red Sox fan and they have been playing well for the last three years and now early in the season they are struggling. You don’t say that “we” are playing bad, you use “they” and say that “they” are not playing well. (Sorry Dr. Downs, haha)

Personaly I hate when people use BIRGing, because most of the time they have not don anything to help that team and most of the time I feel like they just use it so they feel good about themselves. So when people say that I usually say some smart comment and ask them what number they have on the team and I usually get a blank stare in response.

The Hegelian Dialectic and Similarities

The Hegelian Dialectic

The Hegelian Dialectic can explain the process through which game players indentify with avatars. This theory has 3 elements: Thesis, Antithesis, and synthesis. The thesis is a single idea or intellectual proposition. This can be connected with individual gamer; their original personality and ego. The Antithesis is everything conflicting with the thesis. This is the actual avatar; the character that the gamer is not. The final piece is the synthesis, or the combination of the prior two. This is the molding and blending of the gamer and the avatar.

Similarities

There are several ways in which gamers create this connection with avatars. Gamers often begin to identify with their avatars for several reasons. Identification plays an essential role in the connection between gamer and avatar. The avatar may have experienced a tough life, revealed through the narration of story or plot. If a gamer has experienced a life without a father, similar to the avatar in the game he or she is playing, the gamer may have a strong connection with the character because they believe they have a shared experience. This identification may increase the persons desire to be like or behave like they think the avatar would.

Similarity is another element that can explain the connection between gamer and avatar. If the avatar exhibits similar physical qualities as the gamer, the gamer may feel a stronger identification with the avatar. Bandura observed that if the gamer begins to connect similarities with the avatar, they might be more inclined to imitate behavior or looks.

Value Homophily is the concept that the gamer and avatar share values, attitudes or beliefs. This concept assumes that the virtual avatar has morals and judgment ability. The gamer may connect with an avatar who may represents good or evil, depending on their likes and beliefs.

Ownership identification is arguable the most significant concept that relates to this theory. Often, in many games the gamer is able to create and mold an avatar. Players are able to manipulate height, weight, muscle, hair, eye color, etc. In some games, players spend hours upon hours creating and changing their avatars to their personal liking. This identification process is the gamer relating to an avatar through the process of creation and customization. The gamer is often able to see themselves within the avatar in which they created. By creating something relevant to the game play, the gamer may experience an increased involvement in the game. They have something greater at stake than they had originally.

Players, Avatars, and Reasons Why People Play

Players

The Competitor player is the type of player that plays videogames to be better players.

The Explorer is a player that plays to experience the boundaries of the play world and discover what others do not yet know.

The Collector gamer is the type of gamer that plays to acquire the most stuff throughout the game.

The Achiever gamer plays not only to be better now while playing, but to also to be better in rankings over time or have the most championships over time.

The Joker type of gamer plays for fun by himself and enjoys the social aspect of playing videogames.

The Director is a type of a gamer that plays for the thrill of being in charge. (S)He wants to orchestrate an event in the virtual world.

The Storyteller is a type of a gamer that pays to create or live in an alternate world and build narrative out of that world. here you would find most World of Warcraft players.

Here is my favorite Link to Youtube about people that play World of Warcraft. WARNING! You May Laugh! (Click This text to watch the clip)

The Performer only plays for the show that they can put on for others like they do in the movie: “Grandmas Boy”.

The Craftsman gamer plays to build, solve puzzles, or engineer constructs. Like any gamer that plays “The Sims”.

Avatars and Game Characters

An Avatar is any character that is controllable by a human game player. Bots are computer characters that only the computer can control. Then you have primary characters like in Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, or Sonic. Most of the time the primary characters are linked with avatars since most of the time you can control the primary characters. A secondary character would be a character that is linked to the primary character, but most of the time the computer runs that character or the second human player if you would have two controllers. Tertiary characters are characters that are involved in the background, as if you are playing Madden 2010. The crowd or the referees are tertiary characters because they are just there in the background and you have no control over them.

The Video Game Industry

The Game Industry

From the first few consoles, including: Atari Pong and Magnovox Odyssey, the video game industry has now grown into a global powerhouse. In 2007 the United States Hardware industry made a profit of 6.6 billion dollars. These numbers increase every year and will continue to grow. However, in 2003 the video game industry outgrew the movie industry for the first time when they made a whole billion more dollars in profit. In the year of 2003, 2000 different videogame titles were made, but only 100 of them. Even though only five percent of all the videogames made a profit the industry still keep growing. The United States keep on driving the industry with their 65 percent of all games made. Japan is right there behind them, but also Europe has grown significant with their industry and companies like Ubisoft has a major part of the market. It is predicted that within the next decade the growth in Europe will continue and that 60 percent of the industry will come from Europe. In the 21^st century you can find more universities teaching video game development as well as teaching video game theory. If you would be interested in videogame development you could expect in between 35,000 to 75,000 dollars in starting salary coming out of college.

Statistics

Between 2002 and 2012 you will find an increase for videogame playing with a 67 percent expected. In the 2000s, 65 percent of households play various types of videogames. 38 percent owns a console and 59 percent are playing in the same room as other people. For the person that says that playing videogames are something that is good for your interpersonal relationships, you can clearly find that wrong when the statistics say otherwise. The average gamer is a male in his early twenties to the late thirties and the average purchaser is about 40 years old.

GAME TYPES AND GAME GENRES

Game Types

There are plenty of different game types and genres of games out there. I am going to list a few and give a brief description about each one.

A multistage game would a game that has the same background graphics for each and every level, for an example that would be a game like Pac Man. The characters can move, but the background is still black and blue.

A multi level game is when the game background changes and presents new obstacles requiring different skills to complete the level. An example of a multi level game would be Donkey Kong.

A Sidescroller game is a game where the game play progresses in a left to right fashion in a “follow the path” type of game. “Click Here” to see and play my favorite sidescroller game; The Helicopter Game!

A parallax scroller game adds a dimension of depth to a sidescroller game with just have a few extra layers that move in a different rate. So it looks like you have a few more dimensions in the background. An example of a parallax scroller game would be Moon Patrol.

An Isometric game simulates three dimensional graphics from a third person perspective like the videogame Q-Bert did.

3-D Games give full mobility to move 360 degrees seeing from a characters eyes and perspective instead of just left and right or up and down.

Game Genres

There are many different people that are playing videogames, therefore you would need plenty of different games to play. Most people play the games that reflects what that person is interested in and matches their personality. However, there are plenty of people that play games, which would not be reflected on that specific person and that is why I am so fascinated with videogames. Most of these are self explanatory titles and wont need much of an explanation of what they are.

Sports games: Games that focus on individuals and/or team sports, such as basketball, golf and football.

Simulator games: Games that simulates a life or something else like it does in The Sims.

Strategy games: Games that focus on acquisition or utilization of resources to achieve advancement toward a long-term goal.

Shooting games: games that involve an avatar as well as one or more ranged weapons and many enemies. It is a game of killing and hurting.

Fighting games: games that include hurting one another, such as mortal combat, boxing.

Role Playing games: you play as a avatar that you often handpick and play like that character.

Action and/or Adventure games: games where you try to get by obstacles and challenges.

MMORPG’s games: games where you have a huge internet world as you do in the game of World of Warcraft where you can interact with one another, gather things, customize your own avatar.

MOGS: games which are a smaller version of MMORPG which is more likely to play in a peer-to-peer setting of line.

Other games: Then you have other games which you cannot chatogorize, in that category would include games like Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and Rock Band.

The History of Video Games

The History and generations of video gaming can take us back almost 40 years now. Forty years of bringing lots of joy to people, but also some heartache as well. As of today we have had 19 major game consoles that are divided in to seven categories, or generations if you will.

Magnovox Odyssey

The first console that ever came out was the Magnovox Odyssey and it was battery powered, had a monochrome screen and did not even play sound. As you may figure, it was very basic, but also the start of a wonderful era of videogames.

Atari Pong

Atari was another videogame that was able to compete in the 1970s and 1980s, that came out with maybe the most famous videogame ever: The Atari Pong, that was released in 1976 and it was mass marketed and mass produced.

Telstar by Coleco

Telstar was the evolution of videogames.

Atari CX 2600

Atari CX 2600 was the first real gaming console and the major invention with the 2600 was that it introduced the gaming world to cartridge play. Now you could switch in between games and play whatever game you wanted instead of just pong. It was introduced in 1977, it had 128 bytes of ram, and was given the name “woody”.

Colecovision

A leather company in Connecticut made a videogame console in 1982 that had I kilobyte of RAM and also 16 kilobytes and VRAM. It was bundled with Donkey Kong and had flat joystick with numerical buttons. It was great because of its superior sound and you could expand the game with Gemini.

Atari 2600 A

The Atari 2600 A was just a quick fix, so they could be able to compete with colecovision. It was released quickly and was practically the same model as the CX 2600, who just a got a facelift. It was nicknamed Darth Vader, because of the all black shell.

Atari 5200

The Atari 5200 was released in 1982 and had more power then before and you could also play old Atari games with the new system. However, there were lots of bugs and faults with this Atari console. By now the videogame market had downed a little bit and there was not much hope for gamers.

Nintendo NES

The mass produced Nintendo NES saved the video gaming market when it got released in 1985 and this is the console that my own generation holds close to their hearts. Since for most people, this was the console that they started playing with.

Atari 7800

Atari gave a last try before they gave up with the 7800 model. It fixed all bugs from the 5200 version, but did not really improve anything else and it could not just compete with the Nintendo.

SEGA

The new SEGA was revolutionary with its Sonic figure. It had a brand new turbo graphics card and the flow of the game was much cleaner and faster than on any other console.

Playstation

Here comes the real kicker, Playstation by SONY. The Playstation was new and revolutionary. With a 32 bit console with thousands of games it got a real hit fast. It was the first console that was playing CDs.

Nintendo 64

Nintendo was fast to answer and a year later they came out with the Nintendo 64. It didn’t use CDs, but it still had better graphics and Mario was reborn.

SEGA DREAMCAST

SEGA Dreamcast was released in 1999 and unfortunately had terrible marketing and was not produced enough to fill incoming orders. However, it was the first console with a built in modem for online playing ability, but nobody had a idea how to do this and the support from SEGA was not the greatest.

Playstation 2

SONY came out with the biggest hit on the video gaming market still to this day. It had a nice design and it was DVD compatible. So now you could watch DVDs on your TV with this gaming console. Games are still made for the PS2 to this day which proves how big it really is even though it was made in 2000.

Nintendo GameCube

The biggest flop from Nintendo must have been the GameCube that was released in 2001. It played CD based game. But couldn’t perform DVD playback like the Playstation 2 could do.

Xbox

Bill Gates and Microsoft wanted in on the videogame market when it release the Xbox in 2001. It played CDs and DVDs, but you could also play online and could download add-on’s on the system.

PS2 Slim

SONY panicked a little bit because of Microsoft so they did a remake of the Playstation 2 in 2004, but just with a smaller finish, but just with the same attributes as the original console.

Xbox 360

The revolutionary graphics of the Xbox 360 was released in 2005 with wireless controllers and a sleek design.

Playstation 3

SONY introduced their third console in 2006 and just as in the PS2 it was revolutionary when it came with a Blueray disc player and the early models of the PS3 could have playback ability for PS2 games.

Nintendo Wii

Nintendo felt like they had to something entirely new when Xbox and Playstation was so big so they came up with the Nintendo Wii in 2006. This console had kinetics feature with the controllers, which could follow your movements and do the same on the screen.