Cross-Cultural Blog

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

For my research paper, generally I plan to engage in the overall debate about the negative effects of gaming. People have been stressing that gaming has corrupted our society: it has taken a lot of time off of other important activities (e.g the consumer games that allow you to create an identity to use to collaborate with people); the violence has influenced adolescents; people’s social skills have been impacted. Mainly, ever since gaming has become a part of our society, it has influenced the public in how they interact with one another and how they manage their time (Possible to stress the main argument on consumer games for general public and violent games for younger kids). The main focus will be on how gaming influences behavior.

Continue reading "Video Games Influence Behavior" »

Posted by Stanford student at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Many people have formulated opinions on the effects of video games on the today's youth. People make claims that video games increase aggression and violence, and that they decrease a person's empathy for others and perception of reality versus fantasy. Many of these and more myths are discussed and debunked in an essay by Henry Jenkins, the director of comparative studies at MIT. Essentially, the youth crime rate is currently much lower than it has been for the past 30 years. People are still influenced by video games, yes, but does a virtual experience of violence influence people negatively? In a 2007 poll, parents of video game playing children age 12-17 mostly said the games had no effect, but 19% said they have a positive influence and only 13% said they have a negative influence. However, the 55% of the parents of children who don't play video games said that video games have a negative influence (probably the reason their kids don't play in the first place). Only 10% of children of that age do not play video games, so only 17% of parents with children of that age actually think that video games have a negative effect on children. 17% of that same group also thinks that they have a positive effect.

Continue reading "Morals, Empathy and Video Games" »

Posted by Mike Fisher, Stanford at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Although most kids (including me) never even so much as glance at the rating of a video game, it's a primary concern of many parents. My goal is to dig a little deeper and find out just how video games are rated. What's the process? Who's in charge of this sort of thing? I'm also going to explore the social effects that these ratings have. What percentage of kids/parents take the rating into account when they look to buy a game? Are there any parents that believe the rating system is too lenient? Furthermore, has any legal action been taken against video games?

Continue reading "The Video Game Rating System" »

Posted by Matt Kandath, Stanford at 03:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (30) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Pikachu. Thirteen years ago, that word had no meaning. Now, it is the mascot for the second-bestselling franchises of all time. My research project focuses on the rise in popularity of Pokémon, and how one person came up with an idea that took the entire world by force. What was so appealing about Pokémon? What were the early marketing strategies by Nintendo? And is the popularity decreasing now, as many say, or is there more in store for the franchise? These are all central questions to my topic.

Continue reading "Pikachu and Pokemon: From Idea to International Sensation" »

Posted by Shayon Saleh, Stanford at 03:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

“Nothing good ever comes of violence.” This is a quote which is said by Martin Luther. It is ironic because even though the majority of the people view violence as something bad and evil, we still see it daily everywhere; we see it in our favorite TV series, newspaper, computer games etc. It seems as if violence is a part of our culture. Because of this, people are starting to question the effect of exposure to violence on us; many say that violence in media causes us to be violent. Although various kinds of media expose us to violence, video games is one of the most popular things that people believed to have the worst effects on the players. Therefore, many countries now ban video games that are violent.

The focus of my research paper will be to argue against video game policies, specifically Thailand’s. The first source I am going to use is a news article from The Scotsman, August 5, 2008. This article will complicate one of my hypotheses that violence in video game has no influence on the players, because according to the article the murderer claimed that he robbed the taxi because he needed money to play video games and used this method because he thought that it is very easy to do in the video game. He tried to recreate the scene in which the character in the game robs a taxi driver and flees the police by driving the taxi. He failed to flee the police because he doesn’t know how to drive a car, but he also said that he thought he would be able to drive a car by just learning how to by driving one in a video game. This would therefore be challenging for me to argue with, because it is a good counter-example that shows that the video game influenced the murderer so much that he began to mix it with reality.

Posted by Pong Eksombatchai, Stanford at 01:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Two of the constants in my life have been surgery and video games. From Ubisoft’s Chessmaster and Pangea Software’s Power Pete in the computer lab during Kindergarten Recess, to playing Rock Band and Mario Kart Wii to waste away hot summer days, video games have surrounded me no matter where I go. Surgery has always been around just in a different way. My mother has been an pediatric otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat) for close to 30 years and, as I have been interested in being a doctor since a young age, I have always been interested in hearing about her cases.

Continue reading "So, Star Wars Will Help Me in Med School????- Video Gaming and Surgery" »

Posted by JD Haddon, Stanford at 01:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

I'm thinking about writing a paper tracing the evolution of Mario, from his first appearance in 1981 in Donkey Kong to current games like Super Mario Galaxy, along with the reason why Mario games have risen to become so popular. Mario is one of the most famous and well known video games characters, and has a huge number of games focused on his story. There are also an enormous amount of Mario products other than games, like wrist bands, stuffed animals, action figures and more. Mario has become a major celebrity in video game culture, so much so that almost anyone that knows anything about video games is able to immediately recognize him.

Continue reading "The Evolution of Mario" »

Posted by Forrest Berg, Stanford at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Most people remember playing Oregon Trail in elementary school. You would name a party of five settlers, choose which supplies to buy, and head out into the endless wilderness. Inevitably, your charges would die, mostly of dysentery. Dysentery is pretty much synonymous with the name Oregon Trail. As the leader of this group, I would play through many times attempting the trek to Oregon. (Here's a good description of the game that illustrates some of my later points: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GH0-hr1u_k)

In our writing class, we have been asked to select a research topic in the gaming world. Looking back on Oregon Trail, I marvel at its ability to involve me in a virtual world representing a historical event that would be unremarkable on the page of a textbook. But there was certainly something missing as well. The real historical concepts fell second to questions like "If I buy 900 bullets, can I get away with one change of clothes?" And a question formed: What makes an educational game successful? Can the motivation inherent in games persevere when applied to educational contexts? If so, how can games teach us more effectively than traditional forms of study? The answer, of course, lies in what games can do that a textbook or a lecture or even real life experiments cannot.

Continue reading "Harnessing the Motivational Power of Games in Education" »

Posted by Franklin Caval-Holme, Stanford at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

For my research paper, I will be looking into video games (specifically the Wii) and how they are used in physiotherapy and rehab. Nintendo Wii was released in 2006 and completely changed the gaming world. It applied movement and activity into gaming, appealing not just to teens but older generations as well. The more popular Wii games, as well as the ones most commonly used in therapy and rehab, are Wii sports and Wii fitness. These games are used as rehab for patients ranging from injured athletes, to stroke survivors, to combat wounded soldiers.

I began my research before I even knew about this research paper.

Continue reading "Wii-hab" »

Posted by Kevin Cardey, Stanford at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

This is a prewrite for my topic of interest in the use of video games for simulating complex economic markets, mainly the video game EVE Online. EVE is an incredible game in many ways. Its super realistic in its depiction of a future space empire, in that it takes forever to get anywhere, its tediously mathy, and it is full of space jerks and space pirates. But the main thing about the game is how it has a massive economy that is pretty much all controlled by the players that dedicate thousands of hours into developing the economy. The result is a functioning economy that surprisingly mirrors the real economies of the world. s'crazy!

Continue reading "Eve Online - An economic sandbox?" »

Posted by Charley Ho, Stanford at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Video games have been a huge part of my life, having played them ever since I was 3 years old. In the past 18 years, I have played many different games on various platforms that have advanced and diversified as computer technology improved. Regardless of the platform used, the fundamental component of game play has been the controller through which I, the player, interact with the world of the game. The evolution of gaming peripherals is therefore a key driving force in the production of new games, and this fascinating topic has become the topic for my research.

In the midst of my research on the history of gaming peripherals and recent developments in gaming technology, I read a research paper from the International Journal of Computer Games Technology which was titled “Using a Mobile Phone as a “Wii-like” Controller for Playing Games on a Large Public Display”.

Continue reading "Taking Video Games to the Streets - The Future of Gaming Controllers" »

Posted by Kee Wui Hang, Stanford at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

We are all familiar with the rapid development in gaming technology in both areas of interactivity and performance. Modern games on the Xbox 360 or PS3 have such realistic graphics thati it's getting a bit scary, and the Nintendo Wii has introduced a new level of immersive interactivity with their acceleration-sensitive controllers. My intention is to look at how the implementation of music in video games is also changing and developing as technology allows more and more freedom.

Scoring for a game is a much different process than scoring for, say, a movie. In a move, the sequence of events is fixed, and thus each second of music is tailored to fit the visuals. Since a game's motion is determined by the player, writing one fixed score would not meld seamlessly with the gameplay. Most games in the past two decades have done a decent job of working around this by having different pieces, or musical elements that trigger during different scenes: the intro will be some epic orchestration, while the boss fight will have heart-stopping drum breaks with adrenaline-fueled synth lines. While this doesn't disrupt the flow of the game so much, it does draw attention to repetitive play, as each similar scene is accompanied by a very recognizable theme.

Continue reading "Generative Music in Video Games" »

Posted by Kevin Dade, Stanford at 07:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (28) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

My first post here is a free-write on my research topic to-be, an unsystematic flow of the mind, a preliminary text on what interests me at the moment. The focus of my now-broad topic may shift in the weeks to come; please feel free to leave comments on this original posting, and look forward to an infinitely more refined and polished final draft in early December!

Now to begin:

Continue reading "Apple and Nintendo Have More Than Looks in Common" »

Posted by Akiko Kozato, Stanford at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (19)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

The college life is one of constant toil; a paper here, a p-set there, it never ends. However, once in awhile we naive frosh are given the onerous joy of a research project. This here post is my attempt to make sense of the ramblings of my mind. To that end, I'm gonna talk about what I want to talk about, and if you want to make fun of it well......you can.

In the course of a single night, after much deliberation and procrastination, I arrived at, what I believe to be an interesting topic for conversation, which could evolve into a research project. That project would be focused on the problems and questions being addressed through the use of videogames that model reality; however, that topic is a much winnowed version of the overall idea, that videogames are leaving the basement for the light of the research world. I have found several examples of genuine research involving videogames. The reasearch topics vary from the development/ regeneration of neural pathways by playing tetris, to the use of World of Warcraft as a grand simulation of the effects of a pandemic. The latter example is the one that sparked my interest in the first place, and thus will be the subject of this post.

Continue reading "Cn Haz virtual model for the path of a pandemic?" »

Posted by Andrew Bastidas, Stanford at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm once again teaching the Rhetoric of Gaming here at Stanford, and this quarter, we started off by working with the Cabrinety Collection, a large repository of vintage video games currently housed in Green Library's special collections.

After this opportunity to analyze primary sources, the students have been busy selecting and refining their own research topics for explore over the next six weeks. As one of the first stages in their projects, they were asked to post a blog entry on the CCR blog in which they identify their topic and then describe and analyze one source that they feel will be important for their research.

Their blog posts are listed below -- they would welcome feedback on their ideas as they continue to refine their topics, revise their research questions, and brainstorm productive ways to research this project!

• Wii vs. Playstation
• Modeling reality in a virtual world
• Financial markets in MMOs, specifically EVE online
• Educational gaming
• Gaming and surgical training
• The negative effects of video games
• The evolution of gaming peripherals
• Gaming in Medicine/Physiotherapy
• Gaming and music
• The video game rating system
• Morals, empathy and video games
• Thailand video game policy
• The rise of pokemon as a cultural phenomenon
• The evolution of Mario

Posted by Christine Alfano at 07:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This week is a big week for my fall Rhetoric of Gaming course here at Stanford. Not only are my students preparing to share their research topics on this international blog, but they are also eagerly anticipating their video conference Tuesday night with students from the University of Sydney, Australia. My class drew the late-night video conference, so we will be connecting at 10pm Stanford time for an hour-long activity with our global partners.

It's funny that just as we prepare to chat with Australia, Australia is in the news specifically for their gaming rating restrictions. As one blogger reports, it is looks as if Australia will be lifting its ban on the violent video game "Left 4 Dead 2" -- after the game has been revamped and censored specifically for Aussie audiences.

Continue reading "An International Perspective on Gaming" »

Posted by Christine Alfano at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Published by Feross Aboukhadijeh.

For my research, I will be investigating the phenomenon of cheating in video games.

Almost every type of game—online and offline, single player and multiplayer—has cheaters. However, not all cheaters are the same. It’s impossible to fit all cheaters—or gamers, for that matter—into a single stereotype or definition. The variety and differences among gamers in today’s society is simply too great to allow such a blanket categorization. Mia Consalvo, author of Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames (pictured at right), agrees. She argues that identifying cheaters as having a unique subculture does not “adequately explain the broader world of gamers and game players that currently exists.”

Everyone cheats for different reasons. Some players cheat to make games easier during solo play. Cheat codes that generate extra lives, allow players to skip levels, or grant God mode (invulnerability) are common examples of harmless cheats that players use to make the game easier. Cheat codes are typically harmless and are often programmed into the game by the developers as “Easter eggs” for dedicated players to discover. Other players cheat to ruin the game experience for other players. This typically occurs online in the form of aimbots (software that assists the player in aiming), twinking (passing on powerful items to players who would not typically have such items), and the illicit sale of in-game currency. Other players cheat for the technical challenge of “hacking” the game and defeating the anti-cheating mechanisms built into the game.

Continue reading "Cheating and Hacking in Video Games" »

Posted by Feross Aboukhadijeh, Stanford at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (96) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

In today’s tech savvy era, more and more people are relying on the internet and computers to perform daily activities and tasks. Professional and mundane work aside, technology has taken on more recreational tasks and responsibilities. Once seen as a luxury, video games have become a necessary component of daily life, as it provides gamers/players with an escape from the burdens of reality. Interestingly enough, in both Multi Massive Online Role Playing Games and Single Player Games, the creation of avatars (virtual characters with which players can interact with the virtual world) has become a major lure.

Continue reading "Reality Blurred at the First Log-In" »

Posted by at 08:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

For my research topic, I originally intended to write on governmental structure and how its relationship with the citizens of a country affects the games it produces. However, through my research of this topic I stumbled upon a perhaps more intriguing and certainly more defined topic: virtual worlds and their relation to the September 11th attacks. Much of what happened and the surrounding events were supported by the existence of a virtual world. Indeed, Slavoj i ek comments upon this relationship with the virtual world, writing that “’If there is any symbolism in the collapse of the WTC towers, it is not so much the old-fashioned notion of the “center of financial capitalism,” but, rather, the notion that the two WTC towers stood for the center of the VIRTUAL capitalism….’”

There are two significant ways in which the gaming world and the military world have interacted with regards to this attack: flight simulators and government-funded games. Elizabeth Losh of the University of California Irvine investigates the games funded by the government and they deep impact they had on the gaming and development world in her piece titled “Making Things Public: Democracy and Government-Funded Videogames and Virtual Reality Simulations” (This article can be found at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1183334&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=33116903&CFTOKEN=47434535&ret=1#Fulltext ). This piece serves not only as an introduction to Tactical Iraqi and Virtual Iraq, two games currently funded by the United States government, but also as a sort of summary of the controversy surrounding the creation of these games.

Continue reading "A Tale of Two Worlds: Virtual Reality and the September 11th attacks" »

Posted by at 07:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

My research topic is on the influence of gaming within the whole economy of a country, especially on the positive influence of the release of the upcoming game Starcraft 2 within the Korean economy.

About the Game
Starcraft 2 is a sequel to a strategic simulation game that became the prototype of the current real-time strategy games today. Considering the fact that the gaming market and other markets associated to the gaming market (Internet cafés, food industry, TV Programs) are significant in Korea, even just one game can be an important factor in revitalizing the Korean economy. Other than direct sales of the game Starcraft 2, there are magazines, toys, and other merchandise that are sold under the name of Starcraft 2.

Starcraft 2 features numerous new characters and upgraded visual effects.

Continue reading "Saving the Economy with Starcraft" »

Posted by at 07:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Video games and movies are both great forms of entertainment. They both have rely on the interaction with their user, or viewer, to create a desired effect. The success of movies and video games also relies heavily on the ability to tell a story. This would make one think that when a popular video game becomes a movie, the film would also be fairly popular. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. What differences in the two forms of entertainment contribute to the success of one and the failure of another? Why have few video game based movies been successful? Have movie based video games faired any better? These questions will hopefully lead to a focused topic analyzing the relationship between video games and movies.
In order to tackle these questions, I will rely on primary research to not only view movies, but to play the games they are associated with. Among the movies I will look at include the Super Mario film, the Laura Croft films, Mortal Combat films, and more. It will also be useful to research video game reviews and film critique reviews to see what elements are analyzed in both forms of entertainment and see why there is little crossover in terms of success. Hopefully, when my work is complete it will become clearer as to which elements of video games fail to translate into success for movies.

Posted by at 03:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (47)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Tracing back the origins of video gaming, it seems that a majority of video games in America were the means of escaping reality for many straight, white male adolescents. Video games offered a life that they couldn't live, rescuing damsels in distress, blasting aliens into oblivion, and attaining glory. They were, of course, direct responses to the life outside video games: unrequited love, bullies, and a lack of social acceptance. In modern times, there is a much wider audience playing video games. The appeal is no longer limited to race, gender, and age. Game designers have also considered sexual orientation. Sexual orientation is the most taboo characteristic of them all, but more and more games have progressed to include homosexual relationships, aside from the typical hero-damsel love story.

Continue reading "Video Games are gay?" »

Posted by at 03:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

With sales of over $22 billion in 2008, video games have experienced quite a transformation from the humble Tennis for Two created in 1958 to the graphical miracles of titles like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Crysis. For my research, I will be investigating how the evolution of the hardware and software responsible for these novel forms of entertainment has impacted game play throughout the years.

Continue reading "The Hard and Soft Factors of Gaming" »

Posted by at 02:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Who could forget sitting down in front of their Super Nintendo, N64, or any other old generation consoles and feeling the rush of playing video games for hours on end? Video game emulators let you relive the thrill and excitement of these days by mounting any game you can find on your computer to be played at any time. People often throw around the phrase “it's so much fun, it should be illegal.” In this case, it really is illegal. No matter how much fun reliving your childhood through the convenience of your computer or how much easier it is to just download the “ROM” (read-only-memory) for the game you want to play than tracking down a copy of the game, it end up hurting the gaming industry and the publishers who originally put out the games we have grown to love.

Continue reading "The Irony of Emulators" »

Posted by at 01:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (22) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

For my project, I will be researching and investigating the uprising, history, and evolution of machinima as a form of film, entertainment, and advertisement. I will also be researching the different techniques and methods that are part of the “machinimation” process. For those who are unfamiliar with the term: Machinima refers to the fairly new method of filmmaking that is created by taking and editing real-time recordings of video and computer games and virtual worlds. The term machinima is also used to refer to the films themselves and is derived from the terms, machine and cinema. Originally, machinima were simple recordings of game play that were captured by gamers to document achievements, stunts, or just really cool footage. Today, machinima have become elaborate, full-length movies or series that are watched, mostly through the Internet, by millions of viewers all over the world.

Continue reading "Machinima: Red vs. Blue" »

Posted by at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

My research addresses the factors contributing to the prevalent sexism in the MMORPG World of Warcraft. First launched in 2004, World of Warcraft’s rich graphics and detailed story lines have captivated countless gamers, promising new goals to attain, new gear to acquire and more content to see with each of its two expansion packs. In the game, the player is able to choose their faction- Horde or Alliance- their race, their appearance, and their gender. Though members of both genders of any given race are placed in the same starting locations upon creation, the player is made painfully aware of the discrepancy; starter gear looks different depending on your gender.

Continue reading "Sexism in WoW: man-made or inherent?" »

Posted by at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (47) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

The typical educational atmosphere consists of textbooks, teachers, lectures, studying, and exams. Each of us has experienced first hand this physical method of learning. However, over the past decade virtual worlds have invaded the “traditional” classroom and have secured a position as primary teaching tools. Educational video games that have been crafted to teach students all range of subjects have assuredly impacted the learning environment. Recently, these “learning” games have also become an alternative method to teach medicine, both to the general public and more importantly to those aspiring to enter medical fields. Yet, some of these “new” medical tools are not only influencing education, but rather the games themselves have become a platform for scientific research and the advancement of human knowledge. The creators of the online video game "Foldit" believe they have accomplished just this.

Continue reading "Foldit: From Educational Video Game to Scientific Pioneer" »

Posted by at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

For my research, I will be focusing on racism in video games and how it may be related to the evolution of the “gamer”. I have found that gamers and non-gamers have opposite opinions on whether or not they find a game to be racist. One newly developed game in particular, Resident Evil 5, has been criticized by a number of groups for promoting racial stereotypes. The game takes place in Africa, where you play as either the white, male, and American character Chris Redfield or as the African, black, and female character Sheva.

Continue reading "Racism in Video Games" »

Posted by at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (48) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Gaming is fun, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes video games cross the line, especially when portraying women and violence in games. Two such examples of inappropriate game play are the games Rapelay based in Japan and the Grand Theft Auto series made in the United States. Both games show women being violated in virtual yet realistic worlds where the player can do whatever he wants. The idea behind the game is that you can get away with illegal behavior with no consequences. In one clip of the game Grand Theft Auto 4 found on Youtube, the player is shown driving up to a curb in a stolen car and proceeds to pick up a hooker. While the player drives wherever he wants around the city, the hooker and the main character, being played by the gamer, have an explicit conversation about what they plan to do to each other. After the player drives around for a bit, he decides to stop in a deserted back alley and the car begins to rock back and forth while noises and vulgar language can be heard inside the van.

Continue reading "Grand Theft Auto video and its implications" »

Posted by at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBacks (0)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

My topic is the gap between casual and professional gamers. For the most part, only games that involve some form of multiplayer competition can be played competitively, because competition is by definition a test of skill and a multiplayer activity. Therefore, the biggest professionally played games are FPSes (first person shooters, like CounterStrike) or RTSes (real time strategy games, like Starcraft). However, many other genres of games exist. Clearly, there is some gap between casual games and competitive games. According to an article on PBS entitled “Gen Nexters Take Video Gaming to the Next Level,” there is also a gap between casual gamers and competitive gamers. The average age of a casual gamer was 33, while the average age of a competitive gamer was 21.

Continue reading "Differences in Casual and Professional Gamers" »

Posted by at 01:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.

Modern video game companies have recently displayed interesting business models behind their cutting edge products. The state-of-the-art software and hardware that readily entertains us today are very complex and costly creations, taking years to develop and often requiring vast amounts of funds and resources to complete. Profitability is a key term that has been brought into question when analyzing current video games systems like Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 3 and even Nintendo's Wii.

My research topic consists of a look into these business practices, and the motivations behind the sales of video game products that turn little to no profit, sometimes resulting in losses. The scope of the research will also include the actions that these companies take in order to boost revenue considering they cannot cut production costs by much. Thus, they turn to extremely well-developed marketing strategies and rhetoric in order to promote continued sales, which in the long run offsets poor gains from high production costs associated with the products.

Continue reading "Profitability in the Video Gaming Industry: Is there any, at all?" »

Posted by at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)