Interactive Media -- Video Games

I grew up a gamer and I still enjoy a good game with friends. My favorite games have always been real-time strategy games. I started with real time strategies on Warcraft II a simple old game that had taught me to keep a balance of my income and my eagerness to expand my base. I later played all sorts of games.

Now I understand that most people will tell you that video games are terrible and that they are a waste of time. I'd agree with those people about 60% of the time especially for children who need to be more active to be sure that their body full develops. However if chosen correctly I feel that video games can provide cognitive lessons in history, logic, strategy, economics, language, budgeting, and even world relations. The only problem is these games are often over looked and clumped together with games that are extremely vile simply because they are video games. Also the advertising campaigns for these games are often a lot smaller, meaning even a lot of gamers don't know about them.

The one game with I believe the strongest argument for being both extremely fun and educational would be the Civilization series. I don't know what number they are on now, but the game involves a technology research tree spanning from the dark ages up to the space age. Along the way there is war, colonization, trading, politics, etc. The depth of the game keeps players engaged while they seek to network cities and nations together in an effort to create world peace via technology, wealth, war, or politics.

Now I'm not saying that these games can replace education in anyway. I just think that we should all take a second look at wholesome well designed media that can take leisure time and give it a little more value.

Selected Media Absorbtion

Prior to attending college, my TV and movie viewing was rather limited and I only watched the occasional episode of a show that a family member would watch or movies that I had seen a hundred times before. With a week before my first semester of college to start and a roommate who owned every season of two popular TV shows and access to Netflix that changed.

I now watch several shows that I enjoy quite thoroughly. And this week I set out to determine just what was it that these shows shared in common that made my interest fixed. And they are all quite similar and share the following characteristics.

• Crime solving shows
• Violence is rarely if ever overly gore filled
• Justice is the primary goal of the protagonist
• Occasionally that justice that could be considered excessive
• All protagonists place justice in front of the law at times
• They all have extraordinary abilities of some form or another

I really enjoy watching their stories unfold. So I decided to look into whether or not I felt each of these were worth my time. Obviously each of these characters has their flaws, but that simply makes them seem not so ridiculously impossible. They each represent in their own way characteristics I value: consistency, justice, awareness, determination, redemption, etc. I don't always give the shows my full attention while watching them, but I have spent a lot of energy on absorbing large amounts of media in these series. I have watched most of these with my wife, family, and close friends. On all accounts I can say that I have had both meaningless and meaningful conversations both of which have helped continue the bonds we share and provided affordable entertainment, motivation to complete tasks, etc. Weighing all these facts I can quite comfortably recommend any of my top eight shows as a worthwhile form of entertainment.

• Chuck
• Psych
• NCIS
• Elementary
• Sherlock
• White Collar
• Person of Interest
• The Flash

Media Defined

Beginning this class about media and its affects on the family, I understand we will be focusing on commercial media and types of entertainment that are positive and negative which I am quite interested in. But at the start of it all we covered the basic definitions of media.

Coming from the Latin roots meaning medium, middle, or in between. In modern times it is defined as the content that serves as the form of communication between sender and receiver.

I really let this sink in as I walked from class to class all week and I realized just how important media quality is. Everything from sidewalk and parking lot layouts to Google and Super Bowl advertisements are classified as media. As I walked down the sidewalk I realized its placement was a message sent that I was supposed to walk here not on the adjacent grass strip. The message was left, I recognized it, and followed it without question or hesitation. Media is ingrained into every piece of human existence.

I do not propose that money will solve the issue or that I have an answer to the problem. But I found it curious that $150,000 dollars a second were spent on just the timeslots available for Superbowl ads last year. That doesn't take into account the research teams paid, the actors involved, the scripts, camermen, etc. You get the picture. Media used to sell often pointless, but fun consumer goods has millions of dollars behind it. Where road signs and other vital information is barely funded by the minimum viable amount. I remember my first ticket was given for speeding on a portion of road that didn't even have a speed limit sign up for another 2 years. Knowing what I know now I probably could have fought it, but as a new 16 year old driver I simply hung my head and paid the ticket.

Since then I have been surprised how often I am uncertain of speed limits for miles of road in one state or another it always seems to be a problem. And this is just one example of when vital media fails.

What about:

• When can you make a legal u-turn
• How close does an aircraft/drone/helicopter have to my house before it is considered trespassing on private property
• How much can I do in an emergency if I am trying to help injured individuals before I am liable for any death or injury
• Doctor assisted suicide
• Copyright laws can be convoluted
• Paparazzi vs stalking
• The exact lines of what police power is and interactions are supposed to be like
• Landlord and tenant contracts limits and powers

The list could go on and on. Clearly there are written laws (aka media) for each of these cases. I am not encouraging the need for more laws to be written nor do I believe everyone should be certified in law and be able to understand all those laws. I just think there must be a better form of media that could be used to increase awareness, clarify the lines, and make things so simple that legal educational levels don't restrict the populace. And I repeat I don't have an answer on how to fix it. I am just explaining the thought process that I had throughout the week as I realized the weight of media and its strengths and weaknesses.

This lead me to think about the gaming industry. Games may just be virtual but they always have clear rules, warnings, error messages most times to help users not only succeed in following the rules but enjoy it. Games normally have more rules and restrictions than real life yet thousands including myself enjoy them. I believe this in part because the restrictions and guidelines are made so clear and the complicated goals of the games are unfolded so simply that it is clear. How many people would enjoy being confined to a single block of a neighborhood or a small cluster of buildings? Yet in racing games, first person shooters, real time strategy games, etc. maps and environments are often limited by the very nature of being virtual. And most gamers will comment or complain about these boundaries occasionally, but in the end they still enjoy the games. There must be something we can do to make the rules of real life more clear and accepted by society and I believe media will play a key role in that effort.

I have always known that media played an important role in my life but I didn't until this week I did not understand the breadth of that role played.