Hi there, welcome back to our blog. This week, Josie and Drew will be looking at their experiences with video games and how they have impacted their lives. Plus they'll talk about all of this chatter regarding the games being a distraction from life's bigger pictures. There is an ever growing market of people talking about productivity, habit change, and self help. For some, video games and other distractions are the devil. Others, believe that balance is the key. Drew and Josie will give their perspectives on video games and what they mean to them; as well as, addressing what it could mean for the future.
I started my love affair with video games at a pretty young age. I distinctly remember going to my cousin’s house around the age of 6 or 7 and being obsessed with Tony Hawk. You read that correctly, I said Tony Hawk. It was one of the few games that my cousin had for his PS2 and I was obsessed. I picked up the control and would spend hours with him playing through the story, goofing off, or creating the cutest skater I could. Anyone who tells you that they didn’t spend at least 30-45 minutes setting up the perfect character in games that allow the capability to customize, is lying to you. Except maybe, the ones that have 2 or 3 options for each part of the body. (Says the one who spend 2 hours creating sims and building them the perfect house) There are a lot of things that I love about video games, but at this point in my life I think the biggest pull is that I get to take, a break and be someone else for a little while. I know that sounds cliche and sad, but it’s the truth. I love being able to be whomever the protagonist is and save the world, cause destruction, win championships, or build the best city or whatever. It was a nice break from the stress of life. Maybe not at 7 years old, but at 23 it’s been amazing.
The future of the world with video games is going to be an exciting time. With the ever growing presence of augmented reality, virtual reality, motion detecting, and the rise of online gaming; the sky's the limit. I have not played an augmented reality game (besides Pokemon Go) and have only had the chance to play one VR game, but that one game was life changing. It may have been a museum exhibit, but it was amazing. The future of gaming will have people being more social than ever, and physically moving with the game. I’m not talking about the Nintendo Wii or the Xbox Kinect. I’m talking people wearing headsets like in Ready Player One, and them being immersed in a world of endless possibilities. Many people believe that the world will end like it is in that movie, but I have more faith in humanity than that. I believe that for every new game there is another student out there learning through this technology. I think VR will be the next way we experience space, it’ll be the next way we learn about the human body, and it’ll the next way we save peoples’ lives. I am more hopeful most when it comes to video games. If the world continues its trend the ESports really will take off, and instead of watching the NBA Finals I will be watching the Final Team Deathmatch on Call of Duty Black Ops 10.
I first started playing video games, the day I received a Gameboy Advanced, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Not to mention, I had Pokemon Fire Red, and a Spongebob Squarepants video game (super fun little game in case you wondering). A while later, my sister, brother, and I all got a group Christmas Gift: The Nintendo Gamecube. This wasn’t, the typical model in black. This was the Mario Party 7, Special Edition in a beautiful purple. We played that game like it was nobody’s business. Console gaming was awesome because there were other people playing with you. You also got the few times to go on adventures alone, like in Legend of Zelda the Windwaker (Hands down the best Zelda Game that I’ve played), but usually there was always someone sitting there watching what you were playing, helping you try to figure out what was going on during the enticing story-line. That's why console gaming was so cool, it brought people together, as gaming should be done.
I enjoy playing both video and board games. I’d much rather sit and play a game around a table, however, than sit behind a screen and move only my fingers. The board game has you interacting with the the other people you’re playing with face-to-face, while the video game has your face buried in a screen. I don’t know about you, but I have spent a lot of time with my face buried in a screen, especially when it comes to first person style puzzle game (such as Portal). This is why I get the appeal, I’d simply much rather play the games while being in the same room with people. You get to form a different kind of bond with someone, when you sit around the table with them and play a game. Couldn’t one make a point, however, that video games have created this new form of connection across the globe? The biggest game in 2018 was Fortnite (a first person shooter, player versus player, survival survival style arena game [Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know exactly what I’m talking about). Fortnite created this new wave of social interactions online. This game has an audience of 8 years old, through 50 years. People of many different walks of life play this game. It is huge. Not to mention, it has caused the streaming of people playing video games on websites such as Twitch to increase much past where it was at this time last year. This game has created a whole new online world exploding with so many new gamers connecting in a whole new way. It has also provoked the online multiplayer world to adapt to this new group of gamers. So many of the mainstream game developers have discussed a similar play-style being offered in their future hits.
I think this is going to breed a new era in online gaming. People are connecting with one another, more than they ever have, so (obviously) this new group of people connecting will get bigger, better, and evolve to work with the new game of this play style. I’m excited to see where it goes. I’m also very excited to see how it will affect all of the rest of the new big games coming out soon, and how they will adapt the game to gratify this new culture, if you will, in the video game ecosystem. Due to this culture’s growth, I believe that this will cause major titles to have the potential to not make the sales that are required to keep the title alive. This could be seen as both good and bad, as it would give a chance for new, creative titles and unique story-lines, but for many, change is hard. It’s nice to have a few titles that stick around. I'm going to leave you with a few concerns of mine, with regards to the evolution of this new culture of gamin, that I hope to explore in a future blog post. In this culture’s growth, has it caused our society to rely on our screens more to survive? Do we rely too much on our devices to teach important life and social skills to the new generation we may, or may not yet be raising? What will video games look like when my future kids are old enough to play them well? Time will only tell.
Thanks for reading our newest edition of Lost Cartographers. If you like it, feel free to subscribe to catch more cool content. We post in the blog every Saturday at 13:00 (1:00 PM for those of you that don't know military time). Feel free to share us with you friends, family, pets, really whomever you like! We also serve as the companion blog for "What Now?" a podcast we started! If you want to follow us on twitter to keep up in all things Millennial Atlas? Here's a link:https://twitter.com/millennialatlas
Comments