Individuals
Finding self values - According to this film, there are some professional gamers in Korea who are playing starcraft, and they are sponsored by some companies. They found their talents of mirco and marco management in starcraft, and choose their path rather then other jobs that doesn't fit them. However, in my own view, it is a pity that these gamers may not be that famous nowadays, as the life span of a pro-gamers is short (6-8 years, according to the film), also the game can be outdated easily (Starcraft II is released in last September), they maybe can't adopt to the new game system and lose all of their jobs and their values. For my own experience, when I am in 17 years old, my friends invented me to join WCG (which is the electric game competition that is being shown in the film), now I am 20years old, some of the games in WCG is already replaced by other games.
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| WCG (World Cyber Games) players |
Teaching knowledge
From this film, there is a game titled "Re-Mission". This game is freely distributed in hospital. This PC game can help patients (especially kids) to fight against cancer and let players to have a better understand to the importance of their cancer treatments. Playing this action game, players can have a "feeling" that they are winning the cancer (enemy), and let them know the different treatments for different kinds of cancer.
Societies
Create an atmosphere easily
In this film, there are two cases that video games have created a new atmosphere in the society. The first one is the American's Army, software developers develop games to attract young people, let them know more about US army, how it is look like when they join the army, and finally, get into the military society. Some of the teenagers think they are belonged to the military and join the force.
For the second case, it is the game called "Under Siege", this game is introduced into the Palestinian society, but this game has grow the anger. In this film, the teenagers think that this game can unite their people and let them has a bigger thought to deliberate their land.
It is great if these games can create a healthy atmosphere (such as to build a peaceful thought in the society), however, in this film, there are many criticize about these games. For American's Army, some people said that this game cannot really convey the true face of war, the killing/ dying in the game is completely different in the real world. And these teenagers don't realize that.
And for the "Under Siege", although this game let people to be united, but it is in a negative way, they are united because they want to seek revenge.
According the film, is there any evidence that digital games can encourage aggressive values and anti-social actions in the real world? Do you agree?
Aggressive Value
There is one very important evidence in the film, it shown the result of MRI from a video game player. The result is, it shows the part of the brain which control the aggressive feelings is activating rapidly.
Anti-Social actions
Also, this film shown one of the school massacre accident, the police mentioned that the killer, who is a teenager, has a almost 100% accuracy in shooting, and the film has disclosed that this teenager is also a video gamer, especially First Person Shooting game (such as Counter Strike).
Should government have the right to ban certain games? Why or Why not?
Government should have the right to ban certain games, that because some games have a really negative social-logical impact toward gamers (especially children), for example Postal series, this game is only related to game-violence, and it seems harmless in the virtue world, but the social-logical impact toward us is actually very harmful. However, I don't think Government should enforce a total ban for these games, because I think these games can be representing another kind of culture, just like some gore, underground film, they are welcomed by small group of people. And nowadays, there is already a rating system for games, movies and other materials (1), the problem is people always ignore this rating system, especially for video games, I think the government should have a greater restriction for acquiring these games.
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| (1) Game rating system, Wikipedia Interview session In this class, as I remembered, we have a short interview with other classmates, asking them what is their favorite game and what can they get in game. For Wai, his favorite game is Counter Strike, he think that his stress is released while killing the enemy. For Vivian, her favourite game is Restaurant City in facebook, she think it is creative to decorate her restaurant with different furniture. For me, my favorite game is Simcity series, this game is related to urban planning. I am really happy when I have managed to build a well-planned city, also, this game has used many urban planning theory inside the game, I can even apply the theory of urban planning in my school examination when I am studying Geography at school! Simcity 4, Maxis  |
