Video Games essay

This generation is so dead. Parents would ask their children, “ What are you doing this weekend?’ and they’ll be playing video games or watching TV, instead of playing outside in the nice outdoors, playing with other children in the park or do homework for the next upcoming week of school. The younger generation is surrounded by the Internet, apps, and video games. Our technology is getting enhanced every year and so is our video games. Video games was first developed on October 1958 by William Higinbotham, a physicist. Physicist are experts in or a students of physics. This first video game was a very simple tennis game, similar to the classic 1970s video game. Parents keep complaining about how video games are a distraction and they make video games the bad guy towards their children’s education, but they’re wrong. Video games can be a positive benefit for their children.

For example, they say video games tend to sacrifice the times of their children’s studying, which then he or she increases the risk of getting a lower grade on a homework assignment or the next day’s big test, but video games can be educational and enriching for their children. Making them learn while they play their video game. Also, parents say that when kids play video games frequently, they tend to have an interactive style of gaming mind set, so other things, such as reading, can be under valued to them, but video games can help them draw a connection between what they learn in the game, what they are currently learning school, and how it all applies to the real world. Also, video games can show them values for the future in which some values can’t be learn in school. Finally, elders have a mindset that video games take away academic enriching activities, like reading a book, so this takes away their children’s academic performance, but video games can be mixed into other activities as well.

Matt Haag, also known online as NadeShot, makes a living being a professional video game player. Only three years ago, he was working at McDonald’s. Today Haag is making about a million a year in competitive Call of Duty sessions. He grew up in Chicago, spending most of his leisure time locked in his room playing video games upstairs. He was never very social but with video games he found an outlet where he can relate with both his allies and opponents. Haag started out gaming competitively with online tournament hosted through his Xbox. At the age of 17, his uncle took him to a tournament in Anaheim where he was noticed for his talent by OpTic Gaming’s Hector Rodriguez. Mr. Rodriguez is now his agent and mentor, helping him train for his competitions and getting sponsors. However most of Haag’s income comes from live streaming and his YouTube channel. What makes Mr. Haag stand out is that his teenage viewers can relate and see him as a friend. With his 1.5 million subscribers, he live-stream his daily game and allow his viewers to see him “raw and unproduced.”

As of now, Haag is an esport athlete sponsor by RedBull the energy drink to train and become even better at blowing their opponents away. RedBull has paid for Mr. Haag and his OpTic gaming team to live on Venice Beach schedule to trained and workout during the day and play high-tech video games late into the night. With his success, Haag’s favorite pastime has become an obligation “I would love to go home and hang out, but you gotta do what you gotta do,” he said. “Can’t complain too much, playing video games for a living.” Since he gets paid per view for his videos, he will have to continuously live stream and upload videos. Haag is a great example of how video games have significantly benefitted someone’s life.

Knowledge is facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through education. Schools provide knowledge for children by learning the curriculum from their teachers everyday and so can video games. When children enjoy to play video games, they tend to learn faster and understand it better because they enjoy what they are doing, instead of using flashcards and other actions to understand a particular thing. An article reported that “ a series of video games that aim to trick the human brain into forming more positive mental images and encouraging a healthier emotional stay by psychologist Mark Baldwin” (Video Games) For example, Pac Man was a popular game when it came out during its time of release. This game was intended to make the person that’s playing use their mind to solve each puzzle to reach the next level. Video games can be motivating and can generate interest in a certain topic in the game.

Using flashcards can be a hassle and bring misery for the child and can lower the chances of learning. Children tend to also learn best when they’re learning something that is relevant to their daily lives. There are also other games that can bring learning fun, including Leap Frog to Resident Evil. Both of them make use of his or her mind to go past the next level. In Leap Frog, children get to learn math, words/ the alphabet, etc and even in Resident Evil. In my experience, I didn’t know some of the words in the game that they were saying, but I understood them by the scenes of the game or whats happening during that time of play. Also, Resident Evil brings different objectives and puzzles to make young minds think outside of the box to go to the next room.

For example, the game needs you to bring artifacts for a sculpture that has missing pieces in it. To do this, players had to go to the previous room in the game and to rearrange a painting to make it look like what its supposed to be and get the artifact or to kill zombies and use strategies to kill them. By doing this, players can save their bullets and ammunition for later in the game. When everything is done, they get to bring back the artifacts to the sculpture and rearrange them in order to make the pieces fit nicely. Knowledge can be obtained in different ways even if it’s a video game.

Children tend to learn skills that they acquire or master from video games and these skill will be used throughout their lives. One particular skill is spatial-reasoning skills. “ Spatial-reasoning skills play a critical role in development and education” (Villiness, Zawn). Children with this skill tend to score higher on their IQ tests and often excel in math, such as geometry. This skill can also improve their mental manipulation and navigational skills. All of this can be required by playing a video game. In this site states that “ Video games require players to anticipate moments and, in the case of three dimensional video games, force players to manipulate objects through a three dimensional plane. Several recent studies have demonstrated an improvement in spatial-reasoning skills among children and adults who regularly play video games” (Villiness, Zawn). An another skill that they may acquire are critical- thinking skills. This skill enables the child to master concepts rather than a simple memorization of a particular thing.

Video game players are constantly presented with problems and in some cases they have to solve them right away. This process helps them improve this skill and can teach the gamer a value, a value to make think of different ways to solve their problem. Another skill can be collaboration and social skills because gamers don’t have to go outside to chat with people. No, gamers can chat with people around the globe, not even in their region because of the internet. And with a mic in their disposal they can achieve communication with others. They can talk to other players to work together to solve problems or to complete objectives. For example, League of Legends is an online RPG strategy game that makes you think of ways to winning the game.

It is a PvP, player vs. player, and players will need to talk to one another to kill the opposing team. Wether its ganking, helping teammates in need of assistance, the enemy team with a jungler, person who slays their jungle camps and assists fellow teammates when in need of help, or fighting the enemy team head on with your team and to eliminate the carry, someone who is their damage or threat for you team, on their team. All of these skills can be used throughout his or her life and these types of things cant be learned from school, for example.

Physical inactivity can be a serious problem, especially if their child is playing games all day long. They need to go outside and be active, but video games has a solution for it. “Exergaming” (Daley,Amanda), This gives that child a serious workout while they’re playing their favorite game, if they are willing to sweat for it, can be beneficial towards their physical activities and the outcome of their health. Exergaming can encourage young people to get up and the workout and play the game at the same time. “ This may offer the opportunity to contribute to young people’s energy expenditure during their free time. Although studies have produced some encouraging results regarding the energy costs involved in playing active video console games, the energy costs of playing the authentic versions of activity based video games are substantially larger, highlighting that active gamin is no substitute for real sports and activities” (Daley), but can give the person a workout at home, like if it was a raining that day and didn’t have a gym membership.

They can get a workout at home and be active than being a couch potato doing nothing. They wouldn’t have an excuse then, “ Its raining mom, i don’t wanna go outside”. The mom would tell him or her to play their exergame. Some of the few examples that are exergames are “ Wii Fit”, the kinect on Xbox, etc. Trials has been done with young people while exergaming and “ positive trends for improvements in some health outcomes in the intervention groups were noted in 2 trials” (Daley). Going outside and exercising or going to the gym for a workout isn’t the only thing to get in shape, you can exergame right in the comfort of your home.

Another benefit of video games is that it comes in handle as a stress reducer and cortisol, the steroid hormone. Basically, if he or she is doing homework and they need to get away from it. That person can play a video game and learn something new while having an enjoyment time on the couch playing their game. A factor of video games involve hand eye coordination and by playing games you can greatly improve this skill leading to fewer deaths in the long run. Playing video games also involve focusing on the screen which will lead to eventually gaining a shaper eye image. Having sharper visual images will make processing objects more efficiently and to track and auto focus more objects at once.

One of the great misconception of video games is that us causes anger and negative feelings. However I can debunk this stereotype since anger is cause by the individual, not the game itself. According to technology reporter Tucker Patrick, “Video games trick the human brain into forming more positive mental images and encouraging a healthier emotional state.” Video games does not cause anger, instead it can bring more smiles on player’s face since they automatically feel warm social acceptance while they play. In a experiment by psychologist Mark Baldwin of McGill University, results shows that just like in a video game, it allows the brain to systematic reprogram itself to lessen the effect of stress and anger. Feelings of rejection, isolation and insecurity can be deteriorate while playing games and actually help players to become less aggressive.

Video Games can also help kids who suffer from dyslexia, characterized by a difficulty with learning to read and with comprehending words compared to average people in this society, read more effectively and also eyesight for gamers. “ In a recent study, children who played regular video games ended up reading faster and accurately – once again relating to improved attention skills” (ASAP). Gamers have an increase in eyesight when it comes to detail, like small writing. Gamers have a “58% better at perceiving fine differences in contrast, as this is one of the first things to diminish with age” (ASAP). The older the child gets, the better the memory and focus they have for the future.

Over all, electronics and video games has become a big part of our culture in this generation time. Makers of video games have found ways to program their games to also benefit children in their education and well-being as they participate in this leisurely fun. Players of all ages have develop a “gaming” mind set that allows them to interact in subjects such as reading and writing. Also, to provide them a bundle of life long skills that will help them throughout their lifetime. Finally, giving them the enjoyment playing there video game while benefiting from it. From the first video game too years to come of development in video games, this will bring us a bright future for future generations, like video games can provide us health benefits with a healthier lifestyle. This can only be provided with the Excergame. We can expect to see video games streaming and becoming more involve in our society and lifestyle.

Work Cited

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