Addiction in gaming

Addiction in gaming is a hard topic because its not been proved that you can get addicted to computer games and likewise it hasn’t been proved that you can. In my opinion i do not think you can become addicted to a computer game. I think you can get lost in the world of games but i do not think you would get physical withdrawal symptoms as you would with say alcohol and drugs. You could spend too much time playing and then effect your real life for instance playing to long at night then not being able to get up and work. You could stop washing and eating as much and this could cause problems but it could easily be resolved if you just manage the time spent on games. The media love to make something out of nothing and love to make things seem way worse than they actually are take this for example, “Seungseob Lee, a boiler repairman in South Korea, played StarCraft for more than 50 consecutive hours at an internet café before suffering a fatal heart attack”(D’ Anastasio, 2016). I find it hard to belive that it was a gaming addiction that caused him to have the heart attack. Another example ” a woman named Rebecca Christie was sentenced to 25 years in prison after she allowed her daughter to starve to death while Christie was preoccupied with World of Warcraft“(D’ Anastasio, 2016). This is what i was explaining before about getting lost in the game world i think its more irresponsible rather than addiction. Sometimes it makes me think if the media create a problem then companies are going to make money from that problem for instance if you was diagnosed as being a game addict then you would need to be treated and to be treated would cost money therefore people make money.

References.

D’ Anastasio, C. (2016). How Video Game Addiction Can Destroy Your Life | VICE | United States. [online] VICE. Available at: http://www.vice.com/read/video-game-addiction-is-destroying-american-lives-456 [Accessed 5 Dec. 2016].

Pervasive, AR and VR games.

Pervasive, AR and VR games, what are they? Well a pervasive game is a game that actually extends out into the real world. it is described as, a mixture of location based technology and social network games in such a way that several connected players play in real life
The game is all around the player and sometimes even pervasing into the normal life (Pervasive-gaming.com, 2016). The word pervasive, (especially of an unwelcome influence or physical effect) spreading widely throughout an area or a group of people (Oxford Dictionaries | English, 2016). I do not think this definition gives it justice because i wouldn’t say its unwelcome unless of course the game becomes to intrusive to people who are not involved. The next kind of game we looked at was AR (augmented reality). “Augmented reality adds graphics, sounds, haptic feedback and smell to the natural world as it exists” (Bonsor, 2016). Augmented Reality was used in the new game Pokemon go and early next year Microsoft will release its own AR hardware and software Hololense which will bring the use of AR into peoples homes.

The next type of gaming experience we looked at was VR (virtual reality). Similar to AR but instead of it projecting media over the real world VR takes you completely out of the real world and puts you into a new immersive digital world. VR has really started to take off this year with companies such as Sony releasing Sony VR and Microsoft soon to follow with their version for the Microsoft Xbox.

References.

Bonsor, K. (2016). How Augmented Reality Works. [online] HowStuffWorks. Available at: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm [Accessed 5 Dec. 2016].

Oxford Dictionaries | English. (2016). pervasive – definition of pervasive in English | Oxford Dictionaries. [online] Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pervasive [Accessed 5 Dec. 2016].

Pervasive-gaming.com. (2016). Pervasive Gaming | Playing Pervasive Games is Gaming Everywhere. [online] Available at: http://www.pervasive-gaming.com/ [Accessed 5 Dec. 2016].