Bogost starts off their articles with a fantastically attention grabbing technique: they draw parallels between the ever popular game "Animal Crossing" and real life society. As someone who has heard about this game extensively but never actually played it, it was interesting to me to learn about why this game draws to much attention. Through relating the events of this game closely to real life, the game entertains us without the real world costs that we would experience if actually taking part in purchases. The part that drew me in the most about this opening storyline is that of the player talked about is a 5 year old child. In life outside of gaming, we would never expect a young child to understand what it means to be in debt, and we would be even less expectant of them to understand that another "player" is benefiting off of it. Bogost touches on this game being about understanding that life revolves around "repetition of mundane work" in order to simply keep up with those controlling the resources.
While many games seem to be frivolous and childish in nature, the reality is that many of them reflect real world situations and problems. As adults, we assume children have little understanding of "real life" and refuse to look at their "game play" as much more than a fun way to spend time. In reality, these games build a real understanding of life outside of play. Whether it be controlled play or uncontrolled, children often are interacting with the world in some way. Controlled play such as video games or board games often pull from life outside of childhood, as shown in "Animal Crossing".
Uncontrolled play also gives children an opportunity to express their own understanding of the outside would. As a child, one of the games I loved the most was something my siblings, neighbors, and I coined "The Never-Ending Game". In this game, we simply just made up story lines outside of our own lives. We would be adults living in the city, or we might be doctors working together at a hospital. The point of the game was simply to act out what we understood outside life to be like. We learned about each others ideas and understandings of the outside world, which helped us individually to gain a more extensive world view.
I also found the Bogost article to be really interesting. For the most part, I think a lot of the time we believe that games are just games, that's it. But in reality, the majority of the games that we play are based on real life events or scenarios. The game animal crossing as you mentioned is all about managing your money and making decisions based on the financial situation that you are in. Much of this probably doesn't register in a child's brain that they are practicing how to manage money in real life because to them, they are just trying to advance in their game. I think this creates a very interesting dynamic in the role that games play in our lives. Looking at Animal Crossing, we could see how beneficial this game could be starting at a young age and developing an understanding of managing money/financial situations. But if we look at a game such as Call of Duty, a war zone simulator, what is that teaching kids or individuals that play the game? It would be interesting to go more in depth in comparing games like Animal Crossing to games like Call of Duty and seeing the effects that they each have on individuals. Part of me would think that kids are less likely to remember the things that they learn playing Animal Crossing or how they could apply them to their real life than they would be to remember a certain situation happening in a round of Call of Duty. It is interesting to look into depth about the various things that games can teach us and how we take the virtual world into our own every day lives.
ReplyDeleteCat,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your viewpoints on these articles. I think that play is an escape from reality to a certain extent. There are some elements of play that can have real world value and lessons. For example, some of the video games like animal crossing have elements of financial security needed to follow the rules of the game. You can buy different things and save up for certain purchases. This brings a real life principle into a fantasy world of play
A question that I came up with after reading this post is why are the games that have no outside lessons to learn so popular. For example, GTA V is a video game where you can kill, steal and rob banks as the rules of the game. Teaching kids and young adults absolutely nothing during this time of play. During Bogost's article he states “Video games have the power to make arguments, to persuade and express ideas”. This important to think about when reviewing games like GTA V, what kind of ideas is that expressing to our community and society. Should we have video games that express ideas of hate and violence?