Sunseo Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Hello Guys, Up in that title is that one question that still concerns me as of today. I decided to do a senior thesis about this topic since it is related to my main interest and it is also infamous among the media. You might say yes, you might say no, but I would like to get a variety of PoV's and opinions that would help in my study. (A Developer's opinion would be real nice too!) Here are a few additional questions to consider: 1. What do you think makes video games vilified? 2. How does the media view video games? 3. Do you feel comfortable talking about it to people with little to no knowledge about video games? Why? 4. What do you think gives video games a bad impression towards the society? 5. Do you think video games have a purpose in the world? 6. What kind of stereotypes have you heard about video games? Do you know why that stereotype exists? 7. Is there a way to make video games feel more legitimate in society? 8. Do you think video games has to "transform" in order to be accepted by society? Thanks for your time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HadrosaurHero Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Oh yes, defiinately. It's a new popular media that allows for easy access to many things. People who don't know any better only see the negatives, like the violence, the drugs, the things that are limited to M games. And here's a thing for parents. If you're going to cpmplain about how your kid is being bad because of GTA5. THEN HOW ABOUT YOU READ THE FREAKIGN LABEL ON THE FRONT OF THE BOX!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReizoRyuu Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 (edited) Your answers can be reduced to a single subject: the audience. The gaming community is filled with scum and trash that ruin it as whole for the general pubic because they happen to be the loudest. No, video games don't have to transform, its audience has to. Edited September 16, 2015 by ReizoRyuu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impact6 Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 3. No! Cause I have to get through the effort of explaining all the not-so-fun stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EetNotErn Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Your answers can be reduced to a single subject: the audience. The gaming community is filled with scum and trash that ruin it as whole for the general pubic because they happen to be the loudest. No, video games don't have to transform, its audience has to. I was going to say something similar. I've been gaming since the late 70s and I've seen the community transform from a bunch of laid back geeks and nerds to a bunch of loud mouth whiny entitled social misfits. Not all of the community is like that, of course, but far too many. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaftMeat Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Vilified? No, but there's definitely a negative stereotype associated with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CelticMoss Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 (edited) They thought movies were evil when they came out. And TV. Edited September 16, 2015 by SarahApple Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gryphticon Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 (edited) Yes it is, playing video games is like doing a satanic ritual. We are all evil now. Edited September 16, 2015 by Gryphticon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(XBOX)RIOTx420 Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Games , movies , music , There's good and bad in all. Myself , I love to game and I'm very happy to share it with anyone who's interested in it aswell , For a guy like me it's a get away from the brutal world we face everyday , I don't spend countless hours gaming because I'm too busy and it's not good for you , Too much of anything is bad , Most adults play responsibility ... Thou kids might get a little carried away , Honestly this is a great topic and there's a lot to say about it , a lot of positive and negative aspects , So good questions ... I'll be watching this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheBrsrkr Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Yes, they are. It's because they are the youngest and most interactive medium available to the public. Every medium has passesd through it at a point in time, from radio to cinema to television sets and even writing, if the dark ages are anything to go by. The problem from the outset was that they were created to be targeted to children, and it still holds that stigma. It forms a self-fulfiling prophecy when someone looks at the bad in games. You look in, see childish swearing and vitrol that can be found in any public setting, then attribute it to that. Also, recent politically correct activity and corrupt journalism has sparked an outlash. It's very hard to get people to relate to a hobby. Ask a stamp colletor to talk about it, and he'll gush for hours and hours about all the different aspect, but ask a regular person about it and you'll get less than a minute of conversation. It's hard to relate to killing a dude while doing a backflip on the sun in another galaxy if you're not a fan of the whole gaming scene. Video games give a bad impression because from the outside they look like expensive, repetitive wastes of time, filled with violence and corruption, that only basement nerds enjoy. THen those same people go watch Breaking bad or some such. The difference is you are performing those actions in real time, and people think that fantasy and reality are somehow linked, as seen by Jack thompson and more recently Anita Sarkeesian. No matter how many times you can demonstrate this is false, the moment someone comes along who CAN"T tell the difference, say, people with recorded histories of mental disorders, the media and therefore the general public grab their extra wide paintbrushes. Video games are an interactive art form, and can be more than just entertainment. Like all art forms, it's significance and interpretation is up to the beholder. They can be mindlessly entertaining, ridiculously funny, marvelously terrifying, wonderfully depressing. They can paint the events of the past present and future in all aspects, from every angle. They can create worlds, inspire minds, show possibilities, and they can all include you in it. That is what makes video games so beautiful and so terrifying. For video games to be accepted into society, three things have to change. One is already in progress, which is that the players need to recognise that gaming as a medium is difficult to understand and explain, and that work has to be done to counteract the stigma of old. Consumer rights have to be utilized as well, and things that do not encourage change such as pre-ordering have to be limited in some manner. We also have to stop screaming for the wrong things, since the screaming will never end so long as there are humans. The second thing that muc=st change is the companies. Compaies have to find some middle ground between design and revenue, and stop mony-grubbing tactics. Also, more work has to be done within the design to include player's input on the important features and aspects of development. Society itself nees to change to see that it isn't all it's cracked up to be, and holding on to stigmas gained 50 years ago isn't helping anyone at all. Finally, the media needs to stop it's bias toward the politically correct and biased connotations that a select few hold, stopfallingfor the same tricks from those who seek to villianize gaming, and do just the tinitest bit of research before something hits the front page so that people don't get alarmed and cause much ado about nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(XBOX)AyersyBears Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 I'm not sure I would go so far as to say they are vilified, but I would say they are mostly looked down on. My opinion on each point are as follows: 1/2. Whenever I tend to hear people talk about video games, especially in the media, it is nearly always something like Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty, games where violence is pretty essential to the game, and is fairly realistic (as in, not fighting aliens or teddy bears or something). Naturally, anyone watching this tends to think about video games negatively as these games are all that are portrayed in the media, with no exposure of racing games, puzzle games, fantasy games etc. 3. I am not comfortable at all talking about video games to people who don't play them, as I think that they probably don't care about anything I have to say about video games, or will take me seriously to any extent. 4. I think a lot of the time, it is either the media that gives a bad impression of video games towards society, or just people assuming a gaming stereotype, where all gamers are lazy/ have no job/ live with their parents etc. 5. Video games have whatever purpose a person wants them to have. Some people play games to forget about their troubles for a bit, some play to kill time, some (like me) just want to play games because they're fun, some play for the story (also me). I don't see it as anything different from people watching films or binge watching a show on Netflix. Video games probably also contribute to the development of certain programmes and pieces of software, like simulators for fighter pilots or race car drivers (Probably. I know that Forza 6's rain software is pretty advanced stuff, that isn't in most professional simulators). They are also used to raise money for charity. I know recently a group of people on Destiny did a 24 hour stream and raised money for cancer research. 6. I've heard of one gamer stereotype, and that is of the lazy, unemployed person who probably lives with their parents still, doesnt socialise well and has no goals in life. I have no idea why this is a stereotype, and frankly I think its a load of rubbish. I know plenty of people who play games that have successful careers, are studying degrees, and are generally nice people. I personally am quite a friendly person, who has a good social life and am studying at university for a Masters degree. 7. I don't know about this. The media doesn't help for a start, nearly always portraying games in a bad light. I think it is possible, especially if more notice is given to things like the charity streams. 8. Not really. Some video games do have mature content that isn't exactly seen as a good thing in society (I'm sure the behaviour of people in GTA would be frowned upon in real life :P), but these games have an appropriate rating on them, just like films do. Video games are just that, games. I don't see why they should have to change to be accepted into society, its society's use of stereotyping that needs to change. Those are just my opinions, I'm pretty sleep deprived so I may contradict myself or make silly mistakes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSadisticDragon Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 1. It's a new media and even books got vilified when they were still new. It's just because it's a new thing of doing nothing that irks some people. 2. A lot of different media, currently the media outside of gaming is pretty neutral to sometimes accepting or negative. Media inside of gaming has a way larger spectrum of very negative to very positive 3. Yes, I'm a game artist student and large gamer myself so if I couldn't explain my interest to my family what would I be doing with my life? There is nothing wrong with games compared with other media and applied games can even help people, so I am not afraid of conversation about that 4. Interaction and violence. from an outside perspective it is extremely violent but you have to consider that from the perspective of a person who doesn't watch action or horror movies those things also look very violent. It is really what people are used to and most people aren't that used to games (since it is such a new medium). 5. Yes, gaming is a wonderful way to relax, educate and learn. 6. Fat neckbeard / Big Bang Theory nerd. people like making stereotype and so as they use it for comedy and they don't actually believe that crap I have no problem with it. 7. Time and research in how we could use games more in education. 8.Nope, gaming is already slowly but surely being accepted as a norm in entertainment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyrian3k Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 1. Media blaming them for things they aren't to blame for and people not informing themselves outside of that. Works the same way that any other prejudice works. 2. Generalizing media is difficult because that also includes those types of media that focus on games. Most of the negativity comes from media that don't bother looking deeper and just ask a (often self-proclaimed) expert about it. 3. To be honest, it's difficult since they oftentimes have about no knowledge at all. The rest depends on the person itself. If they are open-minded and don't discard the idea of talking (and learning) about something they don't know about, it can work quite easily, but there are many who simply don't want to. 4. Video games can basically contain everything imaginable and allow a player to do just about anything. Out of all those things, media are inclined to focus on the worst things and sometimes even claim that that's all you do in those games. For example the whole content of GTA is apparently murdering as many people with a chainsaw as you can. 5. Yes. To help us enjoy ourselves and to allow us to do things we can't do in reality. 6. - Gamers are violent and potential killers - Gamers are sexists - Gamers are neckbeards living in basements - Gamers have no interest in anything but games - Gamers are not normal people There's likely many more, but that's all I could come up in just a minute. All of them are based on wrong information spread by media or the lack of said information. 7. So long as media don't represent them properly and so long people are unwilling to inform themselves and rather live with their prejudices, no. 8. No. They are fine the way they are. Otherwise we would need to transform things like movies as well. As an example for uninformed people, I can tell you that, many years ago, when people in my class found out about me playing Counter-Strike at the time, not too long after a school shooting happened in my country and the media blamed violent videogames for it, I did get looked at weirdly. Interestingly enough those looks exclusively came from female classmates. If you keep in mind that basically none of them actually knew anything about videogames, the conclusion that they just sucked up what the media told them without further questioning isn't too far fetched. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidathe Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 (edited) 1. What do you think makes video games vilified? Interactive media. Lots of explosions. Pewpew. Also, it's new, and unusual, and they said the same thing about arcade games and comics and how they'll corrupt innocent minds and to think of the children by burning the producers of X alive on a cross and devour their families whole. Because they deserve to die for peddling smut to children. 2. How does the media view video games? Depends on who you're watching or reading from. 3. Do you feel comfortable talking about it to people with little to no knowledge about video games? Why? I don't feel comfortable talking to people at all. I ain't explainin' why. 4. What do you think gives video games a bad impression towards the society? What do you think gives comic books a bad impression towards society? 5. Do you think video games have a purpose in the world? Yes. Entertainment, education, teaching people a general outline of how to farm, take care of animals, maybe go hardcore mode with a full on farming simulator. Not just with a tractor, but horses and all that stuff you can feed personally. Or hire a bunch of people to do it for you, whichever. 6. What kind of stereotypes have you heard about video games? Do you know why that stereotype exists? TVTropes has an appropriate series of links. 7. Is there a way to make video games feel more legitimate in society? They already are. 8. Do you think video games has to "transform" in order to be accepted by society? It's always transforming. Like a virus from Pandemic! Edited September 16, 2015 by Sidathe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(PSN)Pharen Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Hello Guys,-snip- 1. What do you think makes video games vilified? Some people assume that all gamers are addicted to gaming and that is childish and unhealthy. They don't seem to realise that playing a game requires more thought and gives more education than sitting down and watching TV. Because television/movies are in direct competition with gaming it tends to portray gamers as addicts and low lifes. 2. How does the media view video games? Mentioned above. 3. Do you feel comfortable talking about it to people with little to no knowledge about video games? Why? Depends, some people are more open minded. Otherwise, no, it's not worth the hassle. 4. What do you think gives video games a bad impression towards the society? People who don't read ratings and blame the content in games as being inappropriate because they assume all games are for kids. And people who blame games on there own personal problems. 5. Do you think video games have a purpose in the world? Yes, for entertainment, education and sometimes just an escape from reality. 6. What kind of stereotypes have you heard about video games? Do you know why that stereotype exists? Lazy, childish, immature, some others mentioned above. 7. Is there a way to make video games feel more legitimate in society? Only time will make it more acceptable. As time goes on, more people who grew up with games will make it a more accepted trend in society. 8. Do you think video games have to "transform" in order to be accepted by society? No, not really. Each type of game has it's own fan and player base. To change the way games are could potentially kill the industry because you are going to lose more customers and fans then you could potentially gain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.ToastForPresident Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) Everything heavily depends on which type of media outlets you are talking about. Most television media and their cites usually focus on creating scapegoats out of every little thing, with video games being one of their targets. Any form of media that focuses on selling through flashy words tend to paint targets on everything also. I found that newspapers have been leaning towards younger audiences and not making video games seem evil. All sources of media have a target audience that they lean towards, so the type of content they produce reflects their audiences values. I feel as if the reason why we keep hearing that video games are bad is because the most vocal of media usually does this to get more attention. Video games have already become an integral part of society and is already commonly accepted around the world, but those desperate media cites that are getting out of fashion just want their last hoorah to try to keep relevant by posting click baiting headlines so that the younger generation would get made and cause more traffic to those headlines. Video games are fine the way they are and is not evil or anything. The only people I hear from that say that video games are bad are from people who never even touched one in their whole entire life or just casual players. Relevant: Edited September 17, 2015 by Mr.ToastForPresident Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
izzatuw Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 1. What do you think makes video games vilified? - The general violence in it and how it's "easily" accessible to generally anyone 2. How does the media view video games? - The media views it as a very easy scape goat since it has the youngest fanbase and loudest of the rest of the media, music, movies etc. 3. Do you feel comfortable talking about it to people with little to no knowledge about video games? Why? - Yeah why not. 4. What do you think gives video games a bad impression towards the society? - Let's see, squatting, "video game inspired crimes", violence that generally isn't allowed in any other form. 5. Do you think video games have a purpose in the world? - Yes. It's a great time waster and just like anything else, too much of it is bad. 6. What kind of stereotypes have you heard about video games? Do you know why that stereotype exists? - There's stereotypes of everything, races, music goers, religions. Don't believe gaming should've been excluded 7. Is there a way to make video games feel more legitimate in society? - Not in its current way direction, we'd have to dumb down creativity. 8. Do you think video games has to "transform" in order to be accepted by society? - Never. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts