Tuesday 5 May 2015

Games and Gaming (virtual world and real world)

       Major advancements of technology have changed our culture and lifestyle in many aspects. Video games, for instance, have become global entertainment today which especially popular among the teenagers. Video games are internally diverse as it involve the using of consoles (eg: PS3 and XBOX) and handheld devices (eg: smartphone and personal computer). The broadly development of video games are not simply a games for entertainment, but also an opportunity for games industries to expand their business and make money.

       According to NIKO media research, the statistic of PC online gamers in Malaysia are increase from 7.62 million in 2012 to 9.9 million in 2014 (Figure 1). This indicates the growth of video games is significantly important. Refers to statistic of PC online gamers


Figure 1

      Do video games help in real world? In fact, video games are close to our reality but do not mean that it is helpful in real life. For instance, “The Sims” is a game that instructed by players to interact with others and achieve daily needs such as eating, build house, purchasing items and lots (Figure 2). Playing video games are undeniably brings to enjoyment and happiness. However, video games are provided virtual world but not the real world that we should focus on.
      
There are several factors boost the growing of video games. In particular, video games play actually provides cognitive, motivational, emotional and social benefits. In the cognitive dimension, video games able to strengthen the cognitive skills of players such as attention allocation, spatial navigation, reasoning and memory. A good example can be shown through shooter video games (Figure 3), which often violent in nature. The shooter video games tend to improve the thinking capability of players in more dimensions and enhance their mental rotation abilities. Also, video games are helping in emotional because children can learn emotional resilience through the failure in games. On the other hand, it connects the gamers to become virtual social communities and encourage cooperation among gamers to help each other.


Figure 2: "The Sims"



Figure 3: Shooter video games

Nevertheless, excessive gaming will lead to negative impacts which are violence, addiction and depression. An excessive attention of players on the games will cause players forget about the time and abandon their real life. Following, it will bring to many negative outcomes such as health problems, suffering relationships, increased aggression and poor performance. In the earlier of January of 2015, a 32-year old male gamer was found dead at Taiwanese Internet Café because non-stop three days gaming session. Later, another death case happened at Taipei because of five days gaming binge. What turns a hobby into health hazard (refers to gaming to death) ? 

Gaming is for fun and to spending spare time. It does not necessary to harmful our life because of playing game. Do differentiate the real world and virtual world!!!!


9 comments:

  1. I seldom plays games. Once I start to play games, I will addicted to it within half an hour. In order to avoid myself addicted to games, I choose not to play. The virtual world in games is really awesome. It helps to release stress and fulfill the needs of achievement which is difficult to achieve in reality. However, it could only helps for temporary but not permanent. For my personal experience, the excessive gaming affects both my physical and mental health. I became bad temper after excessive gaming. Other than that, my shoulders and eyes were uncomfortable. The enjoyment of virtual world change my real world to suffer!

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  2. I personally very hate those who are totally addicted to the game world until lost themselves in real life. The news of "gaming to death" really sad cases, does the life is worth to lost because of a gaming? NO!!!!!!!! It is very stupid behaviour for me. Undeniably, game is good to release stress. However, we should understand that it is just a GAME. It is a place for us to relax for temporary. After the relaxation, we should turn back to the reality. The life is still going on. For my observation in life, game addiction will brings many negative impacts. I have a friend that is loving the game of "Dota" so much. He could not skip a day for stop playing. When we have friend gathering, he always rejects us because the game. The relationships between us are become poorer and poorer. A virtual game will makes people more happy than attending a real gathering?!I wish everyone of us will know to distinguish the virtual and real life. Enjoy the real life as well.

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  3. I do play game but not very often. The longest period for me to play a game is three months which is clash of clans. For me, I play game when I am boring but some people play game to release stress, find entertainment or because of peer pressure. I agreed with Pon Jie Ting. I hate those people who are addicted to the game world, they can play the game day and night, and as some of the games in Facebook need friend to send some thing in order to level up, I also hate those people that keep sending me request just because they want to continue play the game. Everything come with good and bad so it is all depend on how we control ourselves. We should not play game until lose friend our affect our life.

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  4. I am player of Clash of Clans. CoC is an epic combat strategy game where I can build my own village, trains troops and battle with millions of players around the online. Well, personally I do not addict to the game although it is fun and exciting hence I am disagree to the statement of "games and gaming can bring addition and affect the real life of people". We can handle well if we weigh all the consequence nicely.

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  5. I personal seldom to spend much time on online games, because i would prefer to spent time on outdoor activities with my family and friends. However, i can understand some of the people think online game is a channel for them to release stress especially during assignment period. Unfortunately, some of the players get addicted and they are willing to spend a lot of real currency to purchase in-game currency on regular basis. In my opinion, online game is a entertainment, but please do not get addicted. Young generation nowadays should appreciate the time spent with family and friend. Make your own life more meaningful.

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  6. i don't play game as well. I'm not the person who can sit infront of the computer for hours just for games. i think it is wasting my time and some people told me playing game will decrease your stress level but it does not works on me. A friend of mine even spent thousands on online games such as DOTA and COC. I don;t understand why they willing to spent so much in a game. games is a virtual world, i do not encourage people to addict in games.

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  7. Honestly, I was a game addict during certain period of time in my life. I spend too much time on game such as The Sim Series, Monster hunter, Defense of the Ancients (Dota) and so on. During that time, I really cannot drag myself out of the game. However, I found that when I spend lot of my time in game directly it will reduce my interaction with family and friends. Finally, i decided to cut off this game addiction.

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  8. Saya merupakan seorang yang suka b ermain game seperti PES dan FIFA kerana begitu berminat dengan bola. Namun saya bukan seorang yang ketagih game kerana hanya menggunakan beberapa masa yang sesuai untuk bermain game. Pada pendapat saya, bermain game tidaklah mendatangkan kesan negatif kepada saya kerana apabila saya boring saya menghiburkan masa bermain game. Justeru, saya tidak juga lupa akan tanggungjawab sebagai seorang pelajar dan komunikasi dengan keluarga perlu diutamakan.

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  9. I used to play games and i actually addicted with it. In my opinion, games bring harms for us because once we stay on the game, we cannot focus on our schoolwork. When i'm doing my revision, I can't control my hand of not log in to the game and once I log in, I know I will stay on the game at least for half an hour. After that, I found that games are just wasting our time and we can't manage to get our things done in time. Besides, the games are not realistic and it actually make us stay apart from our family and friends. Therefore, I deleted and uninstalled all the games that I addicted before and tell myself not to play games anymore.

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