O Computer Games Studies

INB180 Assignment 1a - Essay Plan

Name – Eric Alves Rosini

Student Number – 9381481

Due date – 23/04

Thesis

How ethical concerns about the video games can affect the players of every age.

Video games by their own are not capable to bring any kind of harm to the players. Be it social, or psychological.

Relevance to Industry (Introdução)        

It is undeniable that with the growth of the games industry in the past decades, a big concern about the impact that video games have in the society  have born and it is getting bigger, mostly upon the influence that game have on the players.  

Considering the games development and with the fact that they are getting more real and presenting a greater rat of interactivity between the player and the game character, a lot has been talked about the many ethical aspects involved in a video game. Among then, it is possible to cite: how people see the violence that are insert in many games, how video game can cause addiction and about the effects that video games causes in the players life for example, how they influence in the school (referring to children) and in their social conviviality.

This study aims to analyze all those points and try to find conclusive evidence about how those ethical issues affect the player. It is also a goal of this study shows the industry behavior about those points and how they are responding that, mostly by the use of classification board, and the outcomes of this technique. So, it is intended to do an overall look in which ethical topic are present when it is talking about video games and what harm, or benefits, those topics can bring to the players.

Proving, and spreading, that games are not capable to bring any harm to society by their own, the industry may feel more free to produce their games, without caring much with the danger of them being censored or taxed improperly. Confirming this thesis, the video game developer companies will have more space to grown and dispel much of the negative media attention around this subject.  

Preocupaçoes como... (Falar dos games – Falar da violencia – do vicio – dos efeitos sociais e quais medidas podem ser feitas para garantir que não haverao maleficios ao jogadores --- Nesse ponto entra a parte da classificação etária e dos beneficios que o video game pode trazer [Point 3]

quando se esta falando em todas as decisoes eticas e morais que um jogador tem que passar durante um jogo de video game.

Muitas decisoes que podem serem feitas dentro de um game tem um grande valor ético incluso e tentar provar que independente dessas questoes éticas, os video games por eles mesmo são incapazes de trazer qualquer maleficio aos o que estão jogando, será de grande ajuda a industria, pois assim a industria terá mais espa;co para crescer de forma incostatevavel e sem se preocupar com esteriótipos e a media negativa que fica em volta do video game.

Point 1 

Besides all media discussion about how videogames can affect players, in a positive, or negative way. Some studies try to show how videogame can bring benefits, like increasing of self-esteem (Durkin & Barber, 2002.). However, a lot of discuss and works are being made about games which presents polemic content like violence or sexualism (Reference).

Games like Grand Theft Auto V and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 are always in the in the target of the media, mostly because of their explicit content, allied with the fact that many children are playing this kind of game. To controvert this, the game industry always says that games with this kind of content are, in almost all the case, classified as +18. So theoretically, if the classification be respected no problem should be observed.

The classification board was a measure created to protect youngest players, but this measure really works? Besides the fact that in many cases, the classification is ignored by the parents who just buy the game and give it to their child, without carrying about age classification. What is the main point is how powerful games are to influence the kids.

O que por um ldo faz sentido, pois todos os paises tem suas tradicóes, culturas e costumes. Porém, por outro lado, se video games tem o poder de influenciar no comportamento das criancas, isso provavelmente independeria do local que essa crianca se encontra. Portanto, é possível obserar uma lacuna de preocupaçao da industria em relacao a como

As was showed by Durkin & Barber, 2002, moderate players exhibited lower depressed mood, lower disobedience and higher self-esteem levels. Those social parameters shows how games can bring benefits for the player’s life and thus helping in their social conviviality.  (CLassificação etária)

Point 2

One of the biggest ethical concern is how the violence in the games can affect the player, being they children or adults. What the greater majority of the critics says is that because of the interaction aspects of video game, they are capable to exercise a greater influence than other kind of entertainment as movies or books, mostly when it is regard to violence.  And now, as videogames are getting more realistic and the interaction between the player and the character are getting more perfect, increasingly they are becoming more dangerous.

Games like Mortal Kombat, , always caused a lot of worries about the your violent content, but making a comparison between the Mortal Kombat 4 and Mortal Kombat X, it is clear the difference in the graphics and the realistic factor. In fact, in Mortal Kombat X, they actually tried to make the things more real as possible creating special attacks, which is possible to see the bones being broken by the character attacks. Besides that, it have all fatalities and special scenes that are characteristic of this game, but with more realistic graphics.

However, this argument is refuted by studies which shows that is not because someone is practicing a violent act, or playing a violent game, that this will influence its mood, or turns it into a violent people. This can be observed in people who practice combat sports, like Judo for example. Being Judo a physical sport, it is possible to say that is much more interactive than videogames just because of the fact that is a real person doing the action, and contrary with people say, the studies shows that the Judo practitioner tend to show a decrease in the levels of anger an aggression and, at the same time, they present better self-control and self-esteem (Hokino & Casal, 2001).