developing computer games k/601/7324 lo1 - understand the impact of the gaming revolution on society

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Unit 10 DEVELOPING COMPUTER GAMES K/601/7324 LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution on socie

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Page 1: DEVELOPING COMPUTER GAMES K/601/7324 LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution on society

Unit 10DEVELOPING COMPUTER GAMES

K/601/7324 LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution on society

Page 2: DEVELOPING COMPUTER GAMES K/601/7324 LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution on society

P1 - Explain the impact of computer games on societyM1 - Compare the negative and positive impacts of computer games on individuals The assessment criteria could be evidenced by the use of a report

or presentation. This will explain how computer games have had an impact on society this can be in terms of the employment in the industry (this could be compared to other entertainment genres e.g. revenue compared to the film industry, development costs). The report could be given a specific focus such as being presented to a college to encourage the use of games for education.

For merit criterion M1, when comparing the positive versus negative impacts on the individual, learners could set this out clearly in a table within a report. This report should consider a range of areas for each impact identified in the teaching content.

Assessment Criteria P1 and M1

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Learners should be taught about the impact of computer games on society and the growth of the industry – learners can look at the revue and financial turnover of the industry and compare this to other entertainment industries e.g. film. Learners will be taught about the impact computer games can have on individuals for example computer gaming addiction, peer pressure to play games. Learners should spend time researching the development of computer games and their popularity over time as individuals or small groups.

They should discuss the changes to game playing and the audiences and then identify perhaps as a brainstorming session how lives have changed due to the development of computer games. This may require additional research across a range of areas. The research should include negatives and positives such as the addiction and loss of reality when gaming to the use of games for the educational benefit of learners of the use by surgeons of computer games to improve hand eye coordination.

Understand the impact of the gaming revolution on society

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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The beginnings of the gaming market go back over 35 years with claims of computer games going back further still. Some claim Space Wars as the first game or Tic-Tac-Toe. Others claim Pong was the first introduced by Trip Hawkins to the public in the mid seventies. This was when games were first introduced to a mass audience.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – Game Definition

Console Handheld

Atari VCS vs Collecovision Game and Watch

Sinclair ZX81 vs. Commodore Vic 20

Commodore 64 vs. ZX Spectrum

NES vs. Master System Gameboy

SNES vs. Megadrive

Atari vs. Amiga

Playstation vs. Nintendo 64 vs. Dreamcast Gameboy Advance

Xbox vs. Playstation 2 vs. Nintendo Cube DS vs. PSP

Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3 vs. Wii iPhone, iPad and Android

Xbox One vs. Playstation 4 vs. WiiU

What is commonly accepted is that games have generations, every three to four years we have the next generation of consoles or handhelds that surpasses the previous and the competition between manufacturers has brought about change and progression. From the list on the left there are numerous consoles that did not make it that cannot be discounted from the lists, Jaguar, Saturn, BBC micro, Neo Geo, PC Engine, QL, CD32, Nomad, Binatone, Lynx etc. Even Nintendo had games machines that did not make it like Virtual Boy. When the NES reached it’s peak in America, 20% of homes had one. This was considered shocking at the time. Now it is rare for a home not to have a console of some kind.

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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And along with the console wars comes the development of the games. Games are like musicians, we believe they are the best that is around ever and then three months later we forget who they are. When Pong came out it was revolutionary, two white lines, one white ball and that was it. Levels meant speed. Pacman is the most quoted game to the point where Google put a version as their banner and had to remove it because of the number of lost work hours.

There are classics in the gaming world like there are musicians whose careers lasted longer than an album or two. Kong, Mario, Doom, Zork, Sonic, Tetris, COD, WOW, Angry Birds, these are games that have a history, they are quoted as milestones, blamed for problems, compared to as golden ages, but there is always a potential for something better, something more popular. We rave about the newest game app until something else comes along.

Along with the games, there are the gaming companies, Atari was king, until new machines meant new game styles. In Britain Imagine because EA. Nintendo still make their own games but Sega stopped hardware production, Squaresoft are not allowed to release a game in Japan on a week day, and more money is spent on marketing certain games than production costs combined.

Gone are the days when one could make a game in your bedroom in a few weeks of coding, now games can take years to develop. But popular apps like Draw Something sold more than all 30 apps the company made before hand combined. The ability to create an App and make millions is still here, the programs like App Inventor are free.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – Game Definition

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Development of most video games is undertaken by a developer, which may be a single person or a large business. Typically, large-scale commercial games are created by development

teams within a company specialising in computer or console games A typical modern video game can cost from £750,000 to over

£15,000,000 to develop Development is normally funded by a publisher A contemporary game can take from one to three years to develop,

though there are exceptions, sometimes known as vapourware One famous example is Duke Nukem Forever which has been in

development since 1996, with an original release in 1998

P1.1 - Task 01 – Introduce the video game market and describe the background for the industry and target audience with console and game examples.

1. Background history of Games Industry with examples2. Reasons why the Games Industry is important3. Examples of the big players

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – Game Definition

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Missing from all this is the PC games market which unlike consoles has not developed due to the three year cycle, competition and sales figures but through advances in partial technology. But PC games still sell well, they are still superior graphically to consoles, they still have their genres that consoles have not been able to breach. And all technical developments have been channelled through PC technologies. PC’s had CD drives 4 years before the first console, the SegaCD, they had BluRay 2 years before PS3, they had hard drive storage for games 15 years before the Xbox360.

Until 1978 PC’s were monochrome but since the introduction of VGA graphics, PC’s have had a higher resolution and bit depth than any console. The first networked play games on PC was around for 18 years before consoles could match the online capacity. Doom, Quake, WOW, Eve and a host of others have dominated the online market with games like WOW having up to 6m users online at any one time.

More importantly games are made on PC’s, they are constructed and coded on PC’s using PC language. Characters and objects are predominantly made in Maya, ZBrush and 3d Studio Max. Game Engines like Unity, Torque, CryEngine ran on PC’s and save the code to make them compatible with consoles and handhelds. This makes them PC compatible and in line with console releases. Games like Skyrim are as good on either format but never considered by the industry as popular.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – PC Games

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Where PC Games differ from consoles is the availability and the negative issues. Until recently downloadable content kept PC gaming active, expansion packs, bug fixes, patches and mods. The life of Doom was extended for 2 years because of modding. New levels generated by users.

But Piracy, online and offline versions has plagued the PC market more than the console market since the early days. New and better protection methods limit this down slightly but never for long. On PirateBay the seed and peer value of a new PC game is about 10,000. The same cannot be said about Console of Handheld games. Yes there are ways of copying console games but PC’s cannot be account blocked.

P1.1 - Task 02 – Introduce the PC game market and target audience and describe the background for the industry using game examples.

1. Background history of PC Games Industry with examples2. Reasons why the PC Games have developed differently from

Consoles3. Examples of the hardware changes that affected PC gaming

advances.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – PC Games

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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For a long period of time it was the Arcades that drove the quality and demand for gaming forward. They had three unique selling points that made them attractive to the customer, multiplayer, atmosphere and gadgets. For twenty years they also had the graphical quality.

Arcade machines use a technology called Jamma Boards, Mame software and Sega, the loading speed was much quicker. re installed on processor chips directly onto a Jamma Board and placed inside an arcade cabinet. Because the chip was direct, like cartridges on a Nintendo. A CRT monitor was sunken into the cabinet. The cabinets were then decorated to add appeal.

Flattened cabinets like Pong and Space Invaders came in later where the player sat overlooking the screen against a second player at the other side. The first public Game cabinet, Pong, created by Trip Hawkins, broke after three hours when the coin slot and tray was so filled with money it could not accept any more.

Throughout the late seventies and through the eighties Arcade machines had this appeal, the quality of games improved graphically and the level of interaction became more exaggerated. Classics such as Pacman, Centipede, Star Wars, Operation Wolf, Street Fighter, King of the Fighters and Kong all had their beginnings in the Arcades. Now the technology looks dated but Arcades still exist.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – Arcades

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Multiplayer – The first Multiplayer console games did not come into play until 1977 when Arcades had them from 1971 with Galaxy or 1972 with Pong. Games like h2Overdrive allowed 4 players in driving seats to compete against each other. The later Street Fighter Cabinets allowed the two users to stand in a raised ring above a crowd and fight on a big screen. It was the new online play at the time, the equivilient of boxing rings while parents played with sot machines, crane grabs and coin drops.

Atmosphere – Arcades were the shopping malls of the 70’s. It was where teenagers used to go, the smell, the crowds, the prestige of having your name on the scoreboard for eternity, the audience participation and the noises. They appeared in films, Terminator, War Games, Tron, they were regulated and protected spaces and they were huge money spinners. The art work on the machines is considered classic, pinball tables, air hockey, whack-a-mole, these all added atmosphere. They were designed for the short term players, 10p for three minutes play, now they cost £2 for the same. Better players could last longer, Centipede, Pacman and Kong had the option for hours of play for the better players, extended play for driving games encouraged addiction and repeat performances.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – Arcades

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Gadgets – The Arcades had alternative controllers, something the consoles did not have until Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn. Now the Wii has controllers for everything and Kinect you become the controller. In Arcades they had guns for Operation Wolf and MacCready, Snowboards, Basketballs, Car driving cabinets for driving games, Motorcycle controllers for Hang On, Hammers for Whack-a-Mole. Some of the more exaggerated Arcade machines had gyroscopes, force feedback, devices that would be considered fitness workout machines. These all added novelty value.

Arcades became the testing round for Console release, companies such as Taito, Bally Midway, Sega, Bandai, Namco and Konami all made their fortunes in Arcades before transferring over to Consoles.

Arcades became associated with holidays, Brighton, Bognor, Canvey Island, along with Candy Floss, Ice Cream and Chips. On the downside they have been blamed for most of the problems associated with gaming until recently, addiction, aggressive behaviour, expense, psychological removal from society.

P1.1 - Task 03 – Introduce the Arcade game market and target audience and describe the background for the industry using game examples.

1. Background history of Arcade Games Industry with examples2. Reasons why the Arcades have survived so long as a gaming platform

against Consoles3. Explain with Examples the appeal and downsides of Arcades.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – Arcades

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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The positive and negative aspects of gaming is something the newspapers tend to focus on during Slow News days. Especially the negative aspects. The two kids from Columbine played Doom before going to school the news reported, Doom is bad, Doom is at fault. They also went 10pin Bowling.

Korean teenager dies from starvation while playing WOW the news reported, but did not mention the other 6million users not dying from playing it or how two people in Britain died through tea cosy related incidents in 2012. Tea did not get blamed. Global play – Before online play users bought the games, played the games, put the games back in their

boxes and that was that, little or no external interaction except talking to friends about it, which armour in Skyrim they preferred or how many little soldiers they collected in FF7. Online play has been the unique selling point since Xbox360 and PC’s before that. Breaking down country barriers, playing against people from nations around the world, teaming up against other countries, joining a game with a thousand users. The next generation of RTS will have ten thousand users in different teams fighting a war against each other. It is what the gaming industry has always wanted, a captured world audience.

WOW has 6m users at any one time. There are numerous other games, Trekkies playing Star Trek Online, Star Wars fans playing Battlefront, RPG’s of all shapes and sizes, Lord of the Rings online for Tolkien fans worldwide, Sims, Second Life, Poker, Bridge, there is a customer base for all games online. And then there is COD, Fifa, Skyrim Online etc. The days of playing two player, three and four player are fading, the chances of playing against human AI online is a greater need, breaking down barriers, allowing players to communicate across the world, to have conversations from unknown people, and then shoot them. It is the ultimate anonymity.

The downsides of this include government blocking. In countries where Twitter is illegal, free speech through online play will be monitored for similar reasons. Similarly Global Play and anonymity can lead to Trolling and Grooming, at least the press believes so. There are arguments for and against, the biggest being that the world is not ready for the breaking down of cultural, physical and religious barriers that the freedom of net play offers.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Society

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Addiction – How many hours of games does the average boy or girl play now. Is it more than television watching, more than socialising with friends. The press has been arguing that games are addictive since the 80’s, more so now. Teenagers who starve themselves to death playing games like WOW because if they stop, someone will overtake them, these are the kinds of stories that are used as arguments for the case. The teenager who shot his father because his father took away his Xbox, is this addiction or just one case.

The nature of addiction is in the power of the withdrawal, adults would consider two hours or more a night for their child as addicted but games like Football Manager take that long to get through a match. Three hours, this is the average Skyrim, COD, WOW and Eve play. Four hours, do parents bring you food when you play games, how long before hunger stops you from playing, do you eat while playing. Is taking a day off sick to play a game an indication of addiction.

Psychologists argue that anything that substitutes for an every day activities is an addiction and we all know someone who spends five or more hours a night on some game. 30% of teenagers admit to playing some game through the night. 18% of teenagers admit getting their parents to buy them age restricted games. 27% of young males admit to getting their parents to queue at midnight for the latest game and half of these admit to missing school the next day through some mysterious fatigue illness.

With games getting larger, longer, more in depth and more demanding of attention and time, the press argues that this is increasing the potential for addiction but if Microsoft placed coding on the Xbox One that limited gameplay down to three hours per game per 24 hour period or 4 hours on time per night what would the outcry be. Can gaming be regulated to reduce down addictive tendencies and is it worthwhile legislating on this.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Society

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Loss of social aspects – Before games became a fundamental part of the home entertainment system “kids used to go out and play in the streets, in the fresh air.” But when Google put Pacman on their logo it was adults who lost tens of millions of working hours.

Gaming has been blamed for the disintegration of family life, for the removal of face contact among the young, for the de-socialisation of young people and even the desensitisation of horrific events. There was a time when the news was banned from showing graphic violence, dead bodies or would have to warn the viewer before a certain scene would appear. Now you can shoot a man from a distance through a scope in any number of games and watch him bleed to death. The papers believe the separation between computer generated violence and actual violence is blurring with the increase in graphic reality on the screen.

Whether this is true or not is another matter. The Jamie Bolger incident caused an outcry of this nature, were the kids desensitised by computer games, the banning of the airport scene in COD 4 because it was too realistic, stabbing certain women in GTA. The same argument was used in Rap Music but Johnny Cash “Shot a man in Denver, just to watch him die.”

The second argument is that games reduce down social skills, communication, writing skills, conversing in a world where your Avatar is more likely to form relationships than the player.

The argument against is the “Even nerds have nerd friends.” If it was not for computer games it would be something else, Manga, Music, Films, the argument that socialisation is something that is in our nature and computer games are just an outlet. It has been shown in a study that teenagers are more in contact with each other now than ever before, the lack of face contact is just a part of that against argument.

P1.2 – Task 04 – Using the headings, Global Play, Addiction and loss of Social Skills, outline with newspaper evidence arguments for and against gaming as an influence on player socialisation.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Society

Global Play Addiction Loss of Social Skills

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Employment – No-one writes on a CV: “Job Skills – Level 37 Elf Mage.” However playing games improves dexterity, reaction speed, creative thought processes and even logical progression techniques. The need to be IT literate has become as common an employment requirement as English and Maths GCSE. All jobs now have some degree of ICT demand within them.

Combine this with the size of the industry and the number of workers working within it to some degree. Britain wants to reassert itself as a game producing nation as it was back in the early 1980’s, every University has some BA (Hons) degree in this, Computing, Programming, IT management, Network management, Graphic Design, Character Design, Animation, CG modelling, Data input and data modelling, MSCE and Novell training. On the gaming side there are as many courses as there are jobs, character and object modelling, background design, character rigging, Archvis, coding, marketing, promotion etc.

With game sales overtaking the film sales industry in terms of revenue the push has been on capture a share of that market. Japan has long been known to be a heavy game producing nation, over 1800 people worked for 2 years producing FF13 and this is just one of 10 games at Squaresoft on the go at one time. Add to this Namco, Bandai, Sega, Sony, Nintendo, Konami, Koei, Capcom and Atlus and a host of smaller companies that are first, second and third party developers.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Employment

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Finance – The games industry is worth more than the film industry and games are repeat play. COD made $700m, New Super Mario Brothers made $1.2bn, Black Ops $1.5bn with 23m sales worldwide in March 2011. All three Lord of the Rings films made $1.8bn. World of Warcraft has made more in sales figures ($10bn) than the Star Wars films. Franchising makes films more, but games have similar franchising from downloads, add-ons, models and characters, even books and marketing material. This is a huge revenue stream, the difference is games have an added incentive of sequels, one in 20 films have a sequel, one in 2 games have one. And games can use the same code, except LOTR, films cannot.

People complain about the game prices, how they have risen, but in comparison to real world terms, in 1980 a game for £8.99 was the same price as 45 bags of crisps at 20p each, a 45:1. In 1995 SNES games cost £24.99, crisps cost 35p, this is a 75:1 ratio. Now games cost £40, crisps cost 60p, this is a 66:1 ratio. In the last ten years pricing has come down. Manufacturers add in the pricing of production, manuals, publicity, delivery, marketing etc. to justify the pricing strategy. Consoles have gone up from £90 for a SNES to £350 for a PS3. But so has manufacturing costs and the price of the hardware.

P1.3 – Task 05 – Using the headings, Employment and Finance outline with researched evidence the benefits and importance of gaming on the economy.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Finance

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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One of the biggest arguments against the gaming world has been linked to health levels. Kids are sitting around all day playing games, not moving, eating in front of the game for hours at a time, repeating the same key presses and movements and not getting out. This argument has been around since the first mass produced home computer and the Atari VCS console. And the argument is likely to continue even with more interactive methods of controllers. Remembering that 80% of newspapers are aimed at parents and adults who play a lot less games than teenagers and children. Obesity – The main argument, studies show calorie counts, studies show blood

flow, amount of movement, amount of static siting around. We all know gaming does not make you fit, not really. Neither does driving, working at a desk, standing behind a counter which 60% of the working population does. “But it is a choice, work is not.” The argument against is that games do not make people obese, eating and lack of exercise does.

Between 2004 and 2012 according to the Pittsburgh Gazette, childhood obesity in America went up by 30%. This was linked to gaming as the gaming industry and the amount of homes with consoles has gone up substantially in comparison. Childhood obesity is then linked with heart disease, cancers, arthritis, thyroid inflammation, diabetes and depression. All things that can be a burden on the health service. Whether this is true is another matter but it is good to have something to blame.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Health

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Fitness – Linked to obesity, the fitness levels of children has been seen to drop in the last twenty years and naturally Gaming and the withdrawing from socialisation has been blamed. With the introduction of Wii Fit, the newspapers grabbed this as a new age of interactivity and promise, families playing tennis in front of the televisions, running on the Wii board, boxing and jumping about on the Kinect etc. Parents see their children playing Fifa and say they should get out there and play it for real but there is almost as much Football, Cricket, Gaelic, Baseball etc. being played as there ever was.

RSI in young people is rare but starting to become more evident as the need to play more games, to sit in front of a console and repeat the same actions over and over again is growing. 69% of all primary wage earners play some type of video game, Hours of limited movement or immobility prevents proper blood flow to the extremities, constant staring at the screen can impair your vision, and even the curvature of the spine can also be affected. The most common injuries doctors see on a regular basis are repetitive stress injuries, or RSIs, of the thumbs, hands and wrists. These injuries are so common now that they have been given their own names in the dictionary of medical terminology; “texting thumb” and “nintendinitis” are just two of the RSIs created by modern technology.

P1.4 – Task 06 – Using the headings, Obesity, Fitness and RSI outline with researched evidence the health risks and benefits involved in long period gaming.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Health

Obesity Fitness RSI

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Language and behaviour – The levels of acceptable behaviour we see in computer games is not tolerated in real society but disassociation with reality can become an issue. Games let us into a world that we could only hope to be in, to drive fast and steal cars in GTA, shoot anything that moves in Gears of War, slice all fruit in Fruit slice or go off on Dragon hunting adventures. Games let us in to that world, a world we see as more exciting, capable of out-letting our aggression, of being rewarded for our achievements, of earning money to survive by any means. In 1986 the game School Daze was criticised when school children emulated similar behaviour, of an 8bit sprite. In 2008 the game Canis Canem Edit or Bully was given an M (Mature Audience only) in Australia and then censored in other countries for similar reasons.

The language and behaviour of characters in games like GTA cause all sorts of groups to be up in arms, church bodies, women’s groups etc., the fear that children will emulate this behaviour is their main concern. Desensitising means being surrounded and witness to violence and behaviour to the point of considering it acceptable. Think about how angry you have been or seen others being when their game has been taken away or switched off at the end of the night. You just have to go on YouTube to see children’s reactions to restrictions and the effect it has on their behaviour.

Games have also been linked to personal aggression, the ten minute come down after play when the head is buzzing and adrenaline levels are at their highest. How many times have we thrown down the joystick, hit the keyboard, sworn out loud or kicked the furniture. When it is adults and there are small children around this is seen as emulated behaviour, seen as acceptable outcries.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Psychology

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Gaming addiction – We covered the social problems with this under social, but psychological damage caused by gaming addiction can be as severe. This can be linked to aggressive behaviour as well. Compulsive obsessive behaviour of some variety is in all of us, how this manifests itself can differ. Gaming and gambling for example are linked. The victories on levels is similar to the victory of a poker win, death in a game is similar to defeat in a poker game. It is games like RPG’s that get the most blame for this. Levelling up feels like a rush, feels like a personal achievement, now you are bigger, stronger, faster, like a poker win, now you can spend more, ease off, be more aggressive because you have a stake.

The world does not see Gaming addiction as worrying as other addictions because it does not affect others in the surrounding circle as much as other addictions. £40 per game is nothing to most people, £10 for an add on, more downloadable content. And a game might only have 40 hours of play before completion, an addicted gamer might go back and play again but still only 40 hours. They lose sleep but still sleep, the do not eat as much but still eat, games can be paused, gambling cannot so easily.

More importantly it is not seen as an issue because parents think they can manage their children’s gaming addiction, turn the machine off, switch off the Internet, disable accounts, send them to school and limit their home use. Arcades used to be the external outlet but they are mostly dead now or limited to classics.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Psychology

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Brain training and Education – Where would a Maths department be without MyMaths or Mathsletics to educate and entertain a class. The rise of games that are education on a small and large front has been around from the early 80’s but never has it been taken as seriously as a medium for education as now.

On a professional level Professor Layton and Brain Training have been huge sellers. Brain training has been one of the highest selling games on the DS for four years and Professor Layton is in the sixth incarnation and still selling strong. But Chess was made on a ZX80 back in 1978 on 1k of on-board memory. Nintendo mastered the art of brain games for children to capture an untapped market on both the Wii and DS. Ranges of puzzle games followed like Sudoku, Trivial Pursuit and Millionaire, Fruit Drop etc. and each has sold in tens of thousands. The technology has moved forward so much with handheld’s and apps are geared for all educational types of subject. With touch screen technology this has moved down to a younger age to appeal to a wider audience.

On a smaller sale websites with flash games like MyMaths are made by educators for a target audience specifically linked to the curriculum. The BBC sponsored by the government provides a lot of this, linking subject matter to entertainment, offering game rewards for answered questions. Similarly websites offer other flash games linked to education like Sugar Sugar. The games may not be high tech but they have educational content, content that progresses with rewards, harder levels, scoring, congratulations etc. all the content offered as rules of gaming are in there.

P1.5 – Task 07 – Using the headings, Language and Behaviour, Gaming Addiction and Brain Training and Education outline with researched evidence the psychological dangers and benefits involved in gaming.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution - Psychology

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Games are around, every branch of Tesco’s Sainsbury’s, Asda, every shopping centre, almost every town has a game shop or game sales. There is no doubting the importance of the industry, it is not going to go away any time soon. Under your television, on your computer there are games to be played, probably a machine of some kind. The average household in Britain has at least three machines to play games, one handheld, one console and one Smartphone. Almost every phone sold has a game with it. Other countries are little different, even if the game costs 99p from Amazon or iTunes it is still there, ever present. Ask most adults between the age of forty and Sixty and they might say they have played no games, none, except Freecell, Solitaire, Pinball, Sudoku, Google Pacman, Crosswords and the Lottery. And therefor the possible impact of games, psychological, social, moral, physical and economical is always present.

M1.1 – Task 08 – Using the table below, outline the Positive and Negative impacts the present and future potential of the gaming industry will have on the individual.

LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution – Effect on Individuals

Issues Positive Impacts Negative Impacts Future Considerations

Global Play

Social Communication

Employment

Health Issues

Education

Training

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Page 23: DEVELOPING COMPUTER GAMES K/601/7324 LO1 - Understand the impact of the gaming revolution on society

P1.1 - Task 01 – Introduce the video game market and describe the background for the industry and target audience with console and game examples.P1.1 - Task 02 – Introduce the PC game market and target audience and describe the background for the industry using game examples.P1.1 - Task 03 – Introduce the Arcade game market and target audience and describe the background for the industry using game examples.P1.2 – Task 04 – Using the headings, Global Play, Addiction and Loss of Social Skills, outline with newspaper evidence arguments for and against gaming as an influence on player socialisation.P1.3 – Task 05 – Using the headings, Employment and Finance outline with researched evidence the benefits and importance of gaming on the economy.P1.4 – Task 06 – Using the headings, Obesity, Fitness and RSI outline with researched evidence the health risks and benefits involved in long period gaming.P1.5 – Task 07 – Using the headings, Language and Behaviour, Gaming Addiction and Brain Training and Education outline with researched evidence the psychological dangers and benefits involved in gaming.M1.1 – Task 08 – Using the table below, outline the Positive and Negative impacts the present and future potential of the gaming industry will have on the individual.

Task List

Scenario Criteria Tasks Assessment1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8