Reading 11, 0, 6

Reading 11

I believe video games do have impacts on social issues such as addiction and gun violence.  As for addiction, there are so many issues that have come up regarding the topic. Video game addiction is real and is affecting a lot of people across the globe. As more and more younger kids are being exposed to video games, the addiction to video games is growing at an alarming rate. A personal example that I have about this is about video game addiction in Korea. When I was living in Korea, the current president deemed video games to be too addictive to teenagers and children that he put into effect a law that requires minors  to leave PC cafes at 12 AM. Since you sign up with your nation wide issued ID, the computer automatically boots you off if you’re under the age to stay past midnight.

https://cgiclinic.com/south-korea-special-shutdown-law-aka-cinderella-curfew/

As for gun violence, I am cautious to say that there is a correlation between video games and gun violence. There have been terrorist attacks where the suspect was known to play a lot of violent gun related video games. But there were also times when video games didn’t factor into the equation at all. That being said, I do feel like there should be a slightly more regulated in place to sell video games. The current ESRB ratings are nice but they don’t protect very well. I remember when I was in middle school, I really wanted to buy diablo 3 as it had just come out. I wasn’t 17 years old at the time so I simply just asked my brother to buy the copy for me at best buy. Like so there will always be ways for underage people to buy video games that aren’t meant for them.

Socially I think video games have done a good job, at least in terms of the games that I play. In games like counter strike and overwatch where team communication is crucial in winning a match, I often find myself conversing through the mic and talking strategies and tactics with my random teammates. This may not be the case for everyone however and my sample size is extremely low. I have talked with friends who play other games like League of Legends who tell me most of the communication within the game is extremely toxic and not worth doing. It could also be that the rank and level people play at in the video games determines the communication levels. For me, I am at a relatively high rank in games like counter strike and overwatch. At these ranks, the people I play with generally want to win the game and are usually friendly over the mic to carry out strategies. I have played on smurf accounts (a separate account I made so I could play with my friend who is at a lower rank) on lower ranks and the team chat at low ranks can be quite toxic and have nothing to do with the game.

Reading 00

I think people play games similarly to the reason why people play sports or read a book or listen to music. Videos games, to me, can be split up into three main categories. The first of these categories is like sports. These are the types of games that are competitive in nature. You are either in a one vs one scenario of a team vs team. The goal of the games is to defeat the opponent. The second type of games are sort of like books. These are the single player story adventure games. The game is meant to take you along a journey and at the same time, tell you a story like what books do. The last are games like listening to music. These are the games that are meant to be played while passing the time. They are structured with no real end goal in mind and no competition.

Some of my favorite video games to play while growing up was StarCraft: Brood War and Sudden Attack. I think that the environment that you are surrounded by heavily influences the games you play when you are growing up. As I spent my childhood in Seoul South Korea, I watched professional starcraft and sudden attack matches be broadcasted on TV constantly which made me want to play those games. Although many people already know what StarCraft is, not many people would know the game Sudden Attack. Sudden Attack is essentially a Counter Strike clone. When CS 1.6 was getting popular in America, a video game developer in South Korea made a less demanding version of the game that PC cafes could host. Because it was a free game, everyone defaulted to that game as their choice of fps game. This is where my interest in fps games first started.

Other than video games, me and my brother had a healthy collection of board games as well. Of course the staple game that we played was monopoly. Monopoly was my first experience in the world of board games. My Dad had recently come back from a conference in the US and had brought back a pokemon version of monopoly because both me and my brother were really into pokemon then. The weekend we got the game, we would spend hours playing it trying to think of strategies and ways to beat each other. Later on, we would start collecting more board games like guess who, battleship, and risk. Most of my time spent playing board games was in competitive setting against my brother.

I think what makes a game interesting is the competitive aspect of it. The nature and drive of wanting to win is what makes the whole game fun. Another important element of the game should be that snowballing shouldn’t be a thing. A comeback should always be possible. For example, there were a lot of times when I played monopoly where I was about to lose because I only had a certain set of property while my brother had a lot more than me. I was able to win the game by bankrupting him on that one specific property even though I should’ve lost if the game went on longer.

I think board games are like the first category of games that I have described in my first paragraph. They are usually competitive games. This is understandable as creating an adventure game on a physical piece of board would be a lot more difficult than having it on a computer. That being said, I only know a limited number of board games while on the other hand I know about a lot of video games. In my opinion, video games have surpassed board games in terms of entertainment value as there are just so much more options.

 

Reading06

Although I am a hardcore gameplay fanatic (I would much rather have a game play well than be pretty), it’s hard for me to say that graphics are not important. The visual experience of the game impacts the playability of the game greatly. Simply, if you don’t enjoy what you see on screen, then you’re most likely not going to enjoy playing the game. That being said, I don’t think that graphics have to be TOP of the notch for a game to be a good game. I think there is a soft limit to how bad of graphics a game can have before it actually starts interfering with the gameplay. Take mario for example, Super Mario 64 had some pretty bad graphics if we judge it by today’s standards. However, there are still tons of people who still play the game and rank it to be one of the best Super Mario games out there on the market. The game performed so well that even Nintendo re released it on the nintendo DS with just a slight graphics upgrade.

As long as the visuals don’t get in the way of the gameplay, the gameplay should be able to hold its ground well. There are even companies who don’t focus of realistic graphics. Take borderlands for example. The developers specifically chose not to go down the realistic graphics path and instead decided on the comic style of graphics. Every model has a border-like element in the game and even though it looks nothing like real life, the game looks fantastic. They stuck to one artstyle and went with it and it all worked out well in the end.

There are games that do have sequels where it was obvious the developers went for a higher graphical fidelity but ended up messing up the game. The primary example of this from my personal experience is the megaman x series. Growing up, I played the original megaman x, megaman x2, and so on till megaman x6. All six of these titles were 2d sprite based games and even though the graphics weren’t the best, the game had its own visual style that all of the players were used to and liked. However, starting from megaman x7, the developers which gears and went the 3d route. The game was the 7th iteration in the series yet it played so differently from all the previous games. It might as well been just a standalone game. The 3d graphics weren’t good and the game wasn’t coded very well so all the mechanics and gameplay felt extremely clunky. They even introduced areas where the character moved in a 3d space and although I could understand the developer’s intention of introducing fresh gameplay in the series, the whole thing was just executed poorly and a lot of fans of the game felt that they should have just stuck with the 2d sprite based side scrolling game. Below are pictures of megaman x6 and x7 the top image being x7.

Reading #10

I have extremely positive opinions on eSports or competitive video gaming. Because gaming is one of my favorite past times and hobbies, I enjoy spending time watching professional players play the game.

I am definitely a spectator in terms of eSports. Ever since I was a kid, I have been watching live starcraft brood war matches that were broadcasted on TV when I used to live Korea. Even after that, I started watching streams of players that broadcasted to Twitch.tv when that website first came out. What brought me into watching people play video games compared to me just playing the video games was that it was eye opening to see how the professionals played the game. Their skill level was so much superior to mine that when I watched a pro player play a game, it would just blow my mind at how good they were. This is why I started following the competitive scene for starcraft 2. When starcraft 2 wings of liberty came out, they just started broadcasting the tournaments on twitch. I remember I would get on voice chat with a friend and watch the stream together discussing all the insane plays all the pros made in the game. After following starcraft 2 for a while, I then switched gears to CS:GO. Once I had a computer that could run CS:GO moderately well, I got obsessed with the game. I reached a pretty high rank of Distinguished Master Garden and I also started following the competitive scene for the game. I had favorite players and bought stickers and skins to support certain teams when Valve hosted Majors. Games were extremely exciting and with the right casters and the right moment, watching esports brought me moments of excitement similar to when I watch Notre Dame Football barely clutch out a win. Now, I have recently hopped onto the overwatch bandwagon and have been following the pro scene for that. I have even made my project in my Social Sensing course that attempts to predict the outcome of a professional overwatch league match. To help with the project, I have been keeping up with every aspect of the overwatch league and all their players.

I am not quite sure that esports will ever be considered a sport. There honestly aren’t enough physical requirements for it to be called a sport but there is no denying how competitive esports can get. However, with the rise of technology and with video games becoming more and more popular, I wouldn’t be surprised if esports started getting views as much as Olympic events. Even at the moment, certain professional matches for certain games are bringing in millions of viewers. Based on the numbers, I do think esport events should receive the same level of recognition and support as other types of competitive activities.

Reading #08

As a PC enthusiast and an avid PC gamer, I always viewed mobile games as simple minigames that people played to pass the time. And at one point in time, this was the case with most phone games. I remember when I got my first ipod touch that could hook up to the apple app store and download games, the most famous games were games like jelly car, cube field, touch hockey, and other games similar in nature. They were meant for short bursts of play time without much thought. Even the original angry birds was a simple enough game that you could complete a couple levels here and there when you had the free time and always just pick it back up. What I liked about mobile games was that it got people who weren’t into gaming at all to try the activity out. They didn’t have to commit to buying a full console or gaming pc just to play a game as they could do it right on their own phones. I can see how some people after trying mobile games, would want to try bigger and better versions of their games and take the next step into the PC/Console world. So in this sense, I have a favorable view on the whole mobile game phenomenon.

 

However, recently, I have had a pretty big problem with mobile games and the overall direction they have been going. I for one, have a huge problem with micro-transactions within games that affect the gameplay. To me, it seems like most companies that make mobile games don’t care about the game at all anymore and it’s all about the money. They lure people in with pay to win upgrades and bonuses that will give them the edge against other people and to me this just doesn’t seem right. I am completely open to having cosmetic skins and visual upgrades be available to purchase because this doesn’t inherently affect the gameplay.

The whole money grab schemes that companies have to keep having their customers come back to the game feels like they are degrading this form of entertainment. I’ve been gaming since I was a child spending all of my money and time at PC cafes in Korea. And seeing how mobile games have taken a turn to this sort of direction puts a bad taste in my mouth. I can only imagine how many people are turned off from trying more types of different forms of gaming because they only have mobile games to base their opinion off of. I view gaming as an art form similar to authors writing books. If I pay for a book, I would want nothing getting in the way between me and the content of the book. And if the developers decide to release the game for free with maybe an ad banner at the bottom of the game, this shouldn’t affect the gameplay and the user should still be able to enjoy the game to its fullest. Putting timers for when a game can be played with micro transactions telling you to buy more lives and reduce the wait ruins mobile gaming for me. This is why I have deleted most of all the new mobile games off my phone and I only keep a handful of games such as tiny wings. As a simple game that is structured with multiple levels and worlds, it’s these types of games that I enjoy spending my time without worrying about when I’ll be able to play again or contemplate buying these upgrades that will unlock a part of the game that I feel like I should already own.

 

Reading #05

I have been an avid fan of first person shooter games since I was in elementary school. Back when I lived in Korea, they had these places called PC cafes which was essentially a giant LAN gaming center. It costed a dollar per hour to use any one of their gaming computers and my friends and I would regularly visit PC cafes to game together after school. Now in Korea, counter strike was not a popular game and wasn’t even known to the general population at all. Instead, Korea had a game called sudden attack which was basically a counter strike knockoff. I spent hours playing this game with my friends, honing my ability to aim and move with a mouse and keyboard. After years of playing this game, first person shooter games became almost second nature to me.

Around 6 grade, I moved to america where there was no pc cafes. With only the family computer around, I discovered counter strike and fell in love with the game. I didn’t have the money to buy the game and I wasn’t able to convince my parents to buy the game so I was able to get a copy of the game were you weren’t able to play online but you could still play with your friends with a LAN connection. Ever since then I’ve been playing counter strike and other first person shooter games till this day. I enjoyed the game so much that after I created my first steam account in high school, I bought out the whole counter strike game bundle even though I would only play global offensive. After revisiting the game this week, it brought back a lot of nostalgia.

As such, when I first got my wii, I was extremely excited to buy the game Call of Duty World at War. Before I got the game, it seemed like such a cool and interesting idea to actually be able to aim with your wii remote in a fps game. However, a couple hours into the game, the gimmick wore off. Truthfully, it simply became tiring and boring to play this game with motion controls. The aim was nowhere as precise as a mouse and keyboard and you just couldn’t pull of the same moves with the speed as you could on a computer. Even after trying out other motion sensing games like wii sports, various kinect games, and rhythm games, I just could not get invested into any single one of them. I like video games because of the tight controls and precision that allows certain moves to be executed with practice that separates the people who are good and bad. Motion controls seemed like it was a family friendly party game and that concept just didn’t sit well with me.

As for virtual reality, similarly to motion control games, I do not think I will every play competitive games on any virtual reality system. However, I do have to admit that games like horror games would become a lot more immersive.

 

Reading #04

As someone who played the Nintendo 64 and playstation when I was in elementary school, there wasn’t much that distinguished different video game consoles from one another. Hardware specs, price, portability and other attributes of these consoles did not matter to me as a kid in the slightest. All that mattered to me was what games I could play on what console. Even after thinking about it now, I don’t think there’s much that separates consoles from each other except for the exclusive games you have for each console. Hardware specs and price are almost generally equal between the consoles nowadays and if you really wanted to argue about graphical prowess you would just build a gaming pc that would completely outshine any performance you could get from a console.

 

My favorite console of all time has to be the Nintendo Gamecube. This is because there were so many brilliant titles that came out for this console. Honorable mentions include Super Mario Sunshine, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Star Fox Assault, and more. But the one game that still has me coming back to is Super Smash Bros Melee. The game, which was originally meant to be a fun group party game, ended up becoming one of the most complex fighting games to date. This was because players who took the game seriously found bugs and tricks within the physics engine that allowed them to pull off extremely difficult moves lightning fast. I remembered playing the predecessor of this game as a kid on the Nintendo 64 so I recently booted up my emulator and played a couple matches of the original super smash bros.

 

It was very interesting comparing the original to Melee and after playing it now rather than as a kid, I can see how the development of Melee was influenced by the original game. First of all, the game has a lot more hitstun compared to melee. Hitstun is a gaming terminology of fighting games where character is unable to be controlled by the player after it is hit by an opponent. This is the aspect of the game that allows a player to perform combos on the opponent. After landing a successful attack, the game rewards and gives the attacker some time to chain more attacks with each other. Like so, I found it a lot easier to combo in the original smash bros game.

 

Another thing I noticed while researching this game was that professional players played with 5 stocks (lives) compared to playing with 4 stocks in melee. This is because since the combo game is a lot easier, professional players of this game are almost guaranteed a kill if they land a hit. This causes the games to go by extremely quickly so 5 lives was set as the standard match when the game became competitive. The overall speed of the game and the controls were also a little slower compared to melee. But this may have been noticeable because melee is an obscenely fast game. This video should shed some light on the skill ceiling of Melee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXgpGBbh5r8

 

Overall, it was fun replaying an old game that I had spent hours playing with friends when I was a kid. And having some experience in the sequel helped me understand some of the design decisions that went on when creating the sequel.

Reading #03

To see how some of the old personal computer games played differently from gaming on a video console, I tried out a couple of DOS and Apple computer games on the archive. After playing through a couple of the game available such as Donkey Kong and Pac Man, the game that caught my eye was the original wolfenstein 3d. 

As an avid first person shooter fan I have played a lot of first person shooter games in my whole gaming history. I remember picking up counter strike 1.6 back when I was a kid and it was interesting to see and play one of the earliest games that inspired this whole genre of fps gaming.

There is an inherent difference in first person shooter games on the personal computer vs playing it on a video console these days. Plenty of triple A game developers release their titles for PC and the playstation and the xbox. People who have played fps games on both types of platforms will always realize that there is a fundamental advantage of playing these games on a PC rather than a console. As a fan of competitive ranked gameplay, I have noticed this because the controls with a mouse and keyboard can be so much more precise than a joystick. I have also noticed this difference while playing the original wolfenstein 3d which was very surprising. This is because as long as the game takes in a raw input from the mouse in terms of where you are aiming, the distance you move your mouse to aim will be exactly the same distance that your character in the game moves his view. The speed at which you move this set distance is completely up to the user depending on how fast the user flicks his mouse. However, playing on a console means playing with a controller. The way you move these joysticks that come with these controllers can only affect the velocity and acceleration of your character view instead of a set distance. For example, if an enemy is located 45 degrees to the right of where you are aiming in game, a mouse can simple slide the distance it needs to as fast as it needs to to aim at the enemy while a joystick would be limited to the sensitivity you set your controls at as your model turns to face the enemy even though you have the joystick tilted completely toward the right.

Like so, I would strongly put the advantage of fps games to the PC. I don’t see any difference playing other games such as 2d platformers, that were also quite popular during the 1980s, on either PC or video console because the controls don’t require 3 dimensional aim. Even back with wolfenstein 3d, playing that game with a controller would have been much more challenging than playing it with a mouse and keyboard.

 

Reading #02

There are a lot of reasons that made the games of the golden age so memorable. One of the main reasons for this memorability is how new this sort of entertainment was to the general public. Before video games, the only other sort of entertainment that screens provided was movies and tv shows. These essentially just had the user sit back and watch instead of interacting with any material. Suddenly, there was a method of interacting with that TV screen. Also, video games were something that you could play with your friends and compete.

 

Another reason for the golden age what that the games were all constrained to be very simple. Because of the obvious technical limitations of the hardware during this golden age, all the games had a simple objective with also a relatively simple gameplay. I feel like this contributed a lot to the reason why this age of video games were so memorable. The games were all about high scores and beating your friend’s scores. The memories made about these video games were all about enjoying this new form of entertainment and the frenzy of competition.

 

After all of this frenzy, I believe that there are timeless lessons to be learned from the classics. First of all games during this age didn’t exactly focus on graphics like modern games. A lot of the triple A titles that are coming out these days put a heavy emphasis on realistic 3D graphics and the visuals of the game. Although up to a certain point graphics can make a huge difference in the quality of the game, I feel like they should be treated as a supplement of the game rather than the base root of the game design. Back in the day, because the developers knew that there was limit in the hardware, I feel like the games focused more on the gameplay instead of the trying to make it look pretty. I have to clarify that I do still appreciate modern games with good graphics but there is a difference between making a game look nice and only making a nice looking game. An example of this is the Crysis series. After playing through the three main installments, other than the first game, the other two games felt like they lacked severely in gameplay while having amazing graphics. While playing through Crysis 2, I had fun and was amazed at the graphics for a solid 15 minutes before getting bored at the repetitive and shallow gameplay. On the other hand, we have games like Overwatch. The graphics in overwatch are not stellar by any means but no one would claim that the game looks “bad”. Instead, Overwatch uses its graphics as a stylistic choice instead of relying solely on them alone. This in turn enabled the developers of Overwatch to focus more on the gameplay and refine the game to perfection. Like so, in general, I find games that do not rely on graphics to be more interesting in terms of gameplay which is why I think old classic videos can hold their ground with some modern video games.

History Reading #01

Before video games were even a thing, there needed to be a reason for video games to be invented and exist in the first place. According to the article http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/the-father-of-the-video-game-the-ralph-baer-prototypes-and-electronic-games/video-game-history, one of the biggest and most influential games that spun out a whole industry of video games was spacewars. The creation of this game was the result of asking a couple of MIT students during the 1960s to utilize the campus’s new computer to the fullest by taxing the computer’s resources to the limit, remained interested after multiple viewings, and was interactive unlike a movie. Like so, these students took this as a challenge and created one of the earliest video games in history where two people duel each other in spaceships. This is one of the first times a program had been made on a computer with the sole goal being interactive entertainment. This simple mindset would then spawn a multibillion dollar industry.

 

Even though there was a widespread popularity of video games when they were first introduced into the public, there were many inherent challenges developers and players had to overcome in order to create and play the games back then. One of the earliest challenges was obviously the limit of computers back then. Technology was, in general, much larger and bulkier back then and even things like computers would fill up a large room all by itself. Even if we disregard the physical size restrictions of computers, there were also hardware limitations as well. Computers were just so much slower back then with extremely limited resources. This therefore required games to be simple. For example, if we take a look at the game pong, one of the earliest games in history, we can find that there is not much depth at all in the game. The sprites, or paddles and ball in the game, are literally just rectangles and circles and gameplay is moving the paddle up and down. These challenges, however, were overcome naturally as the technology got better and better.

 

Something interesting about early video games like pong and spacewars was that they were both designed to be multiplayer games. Two people had to be present to compete against one another in a battle. Even if the opponent was an AI, the primary nature of these games early on was that they were multiplayer with a goal to beat your opponent. I guess this kind of game design has now evolved to things such as online multiplayer games. The most popular video games these days such as League of Legends, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Counter Strike, etc, are about a competition. Single player games have been developed but none of the single player games have reached the popularity of these online multiplayer competitive games and their giant playerbase. The internet also helped a huge role in making these types of games bigger as players are no longer required to be in the same computer/room playing the same machine in order to compete with each other. Now players can play ranked matches and compete with people across the whole world.

Reading14 #1

According to the article https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/10/a-plan-to-teach-every-child-computer-science/504587/, the arguments for introducing everyone to computing is that as we are living in a more and more technologically driven world, in order to understand what’s going on in our lives we must learn at least the basics of programming. An example would be watching the news and finding out about how Hillary Clinton’s email was hacked. Without any knowledge of servers and the basics behind how this attack was done, you would be completely in the dark about the current state of your own government.

 

 

There are a quite a lot of challenge schools will face as CS4All moves forward. First of all is the training that will have to be done to get teachers ready to teach computer science. Although training teachers to teach basic fundamentals of programming would be quite simple, training teachers to teach classes further along in the curriculum would be a big task. Another challenge would be creating a standardized curriculum in place to teach computer science across the nation. If computer science is made to be included in the standard curriculum, there must also be standardized exams and tests in place.

 

 

I personally think that if Computer Science becomes a part of the standardized curriculum, only the basic foundation level course should be a required. Every other course should be an elective that students who have an interest in computer science could take. This would follow how all the other subjects handle material. For example, we can take a look at how the current school system teaches math. All the introductory level courses are required by the schools from elementary to middle of high school. But if a student so desired, they are given the option of taking higher level courses such as AP calculus after they have completed the basic required courses. By following this system, would wouldn’t be forcing people who do not have an interest in computer science to take a course that wouldn’t benefit them at all.

 

 

I do believe that anyone can learn to program. It the simplest sense, it is as straightforward as learning math or physics. I feel that if everyone took a semester course in python, they wouldn’t find it that incredibly difficult. Programming has a very defined set of rules that if learned, anyone could theoretically be able to code. But this goes without saying that practically any subject taught in school is the same. If taught well enough, anyone could “learn” math or biology. The article https://blog.codinghorror.com/please-dont-learn-to-code/ however reflects my opinion on whether everyone should learn how to program. Although I think everyone could learn how to code if they put their mind to it, I don’t think everyone should. It should be treated as any other profession and skill in that if you have passion you should pursue. Making it a requirement or suggesting that everyone should learn it is a bit ridiculous. As the article put it, we don’t urge everyone to learn plumbing because that simply just doesn’t make sense.

Reading13 #1

From the readings, what exactly are patents? What are the ethical, moral, economic, or social reasons for granting patents?

 

A patent is a set of rights that a sovereign state grants to an inventor for a limited time in exchange for the detailed disclosure of the invention. So for example, if I invent something and I want to protect my invention from getting stolen by other people and used for profit, I can patent the invention and release the details of the invention for “ownership” of the invention. The reasons for getting a patent is mainly for protection and ways to grow your company/idea safely.

 

 

In your opinion, should patents be granted at all? Are they really necessary or beneficial for society? Do the promote innovation or do they hinder it? Explain.

 

In my opinion, I do believe patents should be granted. I think they act as sort of a safety net for inventors. If I was trying to create something new that the world has never seen before, I wouldn’t want one of my worries to be that someone would immediately steal this idea for profit after I spent countless hours on it. I would want the number one focus and priority of an inventor to be channeled into the actual invention and not how to protect it.

 

 

Additionally, should patents on software be granted or should patents be restricted to physical or more tangible artifacts? Explain.

 

I think software patents are on a very awkward line. On one hand, like Bill Gates in the article https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2007/03/analysis-microsofts-software-patent-flip-flop/ says, if we patent everything related to software, the industry would be at a standstill and nothing would move forward. If ideas like object oriented programming was patented by some big company, any progress in computer science would come to a halt. Fundamental ideas like programming concepts should not be patentable as

 

 

Finally, is the existence of patent trolls evidence that the patent system is working or that the system is broken? Explain.

 

From the readings, I don’t think the current system is working correctly right now. The system seems a little too lenient. And with the way some company sue other companies without even telling them what patent they are infringing, the system could work a little better in terms of solving patent infringement problems.