Virtual Reality Gaming

A virtual reality is a computer-generated simulation of a 3D images or an environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment like a helmet or gloves with sensors.

Can the next big thing be virtual gaming? Yes, companies have been working on virtual gaming devices for a while and it’s now that they have become open for the world to use. Oculus Rift was available to use at PAX, and now virtual reality gaming center will be opening in Australia. So no one can really say that virtual gaming isn’t going to make it because as everyone can see it’s soon going to hit the shelves and able for anyone to buy

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A virtual reality is something that feels real but isn’t, and that’s what the Oculus rift and the other devices will provide.

Video Game Addiction

Video game addiction is basically an impulse control disorder which is similar to pathological gambling and that is the constant need to do a certain thing in this case it is to play games.

For most young people, playing games is just a regular part of the day. Most are able to juggle between multiple different activities ranging from school work, to sports and just going out with friends. Gaming becomes an addiction when it starts to interfere with a person’s relationship, or school or daily life really. Games such as ‘World of Warcraft’ (WoW) are a perfect example of Video game addiction. WoW is an ‘MMORPG’ which is a massive multiplayer online game where it lets players be things they aren’t in real life, a shy child can be an outgoing child and a passive child can become an violent child.

People who often feel powerless in their daily lives can do whatever they wish in games and that’s what usually brings them into the game and most end up stuck in the game and forget about everything else making the virtual world in which they play in become their real world.

Violence in Video Games

Video games these days are becoming more and more violent and graphic year by year. This raises the argument that it also makes the children playing these games have a much more violent nature.

Ever since columbine, where two  students went on a deadly rampage at their high school, television, movies and the big one, video games have been a popular  mark for meaningless acts of violence. After the shooting the two shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebolds feelings for violent video games as well as metal music and Goth culture were to blame for the horrific incident.

But this incident hasn’t made teens move away from playing video games especially violent video games. Matter of fact approximately 90% of teens in the U.S play video games and more than 90% play games which involve mature explicit content. Fears about how violent video games could affect teens in real life have led legislators to propose everything from taxing violent video games to creating age restrictions for those who can purchase the games.

Working with 3,034 boys and girls in the third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth grade in Singapore, Anderson and his colleagues asked the children three times over a period of two years thorough questions about their gaming lifestyles and tested with a questionnaire to see their violent behaviour and approaches towards violence. As a result of this test, students declined throughout the years because as they get older they tend to act less aggressively because they learn more mature ways of handling conflicts rather than resulting to violence. But for the kids who played longer hours were indeed more prone to violence and were asked if they were to be talked negatively about would they strike the other and most answered with yes, which shows that games do result to a violent nature.

Anderson and his colleagues research on violence and gaming did show that students were more prone to violence especially ones who played longer but why haven’t I went on a massive killing rampage slaughtering innocent people for no reason, Anderson?

Gender in Video Games

These days gaming is seen as a mainly male dominate industry and the depiction of women in games has been seen as sexism and has created a fair few arguments around that topic in these current years.

From the very early years of gaming women in games have been seen as ‘the damsel in distress’ and often have had no big part in the game besides for them to be saved or to give you quests. Its only in these few years that have passed which women have become an actual part of the game and instead of them being just a little piece, they are the main character you play as and aren’t weak and small but strong and independent characters.

After years and years of games coming out we are finally moving away from the sexism in games and including women in as proper respectable characters to play as in games and this is seen in the game ‘The Last of Us’ where you play as Joel accompanied by Tess which is also a big character in the game and Ellie, a male character and female character both with their own abilities and strengths. Hopefully all future video games will move in the same course as ‘The Last of Us’ did and treat women as equal and nothing less.