Games of all kinds have been around for centuries. Since the beginning of the civilized world, people have played and used games for many different reasons. For relaxation, to pass the time, to best another person, to win money, and even to train knights and today, soldiers. So why is it that in today's world, video games get such a bad rap? Could it be that young children play them and act out what they see in the games? It shouldn't be, because this has been happening since the days of emperor Charlemagne. Is it because the designers and publishers are making money hand over fist selling games to young children that might be considered by some or many as content for adults? Or is it just because people just need someone to be the bad guy? The villain.
Regardless of how you look at it, or what popular opinion of government or watchdog groups may be, the fact is that video games are here to stay. Matter of fact as time goes on, they will become an ever increasing part of the fabric of our everyday lives. Just 5 short years ago 45.7 million homes had a video game console hooked up to their television set. That number has grown steadily over the years at a rate of about 18.5% per year! This according to a report released by The Nielsen Company. So if you think video games are going anywhere anytime soon, you have another thing coming! So where does this leave us? Well, it leaves us now trying to find a way to regulate the industry and insure that what is given to our children is something that they can handle. Aha! I almost had you there! See, this is actually the parents job! Many of these so-called "watchdog" groups have tried to petition the government (among other officials) to regulate the industry and to try and put a stop to alot of what the video game industry has been and has plans to release. But they are barking up the wrong tree if you ask me. If anything, these people should be ONLY trying to get ratings systems standardized throughout the industry. This is fine and something that I and many others would support. There is nothing wrong with someone putting a rating on content being sold so that people who may not be fully aware of what they may be buying will have some way to at least know that it is appropriate for whomever they may be buying it for. This action I applaud. And as long as they try to put a standard system in place then great. They have a start, and they have a rating system currently in place, but it is far from a standard across the board and across all related media and systems.
But this gets us away from the topic at hand and is a discussion best left for another day. However the rating system does play a part in the industry ingraining itself within our daily lives. We as a society must realize first and foremost that what some may see as escapism and a way for some people to isolate is actually more of a learning experience and a way for people to (maybe unwittingly) train their body and mind to carry out tasks in an efficient and adept manner. This action also helps to change a persons outlook from negative to positive in more ways than one. And this is what I would like to expound on next.
Many experts and scientists have undergone many hours of experiments and studies over this topic of late. Mostly I suppose because of the press that it has received over the last few years with regards to children acting out game-like fantasies and dehumanizing the world around them. There is an overwhelming thought that children who grow up playing violent games have a tendency to become violent themselves. And that they have a tendency to see the people around them as a non valuable asset, meaning another's life has no value to that child because just as in the game where they just finished killing hundreds of people with no consequence - the same holds true in real life. Well.. this is not true. Regardless of what people think, it has been shown that children do realize they are playing a game. And they can separate the game world from the real world. And without getting into the whole psychological debate because I would not last, I believe most of that falls upon the parent and the environment that child grows up in. If the child lives in a loving environment where his/her parents openly and frequently acknowledge the real world around them and the child is taught the difference, these problems do no exist. It is only when there is an environment where the child is not cared for or the love that would normally accompany a child through his or her early years growing up is vacant that you can end up with a situation where the kid ends up losing grip on reality and acts out game-like fantasies. And even then I would not be sure that the kid would "lose grip" on reality. I would argue that the child knows what he is undertaking, but just does not care. And more so because of what he sees on the evening news or in his neighborhood then because of what he experiences in a violent video game.
I went a bit deeper into that thought then I wanted to but it serves to show the negative result of what a child's environment has on him or her. More to the point of positive and negative. Video games really have a positive effect on peoples outlooks on life. Or they can anyway. Take a normal person doing a normal task at work. They perform this task over and over for a few times and every time, they fail. And they look at it that way. The overwhelming outlook on this by the worker is, "I failed at this task". However if you have a similar situation in a video game, where a person continues to try the same task over and over again yet cannot complete, it they do not think that they "failed". The thought in this situation is, "I have not succeeded yet". And this is a very positive change. So you can see the value of having a "gamers outlook" on life. And this is what researchers are trying to find ways to convey into the "real world".
Many companies have over the years, tried to use video games to assist in training their employees. Although they have not found a sure fire way to do this successfully, maybe they should take a page from the US Army's training manual. Years ago the US Army realized the popularity of First Person Shooters among kids at the perfect recruitment age. So they spent some money, did some research, and came up with their grand idea. They developed a video game that would not only be a top notch video game graphically and mechanically (where it counts), but also does a wonderful job teaching the player about the Army way of thinking along the way. When playing this game for a length of time, you do become genuinely interested in possibly joining the Army. Or at least you do if your a teenager almost ready to finish high school. But regardless of what the percentages of kids signing up because of the game are, the game succeeds where other similar projects have failed. The Army spent the time and money to do proper research to develop a game that got everything right where it mattered. They realized that their target audience was intelligent and had alot of experience in the field. And this is true of almost all gamers. They know the game industry. And today's young children are taught about technology at an increasingly young age. So by the time kids get to the age where advertising or a training style game will reach them, they are very smart and know what they want. So if anyone tries to utilize this method to reach a target group in this demographic they better not make any mistakes. Because these kids will spot them a mile away!
The point here is that video games in more ways than one have become a part of our everyday lives. And they look to continue along this path. With all the money being spent in various research and studies. And the millions being spent in development that has nothing at all to do with the leading game companies, it looks as if we will start to see games enter arenas that we have never expected them to enter. And we now enter an age where the three major game systems all have motion control and cameras to add a myriad of different features. And they have all found ways to include those in your family that never played games before. Video games are becoming a complete family experience. So over the next couple years, we will see changes in the industry; some that are expected and some that nobody could have ever guessed. The question is, how much will gaming enter YOUR life? Will you change to meet gaming halfway? Or will the games adjust to meet society somewhere in the middle?
