Types of Games

Through out my life and time in general there have been many different game types progressing from multistage games all the way to 3-D games. Im going to talk about the types games.

Multi-Stage

In a multi-stage game the game background graphics remain constant but level of difficulty increase. One of the most popular games in video game history belongs in this category and that was a game released in 1980, Pac-Man! In this game as you probably know you control a pie-shaped character travels around a maze that remains constant and eats dots and has to avoid the ghosts. What makes this game a multi-stage is that the background of the game (the maze) stays the same but as you move through the levels the game gets more difficult. To me this is the most boring type of game because it just gets to repetitive for me.

Multi-Level

In a multi-level game the game background graphics change to present new obstacles, requiring different skills to complete. An example of this would be the old Donkey Kong where the background would change and each level you had to use a different skill to be it.

Side Scrollers

In side scrolling game play progresses in a usually left to right fashion where you “follow a path.” I think the most popular and my favorite of this type of game is Super Mario Bros where you move left to right to get to the end of the level.

Parallax scrolling

What makes this different from just a normal sidescroller is that it adds a dimension or depth to the game by having foregrounds move faster than the backgrounds. This type of game was made popular by the game “Moon Patrol.” Although my personal favorite was a game called captain keen for PC.

Isometric

This type of game works to simulate 3-D graphics from a 3^rd person perspective. The first game to display this was the Q*bert and it created an illusion through the ways the lines were drawn that it was 3-D. I personally do not have any experience with this type of game but I would believe it would be kind of weird to get used to.

3-D

Gives full mobility to a character instead of just up/down or left/right freedoms. This is the type of game that is most apparent now in this day in age and the type I most enjoy playing. I like the feel of being able to freely move with the avatar I am using whether it is in a sports game or a game like Zelda.

As technology is advancing so fast when will the type of game where you actually get to live it become a reality?

Reference:

Downs , Edward . "Game Types." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 2 May 2013. Class lecture.

Favorite Game Genres?

In the video game world there are many different types of game genre. I am going go over the different types of game genres and get into which genres I personally like to play.

Ok we will start off with my personal favorite and that is the sports genre. These games consist of individual and team sports. The reason I love this genre is because I love sports and I really like to apply my sports knowledge to my game play. Also some of the people I look up to are sports players and I like to use them when I play. My personal favorite sports game is NHL 13 because hockey is my favorite sport and I love to use my favorite player, Alexander Ovechkin.

I also enjoy playing fighting games, as it was probably the most played genre for me growing up. In this type of game you usually control an avatar and engage in close combat. The first fighting game that I played was Street Fighters way back on the Sega Genesis. I really enjoyed playing this game with my cousins or just the computer players.

My next favorite genre is Driving, in this genre you have to race or maneuver a vehicle. I think the big reason I like to play these games is because I like to drive fast and love cars in real life. So this type of game gives me a chance to experience having an awesome car or going fast without having to go out and speed down central entrance. My personal favorite driving game growing up was “Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition” where I got to make many cool customizations to my cars. These last three are the big games genres that I like and have the most experience in but I’m going to discuss some of the other game genres that are out there.

Simulation

This game genre is focused around real world events. This could be like a MS flight simulation or with the right equipment a real driving experience.  I do not have much experience in this game genre besides the flight simulation I did back in my 7^th grade tech class.

Strategy

Focuses on acquisition or utilization of resources to achieve goals. The medieval games would show this because you have to strategically manage combat. I personally never got way into these types of games although I have played some.

Shooting

This is a genre where you have an avatar and one or more weapons and many enemies. This type of game have been appealing to me but the reason I am not into it now is because I do not have an Xbox 360 or a PS3 so I cant play games like Call of Duty the popular one and when I do play its with friends and I just lose every time and that’s not appealing to me.

Action Adventure

In this game genre there is usually an antagonist and a protagonist that you usually control through some sort of adventure or storyline. I do have some experience in this type of game but it is not it definitely does not crack my top three favorites.

MMORPGs

This genre of game has a large number of players that interact in a virtual world. A big example of this would be World Of Warcraft (WOW). This genre of game I do not have any experience in, I might be interested in trying it but I wouldn’t lose sleep if I never did.

There are also a variety of other game genres as we discussed in video game entertainment class some of which it is hard to put a label on like Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero is put under the category of rhythm/music and this makes sense to me but there can be an argument that it could fall under simulation as you are in a sense simulating guitar play.

So why do why love the genres we do? I personally think it goes into the living vicariously through video games because it gives us a chance to play something we love (sports for me) though using the best players in the world.

Reference:

Downs , Edward . "Game Genres." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 2 May 2013. Class lecture.

Why Do I Play Video Games?

I used to think that social interaction was the biggest reason why I play video games but then I began to think about how much game play I put in on my phone or my iPad when I am supposed to be doing something else. So I came to the conclusion that diversion was the biggest reason although not the only reason that I play video games.

Ever since my aunt gave me an iPad it has been the biggest excuse for me not to be doing something or if I had nothing else to do that is what I would be doing. I feel like playing video games is such an easy way to avoid doing things or to pass time when you have nothing to do and is the reason why a lot of us play because it is that easy outlet.

I think another reason that could fall under diversion is to avoid “awkward situations” or a person like if you don’t want to talk to someone at the time what better excuse than to text or call them back three hours later when you and just say sorry I was gaming. Or it can be used when you are sitting in a high traffic place just hanging out by yourself and you don’t want it to look like you’re weird and just awkwardly sitting in the middle of everyone. That is when you can bust out your phone and start playing games.

The second reason why I play games is just social interaction. I feel like this is something that you can do when you are hanging out with your friends and it can get everyone involved in fun way. I have had a blast playing NHL 13 with my friends or even better of a social interaction game would be rock band because it requires more than one or two players to play. Another way this is apparent was freshman year the big thing on my floor with all the guys was NHL 11 and we would always have tournament and it was a good way to get everyone together and build relationships.

Lastly I think fantasy, which reasoning is that video games allow us the ability to do thing that we are not normally able to do. The big game that would fall under this would be Indy Car for the computer. My dad got this game and he even got a wheel for and always let me play. When playing this game I could pretend to be a racecar driver even though at the time not only was I not a racecar driver but I couldn’t legally drive a car.

Reference:

Downs , Edward . "Why Do We Play?" COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 2 May 2013. Class lecture.

BIRGing v CORFing

When talking about BIRGing or CORFing you are talking about your response in association with a certain group. Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRG) refers to a person’s tendency to publicize a connection with another person who has been successful usually as an ego enhancement mechanism. Cutting Off Reflective Failure (CORF) refers to a response a person has to distance them self from those who don’t portray the self in the best possible way as a self-preservation mechanism.

The reason I bring these up for video games is that I think although these terms usually refer to a group you don’t have control over, the concept directly connects to playing video games. Personally I like to play sports video games NHL 13, Madden 13, NBA 2K13 you name it I probably like to play it. So while I am playing lets say NHL 13 I always find myself taking credit for a play that maybe the computer did saying that “I set that my guy up perfectly.” Or even if I do something cool that I wasn’t trying to do I will most definitely take credit for doing it. So that how I would say I BIRG in a video game but there is that other side when I’m not doing so hot. When they computer messes up or even me, lets be honest I immediately blame the game or the computer players or the avatar I’m controlling. I can hear my self right now yelling as I’ve done a million times “What hell are you doing computer why didn’t you pass it!” Even though I am the one who is controlling that avatar. So if something bad happens while I am playing I hardly ever take responsibility or credit for messing up and I think that directly connects to the concept of CORFing. As it is something that I do to make sure its not my fault if lose because I don’t want to be portrayed in a bad way where I can just have that be my excuse to disassociate myself for that loss.

Reference

Downs , Edward . "Cialdini's Work: BIRGing: Basking In Reflective Gloary." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 2 May 2013. Class lecture.

Downs , Edward . "Cialdini's Work: CORFing: Cutting Off Reflected Failure." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 2 May 2013. Class lecture.

Addiction: Greatest Freakout Ever

A lot of us have seen the video of the kid who goes nuts and freaks out because his mom cancelled his World Of Warcraft account. If not heres the link to that video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YersIyzsOpc

Can you make the assumption that Stephen the kid from the video has an addiction due to his obviously extreme reaction after his mom cancelled his WOW account or for the sake of the subordinate terms in addiction ill say withdrawal? I think you can definitely make an argument that he has an addiction to this video game after just seeing his withdrawal because it shows implications that he also touches on some of the other addiction subordinates.

First off we will start will salience, which is whether the game is important to him or not. This is clearly implicated by his reaction to not being able to play it because who would freak out that bad about something that is not important to them. The second one is tolerance. You cannot really say by just seeing this video that he plays an unhealthy amount but I think it is pretty safe to say he probably does because his mother cancelled his account for it, which could have just been because of how he acts when he plays. The third one is mood modification, which is the reason why people play. This also can’t be determined through just watching this video, as we don’t know why he plays. The fourth one is withdrawal, which is the unpleasant feeling you get if you cant play anymore and this reaction or unpleasant feeling is clearly displayed by the way he acts after not being able to play anymore. The fifth subordinate is relapse, which happens if after a period of non-use you fall back into these habits. This also cannot be determined by just watching this video because we would have to know if he got his account back and if he went back to bad habits. The sixth one is conflict, which tend to be interpersonal. This is also shown in the video as he yells at his brother and is very upset with his mother because she was not ok with him playing the game anymore and cancelled his account. The last subordinate problems, which are more serious things like dropping out of school can somewhat, be implied that it is apparent. This is because during the video he starts to harm him and say that he is going to run away both of which could fall under this subordinate.

After all of this through the implications that his extreme withdrawal reaction I believe you can say that he has a video game addiction. This is because the implications show that he possesses four of the seven subordinates and sense addiction is polythetic that is enough to make it an addiction.

Reference

Downs , Edward . "Addiction ." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. . University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 2 May 2013. Class lecture.

Implicit v Explicit Learning

Can intention turn something that is explicit learning into implicit?

When I was younger I loved to play the Disney’s Adventures in Typing with Timon and Pumpaa game but the reasoning for me playing was not to become a better typer but it was just because I enjoyed the individual challenges and most importantly the characters Timon and Pumbaa and the gang. My personal favorite mini game you could say was the smack-a-bug game where you would have to type the letter on the bug that popped up to whack him it was almost like whack a mole but instead using a hammer you used the keys on the keyboard. So I was playing the game to fulfill other satisfactions such as entertainment rather than just playing to learn how to type which was the objective of playing the game but it is not what I played it for. So this leads me to believe that even if a video games objective is to make you explicitly learn something such as the lay out of the keyboard or how to type it can be an implicit learning experience if those are not your intention or not exactly aware that you are learning to type makes it an implicit learning experience because while you are getting your entertainment you are also learning to type even though you are not aware of this.

Reference

Downs , Edward . "Implicit and Explicit Learning ." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth. 2 May 2013. Class lecture.

What Type Of Game Player Are You?

In the game video game world there are many different types of players that people are or could be. I personally think that I hold more than one of these types depending on which game that I am playing. I also believe you can hold multiple types in a single game. The types of game players are as follows…

The competitor

He/she is the person who plays to be better than other players. This I see typically in online game play of Sports games like NHL 13 or First person shooters like Call of Duty.  These players can get very heated or pumped up during game play and usually pretty vocal about it. Personally in NHL 13 I fall under this player type because I love to win and beat my friends or online opponents. So when I do win I definitely let them hear about before during and after the game.

The Joker

A joker is the type of player that that plays for the fun alone and enjoys the social aspect of gaming. This is the other type of game player I would consider myself to be because and especially when playing Call of Duty, which is a game that I do not necessarily excel at. I think that is a lot of the reason I am a joker when I play this game. Although I am not very good at this game I really enjoy playing this game with my roommates because I enjoy the social aspect of hanging out and gaming with my friends. I do often get made fun of though for my lack of skill in this game, which can sometime spark my completive side.

Those are types of players I see my self to be. Next are a few other types of game players, what do you see your self as?

The Explorer

This type of game player plays the game to experience the boundaries of the play world and discover what others do not yet know.

The Collector

They play to acquire the most stuff through the game.

The Achiever

A video game achiever plays not only to be better now but also to be better in rankings overtime or to have the most championships over time.

The director

They play for the thrill of being in charge. (S)he wants to orchestrate an event in the virtual world

The Storyteller

This type of player plays to create or live in an alternative world and build narrative out of that world

The Performer

If you like to play a game to put on a show for others you would probably fall under this category.

The craftsman

Do you like to play games to build, solve puzzles or engineer constructs you are likely a craftsman type game player.

There are other types of game players you can be so don’t think it is just restricted to just these!

                                    In this case I would be Philadelphia because I always win!

Reference

Downs , Edward . "Type of Players ." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 24 Apr. 2013. Class lecture.

Social Presence in Final Fantasy X

This last summer me and my buddy decided that we were going to beat Final Fantasy X not know that it was going to be one of the biggest investment of time as we have put in over 100 hours of game play in this one game. You start out as this character whose name is Tidus throughout the game you gain many allies Auron, Kimahari, Wakka, Lulu, Rikku, and Yuna. You also come into contact with many foes to defeat the biggest one being Sin. So after putting in so many hours playing the game you start to feel like you personally know these characters and build a relationship. For me these relationships were good and bad one depending on the characters.

My favorite character which I'm sure many other people have was Tidus as he is the main protagonist in this video game and the story line kind of revolves around him. He has a nice fiery grit about him and he never gives up on things not to mention one of the best blitzballers in the game. So that is part of the reason why I liked him so much I think. Anyways throughout the game there are certain times when you are not able to use him and during these times I wasn’t happy because I wasn’t able to use my favorite character. He was also the character that I liked to score all the goals when playing blitzball and it was my ultimate goal to always have him be the best. So as we were coming to the end of the game when everything gets crazy (SPOILER ALERT) and he end up having to fight Sin who is actually his father Jecht I was very emotionally invested in this battle. And after the game ends I was somewhat relieved because we put so much time into it but at the same time it was kind of sad that it had come to an end and we wouldn’t be using him to fight all the bad guys and save the world anymore.

Through playing so many hours with this character I believe it lead me to have a social presence with him, which is the ability to form relationships with a Para-authentic actor or avatar. So is time invested the number one factor in being able to create this social presence?

Reference

Downs , Edward . "Presence (Chapter 16) Notes ." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 26 Apr. 2013. Class lecture.

Are Cars Considered Avatars

Avatars & Identity

I think that when talking about Avatars and Identity a thing (car in this case) has to be. When talking about this topic we discussed reasons why gamers become so invested in their avatars and listed four reasons. The reasons are as follows…

1. Time commitment during creation

2. Time spent playing as the avatar

3. Skill acquisition in game

4. Similarity to the self

I believe that in racing game such a Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition I became very invested into the cars that I would make and use for my races. So out of those reasons for investment correlating to the car I have all four of these. For the first one I think I’ve spent more time customizing and creating a car how I want it than any other avatar or character even when creating myself. The second one I've played many hours driving around in the cars that I created and have completed many races. Moving on to skill acquisition during the game you have to gain money to be able to make your car better and customize it exactly how you want it. Lastly it correlates to similarity to the self because each car that I have customized I have personalized to be similar to something that I would like not necessarily look like me obviously because it’s a car but created to look how I like it to look. This also goes into another point that you live vicariously through you virtual representation (Downs, Avatars & Identity). I connect to this point because though this game I am able to purchase cars, rims, paint jobs etc. that I cannot afford in real life.

So this poses that question can things be considered avatars such as cars in a video game or would the “driver” in the car technically be the avatar?

Referene

Downs , Edward . "Avatars and Identity ." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth . 2 May 2013. Class lecture.

Multi-Tasking

So I started playing this new game on my iPad called “Hardest Game Ever 2.” In this game you have to do all kinds of weird games that are simple to do but hard to do fast and accurate.  Anyways I have been stuck on this level where you have to use three fingers to press three different ice cream cones to make the ice cream scoops fall down on to them but each cone requires different amounts of scoops, also if you go over the amount of scoops on any cones you automatically fail the level.

So again I have been stuck on this level getting more and more frustrated because I can seem to get the “superior” rating on this level. Then I thought about human processing and the different types of multitasking and assessed it to this game. This made it make a little more sense to why this game was so difficult. This was because it almost requires you to completely concurrently multitask and it uses all three groups of our resources perceptual, motor, and cognition at the same time to complete the level at a “superior” grade.

The game starts with requiring you to gather information perceptually through your vision to look at the ice cream cones and see how many scoops each of them need. This then leads into cognition, which in this game is requiring you to count and decided which ice cream cones to press and how many time to press them. This then moves into using your motor resource and that is physically using your three fingers to press each of the cones. You have to make all of these decision in such a quick fashion that I believe it requires you to use concurrent multitasking. You could make the argument though that it just requires very very fast sequential multitasking but where is that line drawn between when a fast sequential multitasking turns into concurrent multitasking?

Here is a video of a guy killing it at the ice cream game!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg6KcFfaLcQ

Reference

Downs , Edward . "Multitasking Types ." COMM 3560: Video Game Entertainment. University of Minnesota Duluth. Power Point , Duluth. 2 May 2013. Class lecture.