Gaming. Isn't there better things to do with our time?

This weeks lecture focuses on Games and whether or not they are to be seen as a waste of time or a positive way to use our spare time. Being someone who does not play any sort of virtual gaming I am quite biast in saying that I do beleive it is an absolute waste of our time and there are many better things we could be doing. It has been argued though that is can increase hand and eye coordination, but then again why not go outside in the fresh air, running around getting exercise and throw around a ball. That works your hand-eye coordination better does it not??

Despite this opinion there is no lying that gaming is a big part of western culture and the involvement is increasing dramatically as more and more people find themselve become immersed in a fantasy land, escaping their realities. Electronic gaming is booming and an example of this can be seen with the Nintendo Wii. It is a gaming console which through the use of motion controls allows the players to guide their actions physically rather then pressing buttons for directions. Could this be the beginning of the seeminly far fetched consoles of eXistenZ???

Reading: Trigger Happy
Steven Poole's Trigger Happy explores video gaming and entertainment in society and its evolution and effects. It probes at the possibility of finding the distinctions between virtual and reality and how we differenciate between the two realites. How do we know which one we are in? If we spend too much time in the virtual world how do we act when we are back in reality and is there a line that can become hazy where you can't define the difference?? Game designers seek to create a world that resembles our reality to increase our entertainment value.

Tute:Online Chatting
Out tutorial task was to check out online chatting in the form of msn and virtual reality online chatting. I have never used msn before so I literally gave up when i had to join up and make a login. I couldn't get it to work, and couldn't get the login to work so I guess I'll never know the 'joys' of instant messenging. Personally I think that myspace and facebook take enough of my time to be needing to join an even more time wasting program.

So judging the fact that I have never used msn I will just have to guess that it is basically just texting backwards and forwards but for free on an internet???

The virtual world I chose to become a temporary member of was Habbo Hotel and this was definitely an interesting experience. I found this to be a virtual chatting area focused on pure stupidity. The conversation between avitars (virtual people) was mostly rude and the word bobba was said a lot. I questioned the other avitars on what bobba was. It is a world that is used to filter out swear words and other words not appropriate for some ages such as the word sex. It was rather pointless though as they ended up still using the same language just extending it, eg; sssex or shhit. For a while though I though that bobba was some teenage slang that was in at the moment that I had not heard of.

The conversation between players was either rude telling you to get out of the room or a little bit too friendy. For example to test out these kids I went in looking a daggy nerd with two pigtails, a big baggy jumper, baggy pants and glasses with sneakers and the response from the male avitars was to get out of the room. I then later changed my appearance to a blond girl with a ponytail, and nothing more then a bra and hotpants. The response I got was quite different.

I had people asking me to come to their room and make out with them and wanting to grab my boobs. My response to them was that I was just a cartoon an to get over it. Most of the people playing the game I'm sure where a lot younger then they said they were. One of the most popular questions being asked was a s l (age, sex, location) which i naturally (being 21) made up.

This site I think is bad as it is usual as cyber bullying a lot of the conversations were pay out or marriage proposals. The most interesting conversation I had was with a french person who couldn't speak english so all my questions were asked in French so I was looking at babel fish to translate.That was as about as interesting as the game was to me. Another personI spoke to gave me his myspace band name which actually didn't sound too bad.

Mind you this is a game I would never play again, unless I was 9 again. I only played the game on 2 occasions. Once in the last class and then once at home for about an hour.

I do know why I don't play any computer games though, as although I hadn't played it since fri I went to a particularily bad 21st birthday party on saturday night that I left after about forty minutes of arriving but I went home to sleep and all night I was at the birthday party in a room at Habbo Hotel and everytime I left my avitar was sent back to that room resulting in me being in an all night virtual reality of the party.

This is one game I will not be playing again.