Video Games

At first after reading the article and listening to class discussion I really thought I agreed with her argument that video games and tons more video games will help us solve world problems.  However, when I believe his name is Rick brought up the fact that he didn't buy her argument it made me start to think and look more into what she was saying along with what we had talked about during the rest of class. I do believe that she is correct in saying that it helps gamers with collaboration, epic wins, confidence, and communities, but I think that most of that only is within the gaming world. Her argument was that if we play 21 million hours of video games then we can solve real world problems, but to be able play that many video games it will start to take a toll on people's actual social lives. I agree with the person who mentioned a family member who plays a game religiously and is collaborative with the people in the game, but once they leave that game they tend to be closed off and not have many social skills because they aren't used to talking face to face with people. I also think that if you are asking people to solve problems via video games that will mostly get people to only play more video games that take away from them actually solving the real world problems.

I believe that the person who is going to solve these world problems such as world hunger or lack of clean water is already out there working for it and not just sitting around playing video games waiting for the game to come out for him to solve before he makes the move to start working for that goal. I also agree with the girl who mentioned that when people make video games there has to be an end goal. So, they are creating a video game with real world problems that also has a real world solution that they are then sending out to gamers and expecting gamers to make the connection and go out and solve the problem that they just solved in the game. BUT if the people who make games already found the solution why do they need the gamers to play the game instead of getting the actual solution in motion.

Video games can help certain people and personalities gain valuable traits, but I think for the most part many gamers will not take the lessons they learn in the games to the real world. In everything there are always a select group that have the personalities to make a change, but I don't think there are that many of that type of personalities in the gamer world.

Personally, I didn't play many video games growing up, but I believe I can change the world and that there is no obstacle too big to fix. Granted, it may take years to change, but I think I learned this by my mother going to a local soup kitchen twice a month and going on yearly mission trips. I learned first hand that I can accomplish things that seem impossible like building a house in a week and seeing this in real time. If we stepped up and actually made these things fun or just get children more involved at a younger age they wouldn't need video games to get these kids who eventually turn into adults to make these changes and impacts.