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Challenge Reality
IN MY OPINION...
(Because it's totally important)
Psychology must always be kept in mind while creating any sort of video game. During the creation of a game, a game designer should always be aware of how players will react to every factor of a game. It is not enough knowing that a narrative is scary if the environmental sound lacks suspense. In fact, there is a whole sector of psychology inclined towards studying the emotions that different sounds bring forth.
Equally important is the psychology of color. In a suspense game, a palette of cheerful and friendly colors would water-down the fear that the player should feel while immersed within the game. In this case, a designer might be inclined to take the easy way and simply choose dark colors. It may not be that easy. The shade of the colors combined with the sounds and the mechanic of the games must completely match. If a designer merely picks an average color palette and sound files, then the game will be equally average even if the narrative excels. In fact, with a deep knowledge of psychology, a designer could indeed use cheerful colors combined with happy distorted music to create a terrifying scene.
Still, this is even more fragile since the fear the player senses could easily develop into a sense of ridicule.
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One of the most controversial topics in the video game industry is whether or not violent video games are having a negative impact on children and adolescents. Despite loving violent games, I do believe that they can affect people in a negative manner. Just as social media, video games have the ability to de-synthesize a person towards stealing and murder.
If you are constantly being given a positive feedback when murdering, for instance, despite knowing for a fact the game is not real, the disgust that murder should bring is reduced. And yet, how much does it take for a growing human to be impacted by video games to the point where they will turn to murder in real life? I do not think that video games alone are capable of doing something by themselves. If, however, the child already exhibits violent tendencies and difficulty separating what is real and what is not, a violent game might indeed coax the child into thinking that society revolves around violence (then again, does it not?). In these cases, the growing human should be coaxed into avoiding those types of game. Of course, with how popular these games are, keeping them completely isolated might be next to impossible.
At the end, I believe that whether or not a violent game affects a growing human depends on that specific individual and their real life environment.
In my opinion, knockoffs are an important way to help the game industries’ growth but can also damage the original game’s sells. We know that in human history, people build upon other people’s inventions. For instance, the very first car was essentially a knockoff of carriages.
Still, because of new technology, it became much more than a carriage. At the same time, new cars were built that were basically the same as the original car. Video games are the same. Developers work upon what others have created before them. The issue is that many knockoffs also affect the success of the original game. Games like overwatch have been copied dozens of times. But when do we protect the ‘original’ games from being abused by other developers and when do we allow the content to be copied? When do we start hindering the industry’s growth and when do we hinder a company’s success? How similar must the games be to each other before copyright laws step in?
How do we protect developers at the same time we protect the industry?
Video games have become an essential part of several cultures around the world. Several newer generations have already been born surrounded by video games and have adopted them as part of their daily lives. They no longer know a world where video games do not exist. In a way, parents have already given in and even fully accept video games as part of their children’s lives. However, most of them still believe that they offer simple entertainment (whether positive or negative) and nothing else.
I believe that this is not the case. Video games can and are revolutionizing education every day. Through gamification, a child can immerse himself or herself in their education without truly feeling as though learning is a slow and boring process. In my opinion, the education system should open its mind to video games and see the potential that they truly contain. However, this massive gamification could only be achieved if the federal education laws allow educational games to become a part of a child’s life.
In my Opinion: Services
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