Video game culture

The Change in Female Video Game Characters When one enters a video game store and looks around at the different covers for the games. Most games one picks up will have a male character on the front and a less prominent woman character in the back(see fig. 1). In fact, most principal video game characters are male. The supporting roles are usually played by female characters if there are any female characters.Image Even some of the first characters like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man although they…

Many people often mistakenly assume that any lives we lead in online games have no effect on our real lives. In “In Real Life,” Doctorow uses Anda’s friendship with Raymond to prove that life online is not fake, but rather our lives mediated through a piece of technology. Doctorow humanizes Raymond to Anda when she first meets him by having him save her and then having them have a conversation. Even though Anda had killed all of the other gold farmers, Raymond was eager to help her when she was…

In lieu of GamerGate, misogyny in gaming culture is being brought to the forefront of popular mainstream media. Misogyny has long been an issue for female gamers but misogyny isn’t the only issue that gamers face. There is also a culture of homophobia, sexism, and racism in the gaming community. Women who criticize these aspects of gaming culture are why internet trolls create movements such as GamerGate. Gaming companies such as GiantBomb and news outlets such as CNN and MSNBC who normally sit…

Anime and video games are two subjects that play an important role in both eastern and western popular culture. The ascension of both anime and video games into popular culture originated first in Japan, and eventually their influence spread across the globe. I’ve been engrossed in both subjects since I was young, and I believe my appreciation for both was no coincidence. Anime and video games, after all, have always felt similar to me, but why is that? To answer that question, I will consider…

Video games can lead to addiction, depression, aggression, and many health issues. In fact, research has been conducted for decades on the negative effects of video game play. So why then have video games become over a $16 billion industry? Well, video games have immense positive potential. In addition to their entertainment value, video games can offer considerable success when they are designed to address a specific problem or teach a specific skill. Video games can be a particularly valuable…

#Gamergate Growing up I always enjoyed playing video games with my sister and she was often better than I was at games that I played more often. I had always believed that title of nerd was gender neutral and we stuck together better than any other social group. However, in this paper we will be discussing the phenomenon of Gamergate, its inception and the impact that it had on women, gamers, and surrounding social groups. While the Gamergate hashtag is used by many different people (i.e.…

Violence in violent video games had remained to be a major concern in society. In addition to the controversy of VVGs, a new subject emerged when gender activists began to enter the discussion and industry. While studies of videogames using sociological and gender theories had existed before, these issues had been highlighted by many organizations in most recent years. One of the more prominent activists is Anita Sarkeesian. She is a Canadian-American feminist (owner of the YouTube channel…

popular culture as a mode of reflection on society reveals the importance of intellectual complexity being a referent power that motivates individuals to analyze their society and create independent-minded judgments based on these observations to create changes for the overall prosperity and progress. In Everything Bad Is Good For You, one of Steven Johnson’s key points is his theory of the Sleeper Curve. The Sleeper Curve is the concept of popular culture, like television and video games…

Digital dualism is considered a fallacy by Nathan Jurgenson. According to Jurgenson, this fallacy represents a bias that the digital world is “virtual” and the physical world “real.” There’s a huge bias that the digital and physical world is separate. Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality is a huge debate. This stems from a belief that the real world and digital world are interlocked. Others believe that the real world isn’t the same as it is represented in the digital world. Social media…

An article that was published in the “Journal of Sleep Research”, stated that “When participants were exposed to 2.5 hours of video-game play prior to bed, subsequent objective sleep was shorter, by twenty-seven minutes, and less efficient compared to when they only played the video-game for 50 minutes.” The report done by D.L. King shoes that the reduction in sleep may have implications for daytime functioning and possible academic performance. Which over time can lead to failing grades and…