Video Games Research Report

Abstract

Video games appeared as a phenomenon in the 1970s and changed the entertaining sphere in the world. The games went through the long time of their development starting from the simple arcade, the Pong playing on black and white console and finishing the 3D colorful games with the effect of presence on the huge screens. The effects of the games are quite different ranging from positive as improvement of the motor skills and critical thinking to negative in the view of violent behavior. However, some of the effects can be controlled with the help of filter bubbles that filter the audience of the game, the age of game or ads presence in the game. Moreover, the games are not just filtered but also are placed on the special platforms like Steam that allow the game to choose form the wide variety basing on their popularity, category of year of release.

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Introduction

The emergence of video games in the 1980s has completely changed the media and the entertainment sector understanding. If children and adults amused themselves with the TV, the new culture of video games came to replace the “old”. The impact of video games was tremendous immersing people into the opposite social reality with the created characters and style of life and thus changing the social perception and life priorities of the contemporary people. The world of video games brought both positive as educational, technical and negative as violence causing and time waste effects on the humans’ lives (Therrien, 2016). However, the extraordinary ability of video games to give a new look on human reality donates to their growing popularity. Moreover, in the period of 1980s-1990s the magazines about the video games started appearing explaining the audience more about the video games, their history, strategies and techniques (Taylor, 2009). Then, the games were selected with the help of the filter bubbles limiting the advertisement and content of the games. The framework of the research includes researching the information with the primary and the secondary research involving methods of literature review and its analysis. The proposed research will look at how filter bubbles affect the spreading of Gaming knowledge and culture throughout the years. The main question involves two subquestions:

1. What kind of cultural impact have video-games had in the world throughout the years, positive or negative?

2. Which sorts of games, if there are any, may have been promoted or looked down upon due to the presence of filter bubbles?

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History of Video Gaming

The history of video games started in the 1970s and particularly in i972, when the first arcade game, the Pong, was introduced. However, there was an opportunity to play the game in just the convenient stores and restaurants that were filled with children aimed at playing the game. In 1977, the first at-home games console, Atari 2600 was released and its sales were estimated at more than 27 million items (Newman, 2017). A year later, the assortment of the games was extended as the space invaders heated the arcades and came at the pick of popularity. In 1979, the most popular Atari game, Asteroid was introduced to the public and made thousands of people go mad over the game. The 1980s brought even the greatest development to the gaming as the Mario was introduced, then becoming the legendary one. In the same period, the game industry approached $12 million in revenue and it was just start (Newman, 2017). In 1989, Nintendo released the first handheld system, the Gameboy, with worldwide sales reaching almost $20 million (Newman, 2017). In the 1990s playing games became computer-owning America’s favorite pastime that was more popular than watching TV, reading books or going to movies (Nelson, 2002). In this time, the Nintendo and SonyPlayStation were released that made the process of game playing more convenient as those were connecting to the TV screen. Moreover, the period of the 1990s was rich at the world known games as Mortal Combat and War Craft that are popular even nowadays (Therrien, 2016). Nowadays, the players who are 2.2 millions worldwide can play any game at any device like computer, mobile phone, console or other (Newman). The game industry is estimated at $108 billion revenue from the playing business in 2017 (Newman, 2017).

With the start of the video games appearance there was no gaming journalistic but in 1974, the periodic Play Meter was released and majorly covered arcade games but a great deal from a business angle (Rignall, 2015). However, the first magazine explaining the gaming culture, its technologies and strategies managed to appear just in 1981, called Computer and Video Games magazine (Rignall, 2015). Moreover, just a year later the electronic gaming magazine launched by Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz appeared. Along with American gaming explanations, the European ones appeared as well covered CVG. However, those magazines were rather vague with lots of wrong information but at least young programmers could learn some basics of programming. In the 1980s with the revolution in the gaming business, the gaming magazines started searching for the enthusiastic playing-journalist who could describe the games form the first person, using the gamers’ slang (Dierckx, 2017). The first magazine that managed to follow this popular style was British magazine called Personal Computer Games that became popular even away the Britain. Thus, all the press was divided into “the “serious” games industry press, and the more hyperbolic consumer/enthusiast gaming press (SAGE Journals, 2018). However, it is quite clear which one was more popular among gamers. The time passed and with the appearance of computers and the Internet, the online gaming magazines became more popular along with the gamers’ blogs and social apps and other systems that allowed find the suitable information.

Game Culture and its Effect

Cultural Effect of Video Games

The video games appeared in the world bringing a serious cultural impact, while changing forms of social perceptions and life priorities. One of the major peculiarities of the game culture was its quasi-autonomous structure during the 1980s (Kirkpatrick, 2012). As long as the gaming culture could not be explained with any of the existing methodology, creators of the gaming were ready to apply any alternative approaches used in education, technical social subjects to explain the sense and meaning of the games. This phenomenon could be explained with the fact that the games’ themes were quite different and no single method could clarify the various methodological principles suitable for each gaming audience. Gaming culture even extended in the groups of people just playing the single game and those playing the other and thus the fight for the better game that can be compared with the football fans who hate each other cheering up the various teams. However, all the games had an ability to provide people with the new insight of human reality that made the games more and more popular.

Along with the different cultural effect within the diverse game groups, the attitude toward gaming varies among the different racial and ethnical groups. According to the statistic of the recent Pew Research Center report, the black, white and Hispanic have the diverse view on the effects the gaming creates. Most blacks find the gaming possess the most possibly positive as 19% of black supposes the gaming promote teamwork and communication, 22% of black think the gaming promotes strategic thinking and problem solving, while just 8 and 15% of the white accordingly think of the gaming as the positive process (Anderson, 2015). However, 28% of while think that gaming is a waste of time that is dramatically diverse from the black and Hispanic who enjoy the playing (Anderson, 2015). Some other studies by the Entertainment Software Association revealed that the majority of players were the boys aged 12-30 or those who are on their studies and do not have the family to care about, thus the boys spend all their free time playing (Campbell, 2013). The percent of girls playing games are significantly less as girls are more prone to surf the social apps or watch TV serial and films (Conditt, 2017). As long as the games players are most often the black or Hispanic boys, the games developers are usually the while men accounting 85%, while the black and Hispanic usually do not take part in the games creation (Campbell, 2013). Thus, the gaming sphere shared its occupation to the white in the development sector and black into gaming while male are more prone to playing that girls.

Positive Effect of the Video Games

Different people concentrate on both the negative and positive effects of the video games but there are still things that are undoubtedly positive teaching of the games. The technological modeling of the video games allow the people learn some events of the reality in the parallel one and take some priceless lessons while gaming. Moreover, some skills as the strategic thinking and planning are being developed while playing as strategic games make a person think beforehand for making appropriate steps. The video games are the perfect free time spending as they make person entertaining and thus bring the positive thoughts and mood that is good for a human’s health (Kirkpatrick, 2012). The video games have a peculiar positive effect on the physical health of the people. Players need accurate hand-eye coordination to play a shooter game as well as other games where opponents lurk in each corner and nook. Players should shoot enemies as well as keep an eye on other hostile enemies that could make surprise moves (Prot, et.all., 2012) Video games playing can peculiarly improve fine motor skills, those that require the fingers and the thumb use. The continues movement of fingers on different buttons with the eyes and the mind on the action requires excellent motor skills. Video games are often concentrated on going from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ in order to solve problems, overcome obstacles and resolve conflicts. Thus, playing video games can aid in becoming a good problem-solver (Granic, et.al., 2016). Moreover, video games players learn to make best possible decisions each time during a game because they learn while going through their mistakes playing. There are also games, which require creative solutions (Minecraft) to games that require immediate decisions for the best actions in a minimum period. Thus, the video games bring lots of favor to the development and health of people, while these do not abuse playing.

The video games for kids are learning as they usually play video games with a friend and other people that help kids become better at socializing. In addition, virtual multiplayer games provide kids with a chance to communicate with players from all over the world, while connecting with them on some level. The children also need to operate as a team, while playing multiplayer games (Cesarone, 2014). After adjusting for kid gender, age, and number of kids, the studies found that high video game playing was associated with a 1.75 times higher intellectual abilities and 1.88 times higher general school competence. Moreover, the teachers and mothers of the playing children did not report any problems with the mental health of their children. The researchers also found that the more time children spent playing video games, the less relationship problems with their peers, they had. Results were taken from data of the School Children Mental Health Europe project, where children ages 6-11 took part. The research involved teachers, parents and children themselves to respond the questions into the interactive tool. The study evaluated academic success, mental and physical abilities as well as socialization level among children. Thus, children with a less educated or single mother shortened time spent for video games. These results of the study indicate that children who often play video games can be socially connected with peers as well as integrated into the school community (Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, 2016). Thus, playing video games has even larger positive effect on the children who learn the necessary skills for the future life while playing.

Negative Effect of the Video Games

Despite the above positive effects of the video games, their spreading often promotes violence of diverse forms. In particular, 89% of best-selling video games utilize violent elements to different degrees (Glaubke et al., 2001). The violence in the form of killing in the video games is justified by its necessity to obtain the aim and win the game. The violence of the virtual world can be quite often transmitted into the real world, regarding the real people and life situations. Investigators found that people who played a violent video game during three consecutive days demonstrated aggressive behavior increases as well as hostile expectations every day they played. However, the researchers say that the negative violent effect of the video games tend to increase according with the time spent playing. Of course, the people who played the game once are not so aggressive but those who continue playing for some period of time tend to become more and more violent one (Nauert, 2015). However, the people who played the video games with no violence involved were shown no negative effect on their behavior. Moreover, the video games players are often fully occupied with the games and refuse to take part in any other activities like the family celebrations that leads to his/her relations suffer due to lack of attention.

The video games possess the negative effect on the physical health of people playing. The reason is that a person while playing is constantly sitting and quite often eating some snacks that leads to such health problems as obesity and heart diseases. The research show that about 40% of gamers have the problems with an extensive weight as they tend to sit and do not get enough physical activity (Drea, 2017). Moreover, the consuming of some snacks leads to the digestive troubles, acne appearance and other consequences of extended eating and lack of activity. Some gamer tend to play 24/7 including the night hours and thus skipping the sleep that leads to the problems of the mental health and increase in aggression level. Other medical issues occurring with the gamer are eyestrain, backaches, headaches as well as carpal tunnel syndrome along with the pain in hands, wrists, shoulders and elbows. Moreover, the studies shown that shooter games could cause atrophy in the hippocampus, which means they use the caudate nucleus more, while the usage of the hippocampus is less as a result, and thus the hippocampus started showing signs of atrophy.  The hippocampus atrophy has a negative effect as people with lower amounts of grey substane in the hippocampus are at higher risk of appearing schizophrenia, depression, PTSD, and Alzheimer’s disease (West, et.al., 2017). Thus, while promoting some useful skills, the video games playing also leads to some serious health troubles.

Filter Bubbles

What is Filter Bubbles

The term “filter bubbles” was coined by author and Internet activist Eli Pariser to denote the now diffusive activity of the “algorithmic, invisible editing of the web” (Pariser, 2011). For instance, Google suits its search results to personal users using 57 various indicators including their computer model, browser and location. Using these algorithms, every user receives peculiar search results adapted to what the algorithm thinks that person expects and wants. Pariser explains that the search result is filter bubbles, “a person’s own personal, unique world of information that he/she lives in online.” Moreover, this process is not just restrained to search engines as recently a range of news websites have started experimenting with personalization, including the New York Times, the Huffington Post and Slate. Thus, nowadays readers have an absolute control over which topics or authors reach them, while any need to pay attention to opinions or articles they don’t want to. This problem can be glanced elsewhere in the media world, while even traditional news reporters seek to narrow their information in order to suit a target audience. For instance, the partisan news outlets like Sun TV News in Canada prove that this sort of search results to a peculiar set of views is becoming dramatically common (Burles, 2018).

One more the Filter Bubble examiner, Eli Pariser found the unintended results of web personalization. He stated that technologies which, while not vanishing into society’s fabric, are increasing ubiquitous, and thus are less evident in the critical evaluation of data. Pariser’s gracefully, readable book is not a polemic but a work of consumer advocacy. The author found a great amount of the filter bubble usage by Google engineers, everyday searchers, scholars, marketers as well as national security agents. He assures that search settings as well as social media let people presanitize their information environments without the full realization of the information channels lose. Thus, millions of metrics starting from the Facebook “likes” and to the aggregated history of chosen banner ads, people accrue into a continuous profile of encounter information that people deem objectionable or unpleasant. The ending bubble deflects different new information sources, and still does on promoting the apparition of comprehensive search. The probable cost is not the only althea to good search, but also to the establishments of an informed citizenry (Pariser, 2011).

Filter Bubbles in Video Games

Along with the social media, the filter bubbles can be used in the video games, particularly online ones. The online video games are filled with the information about the location, possible age of the computer user and thus the suitable video games can be offered to the player. The search information by the internet used can also provide the video games providers with the information about the type of the video game, the potential gamer can like. The same thing is with the offline games as they are establishing the minimum age for playing the games in try to safeguard the children from the possible violence present in the games. The audience is the most essential part in creating the video games as each game usually has its playing audience. Moreover, the creators also have in mind that largely parents buy video games for their children instead of children doing it themselves (Dierckx, 2017). However, it is not difficult to sway the opinion of someone buying for his or her child rather than themselves, and this lack of firsthand interest in the product being bought made it that much more likely to purchase something subpar. The offline games can be sold even without any filter bubbles as it is impossible immediate to understand their content and suitability for any peculiar person. Thus, it can take weeks or even months before the quality of a video game was known to audiences, thus giving gaming studios time to recoup their development costs. Nowadays, the gaming industry is much more difficult to develop games that do not carry any offend and are suitable for the peculiar audience.

The presenting of filter bubbles changed the gaming industry significantly. Taking advantage of the existing gaming resources demands not only recognizing the differences between true and false data, but also recognizing what information is missing. Filter bubbles fundamentally create a situation where algorithms preferentially filter what information individuals can see. From a theoretical perspective, filter bubbles should have an essential effect on video gaming for a plenty of reasons. The filter bubbles restrain exposure to specific games with regard to advertising. If marketers do not think that people would be interested in the game, they will simply be filtered out. The advertisement appeared during the online video games play is also filtered based on the human’s prior searches in the Internet. If a human had surfed for the cars sites, then a possible advertisement of these sites would appear on the screen during the games. However, this type of filter bubble is completely absent from the offline games that do not contain any ads. Thus, the filter bubbles are more likely to present into the online games than in offline versions.

The filter bubbles also limit information regarding the content of the game. Thus, people who are looking at games will likely only get positive information about the game and will not get a god feel for the game as compared to a more objective and comprehensive review. This type of filter bubbles involves the social impact as humans’ reviews are corrected and deleted in case of their negative comments on the games. Moreover, the games developers try to change the games content according to the negative reviews correcting them. However, the degree to which a game can change (from horrible to good) varies greatly from game-to-game and genre-to-genre, for instance, games which are heavily dependent upon storyline and content such as RPGs are very difficult to repair. First person shooters on the other hand which are more gameplay driven can be changed radically, especially those which are designed to be played predominantly online. The challenges with FPS that are dependent on an online community however is that they are very dependent on their community of players, because without other players the game has little value (if any) (Burles, 2018). Thus, the filter bubbles make a great job in filtering the information that is available to the player and they have such a dramatically influence on the video games, adds present in them but the offline versions of the games are more likely to be subject to the filter bubbles.

Steam Gaming Platform

When most people consider the PC gaming the first thing they are probably imagine is a monitor, a keyboard and mouse accurately arranged on a desk. However, the days when PC gamers had to be confined to an office-like place, perched inches from their screens are over. Nowadays, with the development of living-room centric VR platforms, it is the best time to move away from the ancient stereotype. This is where the Steam Machine grows, a squad of hardware from an extensive range of manufacturers with a common purpose, PCs that are created for shared areas, with a big-screen TV in the form of the hub for all of it (Osborn, 2018). Steam is accessible via its website, offering an easy to use program that provides a consumer an access to its services with a help of a functional desktop interface. Using Steam, a person can purchase the recent, popular video games as well as free demos and lesser known titles, thanks to a huge list of developer partners. The platform offers games divided into various genres with a full game description (Kain, 2016). The Steam platform is comfortably designed with the categories that sort the games as for example, the arcades or sorted by the year of release as well as it popularity among the gamers and others.

The Steam client program also keeps its social dimension, allowing a gamer to share a lot of content and information with all the community of the platform and each game. The forums can also help a gamer to find partners for casual gaming or interest groups. Moreover, a gamer can also stay connected with friends to start a game or discuss it. Last but not least, the Steam platform is known for its great promotions, which can lower the games’ prices by up to 75 that allow the gamer play diverse games, the most modern one for a lower cost (Osborn, 2018). Furthermore, each single one of them maintains an operating system grounded fully on the Steam client, an application, which since 2003 has given a concise catalog of computer games, which are capable of being kept locally in the same directory (Osborn, 2018). The Steam platform can be compared with the iTunes of gaming, or for example Spotify that provide their used with the list of songs sorted by all possible categories. Steam that started off on Windows, is now available in the market on both Linux and Mac as well that allow more number of users utilize the Steam service.

Steam requires a person to create an account in order to begin acquiring content, but it’s a fast and effortless process. The Steam’s interface is rather similar to the website that allows downloaded games be installed directly onto the computer for just a few seconds (Kain, 2016). Moreover, a person can find all bought games in the library, where he/she can manage them in different ways, including a section for Favorites and  Recently Played. Another big benefit of Steam is that updates of game are automatic, that’s why a person won’t have to bother about madly searching for a patch. However, the Steam platform also has its disadvantages as lack of a few issues, while it’s outdated interface has begun to show its age, for example, loading store pages often takes more time with the client, and a gamer cannot open various pages in various tabs, meaning a gamer is forced to anticipate for a page to load that enables to do anything else (Kain, 2016). Moreover, the catalog navigating isn’t always easy as it’s absolutely lacking in maneuverability when a gamers want to browse randomly through the playlists. This is particularly apparent considering that the games list is coming out every day and continues to extend, without offering a real way to order these new titles. Ultimately, its increasingly normal for new games to demand activation through Steam to function properly, a security method that makes it impossible to share games with friends.

Conclusion

To conclude, the video games emerged in the 1970s in the form of the arcades as Pong. Since then, the games have started their evolution being played on the gaming consoles, computers, and IPods and smartphones nowadays. The games have changed the popular culture altering the ways of free time spending for thousands of people. The video games treatment is rather diverse in different countries and race while the white suppose the games to be waste of time, the black in their majority suppose the game to be a wonderful and useful time spending. The same different effect the video games have on people, for example, its positive influence include the development of motor skills, strategic thinking and problem solving. However, the video games promote the violence in people and is cause of weight and heart problems. The video games can be filtered with the filter bubbles that play a major role in dividing the games for some types and be suitable for peculiar target audience. The filter bubbles influence the ads in the games, reviews of the games and allow the developers change the games according to the reactions to them. Moreover, the video games have been recently become available on the platforms like Steam that allow the gamer download the games and sort them into their own ways for convenience of playing.