Evolution of Video Games

Video Games have almost became a cultural phenomenon, expanding across all platforms and devices appealing to a wide range of audiences both young and old alike. Video games were originally intended to be a simple form of entertainment designed for children as a distraction
like a normal toy. After years of evolution and advancements in designs they are used for multiple purposes other than simple entertainment and as a distraction. They are used to tell a rich and captivating story that almost physically puts the player in a character's shoes. For more
beneficial reasons they offer a new way to advance people's cognitive skills with puzzles and games that improve upon this. Video games have even evolved to a point where people have become more physically active as the games they play offer a sense of achievements and accomplishments. Video games is a form of entertainment that has rapidly evolved in each generation and has significantly impacted people cognitive skills and physical activities.

What I Already Know/ Want to Know

The first videogame ever made was a tennis game created by Physicist William Higinbotham on October in 1958. He created the tennis for two that allowed for two people to hit the tennis ball back and forth. Physicist William Higinbotham created the tennis game at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island in New York and continued to reinvent the game until he felt it was up to par with his expectations of how the game should be.

Methods/How I Found My Information

Video games have always been apart of my childhood when growing up because I just loved playing video games, but I did not know what the first video game ever made was so I looked it up. I searched up on google what the first video game ever made was and looked for
information on who made the game, when they made the game, why they made the game and how to play the game. I did find the information I needed on one site but I also used other sides to gather more information.

Video games have basically been apart of my life since the day I was born, It was always the best way for my dad to keep me quiet when I was younger in places I was always either scared or bored at being. Of course he regulated it so that I wouldn't become so addicted that I
wouldn't be able to socialize but he let me play. They were simple Games that I would play on my Game boy such as mario sonic or pacman, with also simple objectives, run jump or both.

What i would like to know more about video games is that what point did they take a significantly big leap to being simple fantasy Games to realistic immersive games that almost made you feel as if you were there?

What I Discovered

Video games are now a major factor of entertainment in our society with a fast pace expanding culture every single year as they are now (Byrne) an entrenched part of our cultures and routines. As video games continue to advance and evolve it continues to peak the interests of
many individuals both young and old alike as as the average american game player is 31 years McCoy 3 old and 48 percent of those playing being women. (epstein) This is do to the creative element and the wide range of appeal that games offer to everyone. With the early invention of the wii and shortly Xbox Kinect, this allowed people and specifically families to come together and be active with one another in one setting. Motion sensors helped to track people's movements and display them onto whatever game they were playing. This was great entertainment for even the old to be involved in.

Video games really started to spawn in the 1970s but given the limits of computing range the original Atari 2600 Featured just 128 bytes of memory ( no kil, no mege, no giga) there was room for just one idea(epstein). Video Games have evolved tremendously over the last couple of decades from simple run and Jump games to games that put you into the real bloody intense battlefields of war. When the first video game was made it was a very simple tennis game, similar to the classic 1970s video game pong. (Byrne) This simple idea is believed to have
sparked the minds of a thousand other future creators in developing games that mimic our world only with a couple of twists. There are literally stories out there that put you in the shoes of someone else similar to how an actor plays a part in a movie. Some games like Battlefield and Call Of Duty offer and horrific and intense experience in fighting in a war with hundreds of your comrades dying beside you experience One video Game in particular thats sets players up in a realistic scenario was That dragon, Cancer. The purpose of this game was to put people in a situation that some parents have gone through themselves and allow them a slight glimpse of what a common pain is gone through with a parent with a sick child. It was released on january 12, 2016 and was made by writer Amy Green and developed by Numinous Games. The whole idea of it was a game where you fill the shoes of parents Guiding their infant through terminal cancer creating a games like this for players delivers them with a heavy emotional impact and if a player can say that they were invested emotionally the same way that a person is when watching a movie now shows that videogames are becoming more than what they were. There is a deeper meaning to most games that may not always be as clear to video players. Video games has evolved from mindless playing to engrossing stories along the way. For instance, there is a game called The Last Of Us which is a horror game about zombies taking over. This game does a great job of telling a story because it shows what would have if zombies were to actually take over. In the game there is a guy who loses his daughter in a zombie outbreak and years later he has to look after this girl who reminds him of his daughter and it shows how distant and mean he is because he is still mourning the loss of his daughter. In the beginning of the game he is mean because he is upset that he lost his daughter so he is not very nice to the little girl but over time she does remind him of the time he used to be a father to his daughter and he grows love for her and selfishly sacrifices the fate of the world to save this little girl even though she needs to die to get the cure.

Like movies, there are a wide range of different genres for video games some even based on existing properties like the horror syfy Aliens or the comedic movie such as, Deadpool. Deadpool was first a hero comedy movie that soon turned into a game because of how great the sells and reactions were to the movie. The movie is extremely funny because it is about a superhero who saves the way and tends to do stupid things as he does so. Video games can either have horror, comedy or drama like a movie. Instead of just watching these things play out in a movie you can literally decide on your own, where you can take these characters that you already enjoy on your own adventure. Of course as all our technology advances with computers like the Apple two in 1977 most.

On the other hand, people do enjoy playing video games, research has shown that video games cause people to do irrational things. Games that involve killing people, robberies and fighting glorify violence. There are many articles that talk about kids who play games such as Call of Duty where you shoot and kill people, encourage them to go out and actually kill people. There is an article that states, beginning in 1983 when U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop implicated violent video games as a leading cause of family violence, news stories about video games such as Death Race (allowing players to run over gremlins) (only sp) and Custer's Revenge (with a naked Custer avoiding arrows to have sex with a Native American woman) have helped reinforce the idea that graphic violence in video games was potentially harmful.
Although, some may think that violent video games causes people to do violent things, there are still other positive and influential games that are not violent that kids can enjoy.

Video games have evolved and changed the landscape and view of entertainment while generating thousands of new fans of the culture. Video game attract people of all ages because it is something fun to do after a stressful day and it keeps kids out of trouble. Not only are video games fun to play but they tell a story that people are able to relate to like Call of Duty, Madden 15 and 2k. These games are relatable because Madden is a game about football players, 2k is a game about basketball players and Call Of Duty is basically a reception on how war is. Overall, if games did not exist, there probably would be even more problems in the world because when kids are at home playing video games they are staying out of trouble. Video games have even evolved to a point where people have become more physically active as the games they play offer a sense of achievements and accomplishments.

 

Can Video Games Cause Violence?

Reflection piece

When I first heard that we were doing a Five page paper that was also a research essay with a lot of added criteria that I have never done before in another essay, I was pretty bummed out about the idea because I thought we would Have to write about some random boring topic that I had some interest in writing about. How very fortunate for me that writing just about anything isn't the case for me and instead I'm able to write my own paper based off of my own topic that I have to decided to pick.

With this one research paper I was able to pick something that I am already curious and fascinated with and that was Video Games. It only made sense to write about something you love to play and be involved with. However I felt that I needed to find a better way to approach and write about this topic that seemed like playing video Games was beneficial to the audience that's reading my paper instead of just a paper talking about video Game. Starting and writing this essay was a little hard for me because I saw multiple ways to approach this paper.

My first way of writing this paper was with talking about the history of video games and how they evolved from what they were to what they are now and how they have a mass entertainment audience bigger than ever before. Another way was talking about video games or specifically and how they went from a simple mindless child games to something that is considered an intricate art that is now praised for their story and design almost like a real movie. I'm thankful I have been given the opportunity to write an essay based on a subject i really love playing and I hope to write something similar soon.

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