The video game market is doing a variety of things. It is shrinking, becoming more competitive and much more interactive. And this is how the economy works, when there is a market that has a high demand and profit can still be made more people will enter this market until it is saturated. It is becoming saturated as the market it losing people as they grow older and splitting the rest. The Wii is responding to this by offering a new way to play games. We're not just pressing buttons anymore but flicking our wrists and swinging our arms. But where will the systems go when this competitive advantage is used up. The answer could be education. The Wii also has began entering this field by putting a browser on the Wii that can link to educational games.
The concept of virtual learning is one that just makes sense in our society. Our educational system has become dry and strongly based in memorization and preparation for standardized tests. There is no creativity left in the system, a lack of problem solving and a general lack of spice in our learning. Students often wait in the classroom staring down the clock so that they can go home and play video games. Childhoods are spent trying to figure out how to solve a puzzle in a game that will allow them to get to the next boss. I'm a firm believer that this puzzle doesn't need to be violent or have super special effects it just has to present a challenge, it could even be educational. And this whole idea is being looked into. There are doubters that educational games can work because they have failed in the consumer market before. But that's not the market we should be shooting for. We need to go straight to the schools with games that can challenge our youth and mark their journey through education. The opportunity is already there, the demand for video games is certainly there and our education system needs some sort of reform. In my eyes it is really just a matter of time before someone connects the two, and makes a lot of money in the process. And as the article points out the government could soon be getting involved in doing research on what would work the best, what needs to be implemented in the games and how it would all actually work.
The video game market will continue to struggle with a lack of market expansion and continued market competition. They're simply aren't enough consumers buying systems and games for everyone to continue to make money. Something has to be done and the biggest possible market that hasn't been touched yet is the education industry.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Wii could be the answer
In my last post I talked of the crash of the video game industry of late. As I look closely at sales figures besides the fact that the DS is dominating all sales in terms of consoles the Wii is just trouncing the other new generation systems. I also mentioned in my last post that the video game market is one that is nearly impossible to expand. Well, the Wii has managed to find a way around this. In fact, the Wii is growing so much in popularity amongst the elderly that a lot of retirement homes are investing in them. In the past the video game market has been realisticly limited to males in the age range from 10-35. With the Wii expanding into the older market they are gaining so many more customers than they could have through staying in the current market and developing more like-minded games. In all honestly there is no way that I thought a video game system would be able to enter the market for the elderly because they often don't want to bother with pressing these buttons to control characters that they don't really care about. But with games like Wii sports where they can experience virtual bowling where they actually have to imitate bowling motion there is a new type of virtuality. They can't and often won't want to go try and practice their golf swing but they will happily do it in the comfort of their own living room.
So how did the Wii complete this, they offered something sincerely new to the industry. Yes the Wii offers better graphics than the Gamecube and the Wii is more powerful than the Gamecube was. However, compared to what the other generation systems did, the Wii concentrated on creating a whole platform on which games can be based. They offered a new idea, where consumers were actually making movements to control their characters on the screen. They allowed their consumers to mock playing tennis or boxing or running mario around by moving their own arms. Rather than focusing on making our clothing look more real, they concentrated on allowing us to become part of the game. Rather than concentrating on how ridiculous the wii characters look playing Wii sports, we are concentrating on what our own movments are because thats what's making the difference. Working well enough that Microsoft is working on a wii-style controller. Wii has established their competitive advantage and now their competition is scrambling to keep up. So long that Wii concentrates on continuing to develop faster than competition it will continue to dominate the competitors. In the end we all already know we're controlling a character that doesn't exist, and I think most consumers would prefer something else rather than their clothing looking more real, like more control over the character. Something that Nintendo has realized and is making it's priority. In the end, if I'm visiting my grampa to go bowling together because of Nintendo they've done something that none of their competitors have come close to, expanding the market or providing something completely new to the industry.
So how did the Wii complete this, they offered something sincerely new to the industry. Yes the Wii offers better graphics than the Gamecube and the Wii is more powerful than the Gamecube was. However, compared to what the other generation systems did, the Wii concentrated on creating a whole platform on which games can be based. They offered a new idea, where consumers were actually making movements to control their characters on the screen. They allowed their consumers to mock playing tennis or boxing or running mario around by moving their own arms. Rather than focusing on making our clothing look more real, they concentrated on allowing us to become part of the game. Rather than concentrating on how ridiculous the wii characters look playing Wii sports, we are concentrating on what our own movments are because thats what's making the difference. Working well enough that Microsoft is working on a wii-style controller. Wii has established their competitive advantage and now their competition is scrambling to keep up. So long that Wii concentrates on continuing to develop faster than competition it will continue to dominate the competitors. In the end we all already know we're controlling a character that doesn't exist, and I think most consumers would prefer something else rather than their clothing looking more real, like more control over the character. Something that Nintendo has realized and is making it's priority. In the end, if I'm visiting my grampa to go bowling together because of Nintendo they've done something that none of their competitors have come close to, expanding the market or providing something completely new to the industry.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Crash
As I've mentioned before the video game industry is expanding in that there are more systems are selling each year. However, with the cost that companies are incurring in creating these video games most companies are losing money. For instance, Microsoft lost over four billion dollars with the Xbox. In short, even with the industry expanding, competition is also expanding and there simply aren't enough systmes being sold. So why is this? One article I looked at explored several reasons on why the video game industry is crashing. The two reasons I found most compelling were that the older generation of gamers are doing just that, growing old and not buying any more video games. The second reason I found most compelling was the concept that video games have gone so far with graphics they can't really improve that much more these days.
The first problem is that there is a certain market that the video game market appeals to. This market in reality is pretty stale. There will be those who enjoy playing games in the virtual world and those who don't. Yes it is true that you can develop new consumers and new markets through marketing to them but in the end the entire concept of spending hours going through a virtual story just won't appeal to some people. The idea here is that the people who began buying the Atari when they were young are now too old to realistically buy a new system. While it is true that 25% of gamers are over the age of 30, I'd bet most of those users are on their last system, meaning that they might enjoy games from Gamecube that they played in thier mid twenties but aren't going to buy the next generation system. This is mainly because they don't have time to play through hours of storylines when a lot of the game is based on replication so that they can beat the boss. So with these new generation systems needing more systems to sell to make money, will they be able to as they lose so much of their market in the upcoming years.
The other compelling point was that in terms of graphics games haven't really gone that far in the last ten years. Recently systems are braggin on the fact that cloth and people will look that much more real. Is that the reason we're playing these games in the first place? Aren't we playing because we're controlling a virtual world. This in my mind is a proven point and can be so clearly shown in the pictures used in the article. The game "Goldeneye" looked just about as good as most games these days, it just had a different storyline, in fact probably one that was much more in depth and compelling to users.
In the end, I understand that the industry is growing, the question is it growing quickly enough with the loss of the old generation gamers to continue to make profit? What is it doing besides providing us cleaner graphics and bigger blood spills to keep us coming back?
The first problem is that there is a certain market that the video game market appeals to. This market in reality is pretty stale. There will be those who enjoy playing games in the virtual world and those who don't. Yes it is true that you can develop new consumers and new markets through marketing to them but in the end the entire concept of spending hours going through a virtual story just won't appeal to some people. The idea here is that the people who began buying the Atari when they were young are now too old to realistically buy a new system. While it is true that 25% of gamers are over the age of 30, I'd bet most of those users are on their last system, meaning that they might enjoy games from Gamecube that they played in thier mid twenties but aren't going to buy the next generation system. This is mainly because they don't have time to play through hours of storylines when a lot of the game is based on replication so that they can beat the boss. So with these new generation systems needing more systems to sell to make money, will they be able to as they lose so much of their market in the upcoming years.
The other compelling point was that in terms of graphics games haven't really gone that far in the last ten years. Recently systems are braggin on the fact that cloth and people will look that much more real. Is that the reason we're playing these games in the first place? Aren't we playing because we're controlling a virtual world. This in my mind is a proven point and can be so clearly shown in the pictures used in the article. The game "Goldeneye" looked just about as good as most games these days, it just had a different storyline, in fact probably one that was much more in depth and compelling to users.
In the end, I understand that the industry is growing, the question is it growing quickly enough with the loss of the old generation gamers to continue to make profit? What is it doing besides providing us cleaner graphics and bigger blood spills to keep us coming back?
Monday, April 14, 2008
Handhelds
As I've mentioned in previous posts the market of video games is vast and continues to grow. The idea of controlling something else in a virtual world has shown to be a demand that isn't going anywhere. Well isn't going anywhere in terms of profit, however these virtual worlds may be traveling all across the country soon. This being because handheld games have overtaken console systems in sales as of late. Handheld systems have been around for a long time, the first handheld system of any sort being released in 1979. The first handheld system to grab a real marketshare was the Gameboy in 1989. Although the Gameboy enjoyed a lot of success, it never matched the marketshare of the Nintendo console sytems. Recently the Nintendo DS shot past 50 million unit sales, putting it halfway to the total Gameboy sales in just three years.
The DS has also become the fastest selling console in Japan.So what does that say about where our society is going and what our needs and desires are. Does it mean that we are tired of paying over $300 for a game system that we can't find time to play? Does it mean that we are beginning to get away from the graphics often portraying extreme violence as I've talked about before? Do we not want a game that will last forever like Spore?
My take is that we as a society are in such a hurry that we simply don't have time for game systems that take up as much space, time and money that sytems like XBox 360 do. The scary part in my eyes is that these game sytems are for the most part being sold to people under the age of 25, meaning that a lot of the people under the age of 25 are too hurried to sit down and play normal game consoles. I think that there are pros and cons to this situation. It could mean that the youth are doing more productive things than playing video games of endless violence, but as I've mentioned video games can also provide substantial motor skills amongst other things. It also could mean that we are exhausting our youth to the point that they don't have a sense of recreation. And there is a fine line between understanding recreation and being lazy, the latter which is a problem our country currently faces. But we can't underestimate the value and understanding of the ability to relax and enjoy yourself. A value that I don't believe can be found playing a handheld game when walking to class or riding the bus, a time in which interpersonal skills can be developed. Thats another negative I see is that handhelds are often used to make transportation time to be less painful. This meaning handhelds would be contributing to the lack of interpersonal skills our country has as a whole. In the end, the extreme rise in handheld sales is a distinct sign that our country values our time more than it does recreational time playing video games. This isn't necesarilly a bad thing but could be contributing to our countries lack of interpersonal skills. Regardless, it will be interesting to see where handheld and console sales go.
The DS has also become the fastest selling console in Japan.So what does that say about where our society is going and what our needs and desires are. Does it mean that we are tired of paying over $300 for a game system that we can't find time to play? Does it mean that we are beginning to get away from the graphics often portraying extreme violence as I've talked about before? Do we not want a game that will last forever like Spore?
My take is that we as a society are in such a hurry that we simply don't have time for game systems that take up as much space, time and money that sytems like XBox 360 do. The scary part in my eyes is that these game sytems are for the most part being sold to people under the age of 25, meaning that a lot of the people under the age of 25 are too hurried to sit down and play normal game consoles. I think that there are pros and cons to this situation. It could mean that the youth are doing more productive things than playing video games of endless violence, but as I've mentioned video games can also provide substantial motor skills amongst other things. It also could mean that we are exhausting our youth to the point that they don't have a sense of recreation. And there is a fine line between understanding recreation and being lazy, the latter which is a problem our country currently faces. But we can't underestimate the value and understanding of the ability to relax and enjoy yourself. A value that I don't believe can be found playing a handheld game when walking to class or riding the bus, a time in which interpersonal skills can be developed. Thats another negative I see is that handhelds are often used to make transportation time to be less painful. This meaning handhelds would be contributing to the lack of interpersonal skills our country has as a whole. In the end, the extreme rise in handheld sales is a distinct sign that our country values our time more than it does recreational time playing video games. This isn't necesarilly a bad thing but could be contributing to our countries lack of interpersonal skills. Regardless, it will be interesting to see where handheld and console sales go.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Future of games
We've established where video games have been and what they are becoming today. The question is what is in the future. Right now the industry is capitalizing on the fact that society is nearly obsessed with the idea of shooter video games. So when games like Spore come out they really give you insight to where video games could be going.
For a long time the society of gamers has followed a particular path concerning each game. Say the new Mario game came out, there would be epopel that rushed to buy that game and beat it as quickly as possible. They would spend 15 hours or so going through all of the levels or finding shortcuts just to get to the end. 50 dollars spent and conquered in less than a day. This can't happen with a game like Spore, and we knew it eventualy would come. Spore is a game in which you start as a single-celled organism and evolve into a species that you create. You can then go on to create towns, cities and planets. Think of Sim City on steroids. The trick is that you play on a network in which you are connected to all of the other video game lovers that are also creating their own planets and planetary systems. In essensce then because it is a game that is constantly developed and changed by all of the users, it will never be conquered. It is even different than simulations such as second life because at the day second life is still a virtual planet Earth with limited boundaries. In a game like Spore th boundaries don't exist. One of the editors of Spore recently said that to counter all of the species on Spore it would literally take hundreds of year real life wise.
Here's my worry. In our society there is already so much time poured into this growing industry of the virtual world. All of this time is generally concentrated on conquering a game and beating the last bad guy so that they can go brag to their friends. What happens when the game doesn't end. I can see it going one of two ways. The first being that games like Spore never really catch on and the world of virtual gaming goes on unaffected by the recent developments. The second option is if this game really catches on and friends are no longer competing against time to beat a game but competing against anyone who decides to start creating their own worlds. In this ever expanding virtual world, where's the last guy, and when would it end?
For a long time the society of gamers has followed a particular path concerning each game. Say the new Mario game came out, there would be epopel that rushed to buy that game and beat it as quickly as possible. They would spend 15 hours or so going through all of the levels or finding shortcuts just to get to the end. 50 dollars spent and conquered in less than a day. This can't happen with a game like Spore, and we knew it eventualy would come. Spore is a game in which you start as a single-celled organism and evolve into a species that you create. You can then go on to create towns, cities and planets. Think of Sim City on steroids. The trick is that you play on a network in which you are connected to all of the other video game lovers that are also creating their own planets and planetary systems. In essensce then because it is a game that is constantly developed and changed by all of the users, it will never be conquered. It is even different than simulations such as second life because at the day second life is still a virtual planet Earth with limited boundaries. In a game like Spore th boundaries don't exist. One of the editors of Spore recently said that to counter all of the species on Spore it would literally take hundreds of year real life wise.
Here's my worry. In our society there is already so much time poured into this growing industry of the virtual world. All of this time is generally concentrated on conquering a game and beating the last bad guy so that they can go brag to their friends. What happens when the game doesn't end. I can see it going one of two ways. The first being that games like Spore never really catch on and the world of virtual gaming goes on unaffected by the recent developments. The second option is if this game really catches on and friends are no longer competing against time to beat a game but competing against anyone who decides to start creating their own worlds. In this ever expanding virtual world, where's the last guy, and when would it end?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
What happened?
Last post I talked about the fact that some of the highest grossing and best rated games are those focused on violence. The concept of violent video games is a prevalent one as well. Politicians in Germany are calling for a ban on them. In Minnesota the courts couldn't prove that violent video games were affecting behavior and therefore couldn't put in new laws preventing youth to purchase them. There are other articles about how video games can increase aggression.
The articles are endless on violence in video games. I've already spoken to the fact that I don't believe video games can induce crime but find it unsettling that these games that primarily focus on killing are so popular. It wasn't always like this, the movement of video games in the last 20 years is almost unbelievable. The atari 2600 was the first real video game system and most of the games were as simple as the classic "pong " game. When this was released arcade style a lot of stores reported their machines as overflowing with quarters. I assume what drew everyone was being able to control something they were watching. Pong was considered the best game in the world, yet compared in today's world it would be laughed at. What's entertaining to me is that most people would say graphics as the reason games of the past would do so poorly today. But don't we all know that these things aren't reality, therefore proving how real the game looks as pointless.
As we moved into the 80's Nintendo as well as Sega came out in what most refer to as the golden age of video games. This was a time in which side-scrolling screens and more developed storylines in games like Mario and Sonic devleloped. Graphics were better, still not as "real" as today but drew a lot more popularity because games like Super Mario Bros. 3, the best selling cartridge of all time , came out and let the gameplay go on for hours traveling through worlds and such. The gameplay was key, this stayed on through the early nineties with the release of the Super NES. This is when it appeared that developers had mastered the 2D world.
When I think video games started taking a turn for the worse was with the release of the first set of 3D systems. At this point, it was all about what looked better, and what sounded better, instead of what “played better.” “Realism” was now actually mentioned when people talked about video games. The problem was in the 2D world all of the graphics were basically the same so for a game to be a true success it had to have a great story or great gameplay. People weren't going to play to see how real the 2D Mario looked as he ran down the screen. They were going to play because they wanted to beat Bowser and because it was fun.
The development of video games is basically solely focused on graphics and how real the game looks. And the fantasy side of games loses out a little bit because if we want to see something real a war will always look more real than Sonic or Mario. What's frustrating for someone who loved playing video games as a young child was that when I played them I loved going through the new stories. When I watch people play games now I see them playing the same storyline essentially everytime but now you can see individual hairs on their character and the rips on their uniform. As we move away from developed stories and more towards graphics I feel like violence will become the reoccuring them more drastically than it already is. My only hope is that developers and those playing will realize they are playing something that doesn't actually exist and at the end of the day I'd rather play a 2D game with good gameplay and a good story than the 12th war game that I've essentially played already really being able to feel killing that other soldier. I can only hope others feel like that, because I don't get the feel now that I did when I played Sonic as a kid, and I think that others are in the same boat.
The articles are endless on violence in video games. I've already spoken to the fact that I don't believe video games can induce crime but find it unsettling that these games that primarily focus on killing are so popular. It wasn't always like this, the movement of video games in the last 20 years is almost unbelievable. The atari 2600 was the first real video game system and most of the games were as simple as the classic "pong " game. When this was released arcade style a lot of stores reported their machines as overflowing with quarters. I assume what drew everyone was being able to control something they were watching. Pong was considered the best game in the world, yet compared in today's world it would be laughed at. What's entertaining to me is that most people would say graphics as the reason games of the past would do so poorly today. But don't we all know that these things aren't reality, therefore proving how real the game looks as pointless.
As we moved into the 80's Nintendo as well as Sega came out in what most refer to as the golden age of video games. This was a time in which side-scrolling screens and more developed storylines in games like Mario and Sonic devleloped. Graphics were better, still not as "real" as today but drew a lot more popularity because games like Super Mario Bros. 3, the best selling cartridge of all time , came out and let the gameplay go on for hours traveling through worlds and such. The gameplay was key, this stayed on through the early nineties with the release of the Super NES. This is when it appeared that developers had mastered the 2D world.
When I think video games started taking a turn for the worse was with the release of the first set of 3D systems. At this point, it was all about what looked better, and what sounded better, instead of what “played better.” “Realism” was now actually mentioned when people talked about video games. The problem was in the 2D world all of the graphics were basically the same so for a game to be a true success it had to have a great story or great gameplay. People weren't going to play to see how real the 2D Mario looked as he ran down the screen. They were going to play because they wanted to beat Bowser and because it was fun.
The development of video games is basically solely focused on graphics and how real the game looks. And the fantasy side of games loses out a little bit because if we want to see something real a war will always look more real than Sonic or Mario. What's frustrating for someone who loved playing video games as a young child was that when I played them I loved going through the new stories. When I watch people play games now I see them playing the same storyline essentially everytime but now you can see individual hairs on their character and the rips on their uniform. As we move away from developed stories and more towards graphics I feel like violence will become the reoccuring them more drastically than it already is. My only hope is that developers and those playing will realize they are playing something that doesn't actually exist and at the end of the day I'd rather play a 2D game with good gameplay and a good story than the 12th war game that I've essentially played already really being able to feel killing that other soldier. I can only hope others feel like that, because I don't get the feel now that I did when I played Sonic as a kid, and I think that others are in the same boat.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Symbolism?
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare essentially won every single game of the year awards for 2007. In Gamespy's article they sum up all of the reasons this game deserved to be the game of the year and how it essentially had no flaws. Personally I find that these games gain so much acclaim scary. Now I want to make sure before I continue on this argument that by no means am I justifying the argument that video games are causing crime. My worry is much deeper.
Most of the video games in competition with Call of Duty were also what is considered to be a first person shooter. These are video games in which the prime focus of the game is essentially killing other people. And this is not the type of killing in the classic Mario games with that classic death music that is more funny than it is scary. This is killing done by guns in video games that are acclaimed for their realistic graphics. These are video games in which the motive is killing as many people as possible before your character is killed, generally this motive is even more fueled in setting the game up in a war-like setting which pits the US versus other countries. And again my complaints do not lie with the video game manufacturers because they will make whatever it is that they can sell the most of. And they can sell the most of these first person shooter video games. My complaint is with us, the consumers. And to be honest I'm confused about why these are so popular. I've played most of them and the stories are generally nothing special. Why is this fake violence so intriguing to our people? Especially my generation which has never really been involved with a real war until a couple of years ago and for the most part the youth are against this war. Why is it that we buy all of these things that we dislike in real life? Maybe there is some psychology major that knows the answer to this because it escapes me. I don't doubt that Call of Duty 4 had the best graphics of any video game made last year and that it was a well deserved award. But there is no way that it would have won the award had it not been one of the most popular games purchased. Millions of Americans, some very young ones I may add went out and spent around fifty dollars on a game so that they could go home and represent whatever country they wished to in World War 2.
I talked in my first post about using video games for educational purposes. And I still firmly believe that this method can be the future of video games. The problem I see is that these games have no redeemable value. With the exception of possibly remembering the names of a few battles, nothing positive about World War 2 will be remembered. In fact it probably has some huge holes and biases involved in it. Apart from the natural skills learned in video games, competition and problem solving with others, the fact that these games sell in such high volumes speaks darkly of who we are as a nation. Possibly this is just me, but there is no way my child will play video games that portray pure violence when the valuable skills I think they can learn from the virtual world are available in thousands of other games. Maybe its just the government trying to prepare the young generation to go to another absurd war, I don't think that this is true, but it is a mystery that these games sell so much comparative to other video games. Maybe we have a strange want to do be able to do things virtually that we can't do in real life? Whatever the reason, my problem isn't that these video games are made, but that they are selling at such incredible volumes when they portray things that our society generally deems as unethical. It truly is fascinating what the video game industry has been available to accomplish.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Expansion
The video game has experienced growth consistently since its conception in the early 1980's. Retail sales of video games in the US were over $7 billion in '05, up from $2.6 billion in '96. Unit sales increased from 74.1 million in 1996 to 250 million in 2006. The idea that the industry will continue to grow is undeniable. Our society has become more dependant on technology year after year and as both parents continue to go into the workplace our youth grow up playing video games or surfing the internet exponentially more and more. The video game industry is even making strides in Asian countries, as they are showing tons of potential.
Apple is even looking into coming into the home console industry. The concern that Apple does have going into the industry is that companies that sell video games generally take losses with the hardware they sell and make up that profit with software. Apple has always made profit off of selling the actual devices therefore they would either need to develop profitable games or somehow make profits on the systems themselves. I think that Apple would thrive in the industry because they have such a trusted name in technology. They have shown that they can expand into different industries and be extremely successful already. Going into an industry that has shown constant growth just seems to make sense. I believe that if Apple could extend into this sector of the entertainment world that they could dominate the home entertainment field. Especially with the global market of video games expanding at an even faster pace than the American market. The problem a lot of American developers are having with the growth overseas is converting games to sell in their respective cultures. Being new to the industry and with how global Apple is already they could easily look into developing games specific to certain cultures, allowing them to not only be a force in the American market but dominate the overseas market. In a way they could become very much like Coca-cola, who overall dominates the market against Pepsi despite Pepsi having the larger marketshare in the US. I understand the risks Apple sees in entering this industry but if done right would be well worth the reward.
Apple is even looking into coming into the home console industry. The concern that Apple does have going into the industry is that companies that sell video games generally take losses with the hardware they sell and make up that profit with software. Apple has always made profit off of selling the actual devices therefore they would either need to develop profitable games or somehow make profits on the systems themselves. I think that Apple would thrive in the industry because they have such a trusted name in technology. They have shown that they can expand into different industries and be extremely successful already. Going into an industry that has shown constant growth just seems to make sense. I believe that if Apple could extend into this sector of the entertainment world that they could dominate the home entertainment field. Especially with the global market of video games expanding at an even faster pace than the American market. The problem a lot of American developers are having with the growth overseas is converting games to sell in their respective cultures. Being new to the industry and with how global Apple is already they could easily look into developing games specific to certain cultures, allowing them to not only be a force in the American market but dominate the overseas market. In a way they could become very much like Coca-cola, who overall dominates the market against Pepsi despite Pepsi having the larger marketshare in the US. I understand the risks Apple sees in entering this industry but if done right would be well worth the reward.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Problem Solved
We've all been there. Frustrated, heated over the fact that we can't figure this problem out. We've worked on it for hours, tried every different way we could think of, asked our friends and parents to no avail. Then it clicked, finally it hit us as we were giving up just how to do it right. Most everyone agrees that these are learning experiences more powerful than something that just makes sense to us right away. And it is these kind of situations that can occur not only in the educational world but in the virtual world as well. Video games have long been considered evil by parents and educators alike. As I've talked about before parents often lay blame on video games for causing their children to think more violently or act more aggressively.
Here at Miami there is constantly a cry out to get students to think more critically and in my experience my ability to think critically has been substantially more influenced by playing video games than my schooling. Our education system needs some sort of reform, I went to a high school that was rated as one of the best in Ohio and yet I don't feel like I was ever challenged to critically think. My classes were filled with memorization of facts and formulas that I would need to be able to regurgitate later. Filled with multiple choice tests when I think we all realize the real world will not be so kind with only four options. The free reign offered in video games to solve problems can be educationally beneficial.
Rebecca Haag Guyne in her article titled "The Educational Benefits of Video Games." talks about how video games can impact the youth and the possibility that educators may begin to look towards the virtual world. Often the youth are found trying to beat a difficult challenge in a video game for hours but if for school work they often give up. She speaks of an intrinsic motivation to beat the game that should be capitalized in the school. The concept of learning from your mistakes is also something that has been lost in our current educational system. When someone fails a test or misses a question there is no second effort, generally just worry about the affect that will have on their GPA and future in the academic world. In the virtual world when someone fails there is opportunity to try again immediately. There is immense value in being able to learn what you did wrong and fix that problem, and this is something that our current system does not offer often.
Video games need to stop being addressed as this compulsive evil that is ruining the lives of the youth and rather as something that can enrich their learning experience. There have been hundreds of studies claiming that video games in the classroom is something that needs to be pursued yet our society fails to implement. Possibly it comes from our fear of admitting that we are wrong and the realization that we can change our system, that we have infinite attempts to make our educational system right. Maybe we could all learn from the virtual world.
Here at Miami there is constantly a cry out to get students to think more critically and in my experience my ability to think critically has been substantially more influenced by playing video games than my schooling. Our education system needs some sort of reform, I went to a high school that was rated as one of the best in Ohio and yet I don't feel like I was ever challenged to critically think. My classes were filled with memorization of facts and formulas that I would need to be able to regurgitate later. Filled with multiple choice tests when I think we all realize the real world will not be so kind with only four options. The free reign offered in video games to solve problems can be educationally beneficial.
Rebecca Haag Guyne in her article titled "The Educational Benefits of Video Games." talks about how video games can impact the youth and the possibility that educators may begin to look towards the virtual world. Often the youth are found trying to beat a difficult challenge in a video game for hours but if for school work they often give up. She speaks of an intrinsic motivation to beat the game that should be capitalized in the school. The concept of learning from your mistakes is also something that has been lost in our current educational system. When someone fails a test or misses a question there is no second effort, generally just worry about the affect that will have on their GPA and future in the academic world. In the virtual world when someone fails there is opportunity to try again immediately. There is immense value in being able to learn what you did wrong and fix that problem, and this is something that our current system does not offer often.
Video games need to stop being addressed as this compulsive evil that is ruining the lives of the youth and rather as something that can enrich their learning experience. There have been hundreds of studies claiming that video games in the classroom is something that needs to be pursued yet our society fails to implement. Possibly it comes from our fear of admitting that we are wrong and the realization that we can change our system, that we have infinite attempts to make our educational system right. Maybe we could all learn from the virtual world.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
What class is Professor Ninteno teaching?
Video games have always been a facet of entertainment that the youth of our nation have adored since the late 1980's. Nowadays, the video game industry accounted for 9.7 billion dollars in 2007, with tournaments across the nation for different games and even some "gamers" that are being sponsored by companies to compete. They have developed from games with minimal objects and space, simplistic designs and lack of a storyline to epic tales with life-like graphics and systems that cost as much as $300 dollars retail.
Video games have also expanded into the older age group. If you were to walk into any college residence hall across the nation you'd be sure to find a video game system in nearly every room, especially those that men reside in.
What our society is now beginning to study is the worth of all of these games. Are they a benefit to our youth or are they detriment. There have been lawsuits against video game companies because they drove a young man to commit a crime and followed the directions that one of his mission was in the virtual world. Are video games to blame for these actions of violence? Andrea Norcia looked into the studies that have been done in her story,
http://www.pamf.org/preteen/parents/videogames.html
The study suggests that those that are playing video games that are violent for extensive periods of time are more aggressive and more likely confront their teachers about certain objects. I don't think that a young man playing Grand Theft Auto for an extended period of time changes his actions in school, I think its much more likely for a young man to already be rather aggressive and ask for these types of video games to play. I think that yes, violent video games can desensitize people to the violence in our culture but no more than movies with our favorite actors committing crime or TV shows about acts of violence. Blaming video games for the youth's rise in violent crime portrays a severe lack of responsibility in our nation, a severe lack of responsibility that has been around for ages but is shown recently in these studies. It is the responsibility of those making video games to create games that people will buy, nothing more nothing less. They have to make money to put food on the table for their family and if people are willing to buy violent video games for their children, someone wil make them. It is the responsibility of the parents to make sure that their son or daughter is not being morally changed by the virtual world, not the producer of the video game. Video games hold great potential in the learning of America, but only if we stop blaming them for destroying our children first, after all, usually it is the parents buying these games for their children.
Video games have also expanded into the older age group. If you were to walk into any college residence hall across the nation you'd be sure to find a video game system in nearly every room, especially those that men reside in.
What our society is now beginning to study is the worth of all of these games. Are they a benefit to our youth or are they detriment. There have been lawsuits against video game companies because they drove a young man to commit a crime and followed the directions that one of his mission was in the virtual world. Are video games to blame for these actions of violence? Andrea Norcia looked into the studies that have been done in her story,
http://www.pamf.org/preteen/parents/videogames.html
The study suggests that those that are playing video games that are violent for extensive periods of time are more aggressive and more likely confront their teachers about certain objects. I don't think that a young man playing Grand Theft Auto for an extended period of time changes his actions in school, I think its much more likely for a young man to already be rather aggressive and ask for these types of video games to play. I think that yes, violent video games can desensitize people to the violence in our culture but no more than movies with our favorite actors committing crime or TV shows about acts of violence. Blaming video games for the youth's rise in violent crime portrays a severe lack of responsibility in our nation, a severe lack of responsibility that has been around for ages but is shown recently in these studies. It is the responsibility of those making video games to create games that people will buy, nothing more nothing less. They have to make money to put food on the table for their family and if people are willing to buy violent video games for their children, someone wil make them. It is the responsibility of the parents to make sure that their son or daughter is not being morally changed by the virtual world, not the producer of the video game. Video games hold great potential in the learning of America, but only if we stop blaming them for destroying our children first, after all, usually it is the parents buying these games for their children.
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