Lecture 9.0: Studying Video Games

Studying, to me, equals student + dying. It's a Facebook group I joined. However, studying video games? Now that seems like something I could enjoy. In fact, this lecture was one of the very few I paid 100% attention in! I didn't even think it was possible, but as an avid gamer it's really no surprise that I did.

So there are different types of mediums for games, these include:

PC
Consoles (like the PS3 and the XBOX360)
Arcade (Timezone, anyone?)
Online (World of Warcraft... just typing that name makes me shudder)
Mobile (stuff you get on your iPhone etc)

And then there are the various genres, like RPG's and fighting and racing games (all the main ones I own hehe) and FPS's and platformers (those are the ones I cannot STAND ew).

Anyway, there's this stereotype of the gamer that's been around for ages of the guy (aged 18- 25) who sits alone in his room at his parents house being an anti-social loser mashing buttons. Now while this may be true of some gamers, its not true of all of them. A study done prior 2005 stated that 80% of gamers were the aforementioned losers. I don't think that was ever true. But anyway, studies done rather recently show that its closer to a 40/60 split between female and male gamers nowadays. And that females tend to go for the cutesy games like Pokemon (where nurturing and touchy feely feelings are involved) and males go for the blood and gore and the explosions. Guess I'm a guy then, since I like blood and gore (Mortal Kombat on the PS2 where one of the challenges was to impale your opponent with your weapon and he had to bleed a certain amount of blood before you could move on) not that I didn't enjoy Pokemon...

Also one other thing I got from this lecture... GAMERS HAVE SUPERPOWERS. Ahahahahaha. No, seriously. We're meant to have better peripheral vision and more manual dexterity, faster reflexes and quicker decision making times. Ha, BEAT THAT. Unless I just heard what I wanted to hear? Haha.