Jared Gonzalez
Sean Pessin
English 114B
30 April 2013
Hybrid Essay
Talking
about the gaming culture was definitely one of my favorite things to do. The
gaming culture is a very entertaining subject to touch on. There are many ideas
to branch out too such as general gaming news, or specific news, and even talk
about the arguments against video games. The arguments are people who think video
games are a bad influence for children.
Some people
in this world, actually a lot of people, think video games are not a good
impact for children. They think it teaches them to practice that violence is a
good thing. That you get rewarded for killing somebody or severely hurting
someone within a game. I was not against this, as I too think some video games
are not good for young children to play. However that is just it, young
children should not be allowed to play a violent game at such a young age. The
parents should have control over that and limit what their children can play. I
would say age fourteen would be the ideal age when you can start playing video
games. By then you can distinguish what is real and what is fantasy.
I was
shocked when I read that this topic was actually taken to court to regulate how
it practices violence for children. All the court said however is similarly the
same thing I said. They said they do not really have control over that because
the gaming companies do rate their violent games M for mature or T for teen audiences
only. Mature rated games are for people who are seventeen and older. Teen rated
games are for thirteen and older. So it generally up to the parents to
restrict/limit or monitor what their kids play.
There is so much about the gaming culture that it would
take a long time for somebody to completely know everything about it. There are
brand new news everyday in this culture. In my blog, I touched on some news
that I thought were important and wanted my readers to know about. One of those
included how big name gaming companies are laying off employees to get ready
for the next-generation console gaming. Another was stating how a well known
big game company has recently shut down. The big company was LucasArts. This
was the famous company for making all the Star Wars video games. It was also
the video game department branch of LucasFilms, the company who made the Star
Wars movies.
Disney had acquired LucasArts and finally shut it down.
They laid off about a hundred fifty people and cancelled all projects that were
in progress. It was also confirmed that two new Star Wars video games were
cancelled. This was devastating for me to hear because I am a fan of the Star
Wars series, and I found most of the Star Wars video games to be very
entertaining. They gave you the feeling that you wanted when you watched the
Star Wars film for the first time. That feeling was "oh man, I would love
to be in that movie". In the video games, you actually get to go through
it and see how everything is, such as having an awesome space battle to
fighting with a lightsaber. I guess the saying is right, "All good things
must come to an end".
Electronic Arts (EA) was the company I mentioned that
laid off employees in order to get ready for the next-generation. EA's idea
behind laying these people off was to "streamline" its operations to
make sure the company is ready for transition. An EA senior director stated
"EA is sharpening its focus to provide games for new platforms and mobile.
In some cases, this involves reducing team sizes as we evolve into a more
efficient organization". For me this was not a good move to make. Not only
are those people now jobless, but the company itself has lost people who
probably have contributed greatly to it in the past. There are more strategic
ways to approach this instead of laying them off. I think one would be to just
move them into sub-category groups/divisions within the actual main
group/department.
These are just some important topics I touched on. There
is plenty of more topics to research on that I would have loved to touch on. I
wanted to talk about some specific news towards specific games. Learning more
about the gaming culture has become a daily thing for me. I grew up with video
games, so I have seen how much they have evolved. It is such an amazing thing
to see, since they were flat 2D games to now becoming lifelike 3D games. I find
this culture to be so interesting and entertaining. There is always something
new to learn about in the gaming culture.
Works Cited
"Disney Shuts Down
LucasArts, Cancels Star Wars 1313 And Star Wars: First Assault." Kotaku.
N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.
<http://kotaku.com/disney-shuts-down-lucasarts- 468473749>.
"Layoffs at
Electronic Arts." Gamespot. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 April 2013. <http://www.gamespot.com/news/layoffs-at-electronic-arts-6406823>.
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