Technology in Culture Paper~ Revolutions in the Gaming World

Love them or hate them video games are in your life as a great source of entertainment for all ages. It is unbelievable how many lives this invention has touched; whether it has been the gamer, the game developers, retail companies, and the many people who are connected those those who are directly involved. Surprisingly this entertainment technology is only around fifty years old while jumping leaps and bounds from its beginnings of a drawn overlay for a game of tennis for two to games like Halo 3 and Final Fantasy XIII for game consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or Sony’s Playstation 3. There are even handheld systems like the Nintendo DS or the Sony Playstation Portable have been created for on-the-go fun. Really if someone were to truly think about it… Video games didn’t starrt growing in popularity until the late 1980s where it skyrocketed into this fantastic widespread epidemic that it is today.

 

Economy

It is rather impressive that a simple idea called the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device from Thomas T. Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann equal a $10 billion dollar industry that directly employs approximately twenty-five thousand people in the United States alone fifty years later. Also this industry is powerful enough to rival with the Motion Picture industry while being the most profitable industry in the world, but that reality could of ended in 1983.

Several factors played a role in the North American Video Game Crash of 1983. The major factors of this crash were poorly made video games, too many consoles, and loss of publishing control through third party publishing companies like Activision.

 Atari had gained control of the license for the most successful arcade games, Pacman, to then port it to their Atari 2600 console for an accessible home version. Tod Frye, the lead programmer at Atari was asked to do the port. He was so confident in the prototype that he had it commissioned twelve million copies of the Atari version Pacman while there were only ten million Ataris owned by the public. The thinking in all this was the hope that more people would buy an Atari just to play Pacman. The actual result of this was nothing like they had envisioned. Seven million copies of Atari’s Pacman were sold while causing massive disappointment in Atari with demands of money refunds. The reason of the disappointment was because their prototype was nothing like the original Pacman. This was one of the failures from Atari.

 Another poorly made game was from Atari thanks to Steven Ross, head of Warner Communication that owned Atari. Ross wanted to have Atari make a game based off the movie, E.T. Ray Kassar, the CEO of Atari in 1983, said:

“We had literally six weeks to produce a brand new game, manufacture it, package it, and market it. It was a disaster. I mean the programmers hated it. Nobody liked the game.”

 The game was a serious waste of money, because how the game play went. The pattern of it was frustrating. You collect dot things, fall in holes, get chased by two different people, and only die once. Five million copies of the game were produced and almost all of them were returned to Atari. With millions of unsold cartridges were sitting in an Atari warehouse Atari dumped them in a New Mexico landfill, steamrolled them, then poured cement over the remains.

Atari had lost $526 million dollars by the end of 1983. This started the downturn of consumer confidence in video games, but these weren’t the only games causing the lose of confidence. Many games were put out there just to have something out there. Dozens of consoles made it difficult to choose which system to play while computers were becoming competitive in prices and games systems also had interchangeable parts to play other games from different systems, but Nintendo saved the industry with their Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987.

 

Society and Culture

 Society usually criticizes video games for being the worst thing to be created, but little do they realize that video games are a very good thing to have.

 Desensitization can be counted as a good or bad thing. Twenty or thirty years ago people would have flinched at street violence, but now-a-days people treat it as a normal occurrence in life. Also seeing decapitation or guts strewn about in video games is no longer “hardcore” or “edgy” enough. Now those things are a requirement in violent video games, but those things aren’t necessarily true because fear can still be ensured into someone when it is reality versus graphics in a false world where your psyche can’t be affected that much. Another thing is, decapitation or guts surrounding the game character is not a requirement for a violent video game to be a good game. A good game actually should require a excellent story line with twists and turns to keep the interest in it.

Some have scoffed at video games believing that it promotes laziness, violence, and even seclusion, but actually friendships and clubs have been formed around this interest. An entire culture has been created for the sake of video games. It includes everyone from the hardcore Halo tournament participants to avid World of Warcraft gamers to the casual game fans while becoming a well-shared pastime among children, teenagers, and adults.

Video games have been making a vivid appearance in the work force as well as the education system. Amazingly many companies and organizations are turning to video games as an easy interactive way to train individuals while educational games are becoming more prevalent in primary and secondary schools as teaching tools for youths.

 

Individual

 

This is the biggest way for video games to affect its existence, because if it wasn’t for the individual video games wouldn’t be as prevalent as it is today, but there are negative effects on said individual as well as positive ones.

Violent video games have been found to decrease prosocial behavior or socially desirable behavior that benefits others rather than bringing them harm while some children or teenagers act out the violence, but someone can’t entirely blame video games for this psychological behavior. Games like Grand Theft Auto and violent movies and TV shows along with the child’s environment all have a hand in this. Another reason why violence is being acted out by some teenagers is due to the fact that the video games don’t show pain of the victim while the violence is repetitive. Repetition with rewards tells the child that violence is okay. Also certain violent games reinforces racial and sexist stereotypes.

Video games have shown to influence self-perception that has been to linked to body image assessment of the opposite gender. Female game characters are often hyper sexualized and have unrealistic features which distorts the hardcore gamer’s perception of beauty. This is the same with the male game characters, but self-perception is not the only thing effected. Spending and time displacement problems lead to debt and missed school or work days.

Aside to things that video games could possibly affect badly there are many good side effects as well as solutions to certain problems. Take for instance childhood and adult obesity is rising and many blame video games because it apparently promotes laziness. Well, Nintendo has created a game console called the Wii that makes the player get up and move especially their new game line up called the Wii Fit. Also the leading developer and publisher of various entertainment outlets produced a dance simulation game called Dance Dance Revolution or better known as DDR. This game has caused a revolution in the music game industry as well as exercise. DDR has been proven to help people lose weight.

Video games have allowed people to relieve stress, break their routine, and becomes a safe outlet for aggression and frustration. Also this entertainment technology develops many practical and intellectual skills such as the positive effect on divided attention performance, problem solving abilities, perseverance, pattern recognition, hypothesis testing, logistics mapping, memory, quick thinking, estimating skills, inductive skills, resource management, and reason judgment. They allow children to practice these skills and abilities outside of school. Now who said video games were entirely bad for you?

 

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Blogger’s Notes:  This paper was done for my Technology in Culture class. I worked on it for a couple of days so I could get it done ahead of time.

Grade:  A (pwnage ^^)

Argumentative Essay~ Subsidized Switchgrass

 

Fuel has always been a problem in America and often discussed on how to solve it. Some believe we should stick with using the fossil fuel, oil, while others suggest we start looking into alternative fuels. By looking into these options we move our country into the future while becoming less dependent on foreign oil. Governor Phil Bredesen wants to subsidize farmers to grow switchgrass for the purpose of biofuels. The aspect of new economic growth for Tennessee and the development of biofuels is wonderful and all, but subsidizing farmers is not the way to go about it. Also having switchgrass grown also can limit growth of other crops such as tobacco, soybeans, and cotton. Tobacco being limited is a good side effect, but limiting soybeans and cotton actually has a negative outcome.

Switchgrass is a great candidate for ethanol fuel due to its large biomass, because of this it can produce 100 gallons of ethanol fuel every metric ton while producing 1,000 gallons per acre. Corn only produces 400 gallons while sugarcane only produces 665. Using switchgrass as an ethanol source instead of corn, the price for corn can lower when it comes to food products while also being used for an alternative to plastic. Another thing to note is that planting switchgrass for one season then planting soybeans another can help the soil out while allowing the crops to flourish. The drawbacks of planting switchgrass is the negative production of cotton in Tennessee. Cotton is a big selling crop in Tennessee and allows the country to produce its own cotton fabric while keeping Americans employed by the existing textile factories. Tobacco sells could go down causing the products prices to go up possibly creating a new wave of people quitting.

“ I think the whole corn-based ethanol is basically nonsense. I think it’s something driven by presidential politics and big government subsidies for that. And so, I don’t think there’s any scientist out there who thinks corn-based ethanol has much future…But there’s an awful lot more woodchips and grass and tress and everything else out there than there is corn.’ ” Governor Phil Bredesen said in an interview, but funnily enough the Tennessee’s ethanol fuel program is based on subsidies. In fact Bredesen is investing 70 million dollars in this attempt to convert Tennessee’s soybean and cotton farms into switchgrass farms along with paying for the development of an ethanol refinery plant.

The problem with subsidies given to farmers is not every farmer uses the funding for the proper equipment. The average subsidy is approximately $26,000 per recipient. There are ways to receive subsidy money just by purchasing farm land without using the land. Not only is the wrong uses of the subsidy money a problem, but the money should not be given to them as an incentive to grow different things. Hard work should be the true reason to want to produce while money is a perk.

Conversion to the switchgrass growth would be an economical plus. There are minor negative effects, but Tennessee leading America in a new direction to using ethanol fuel instead of foreign oils is a bigger gain. Subsidies should not be the provider of the new future of Tennessee especially not 70 million dollars worth of money that could go for other things such as transportation and building repairs along with future projects to further Tennessee along to make it a better state to live in.

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Grade:  N/A