Ethical impact from video games

There are a lot of studies on different aspects of the deconstruction of video games, including; Game addiction, Peer pressure, Educational value and The Interpolation of games.

Social Isolation
Playing games in place of physical human interaction. Said to be linked with gaming addiction, social isolation is caused by an excessive amount of time playing video games, in which the fictional world could present a better reality for the player than the real world. Several articles say that over playing video games could cause a negative impact on children's socialising ability, and although I agree that kids could be missing out on great experiences by staying indoors, I don't personally believe that lack of physical interaction is a bad thing as in today's society, due to things like Skype, the increasing popularity of social networking and the fact that most people have mobiles that are capable of connecting a person with friends.

Separation from reality
Also known as immersion, this happens when a person becomes so involved in a game that they almost become a member of its world. Arguably happens more in RPG where a character can be customized to look like the real world player. In some respect this can be bad, like by causing social isolation, and like with the film avatar, people could feel distressed because it isn't real, but immersion isn't a bad thing. If anything, current trends are trying to make getting lost in a games world easier, with an increase in more gaming peripherals like 'The tactile gaming vest' and 'oculus rift' the consumers demand for these assessors and there demand for immersion can only be a good thing. Like getting lost in an epic film world, games are a window in which to escape everyday life for those who choose to, or for role players to act out their dreams of conquering a nation, this separation from reality is good, it creates a scenes of excitement and increases imagination.


Increase in mental skill
We all know about those brain training games for the DS, but its not just those that make your brain work faster, A study done by Dr. Alan Castel showed that
'Expert gamers located target objects on a busy computer screen an average of 100 milliseconds more quickly than novices' Saying also that gamers don't search differently visually compared to non-gamers, just that gamers seem to find things onscreen faster.

German researchers conducted a study where they asked 23 adults with a average age of 25 to play "Super Mario 64" for 30 minutes a day over a period of two months with a separate control group that did not play video games at all, in order to find out how video games affect our brains. After examining MRI scans, they found that they had increased activity in the areas of the brain responsible for spatial navigation, memory formation, strategic planning and fine motor skills in the hands.

Cost
The problem here is an increase in mainstream popularity and over saturation of the video games market, but for some reason, though there should be an increase in competition to see which developer can produce the best game for the cheapest, the price is slowly going up. In Britain, 2006-7 I would go to the GAME store in Leicester and spend my saved up cash on the newest game I wanted, and at this time, it was about £20 for a new release. But now, in 2014, the cost of pre-order or buying a game on release seems a bit silly, paying upwards of £40 depending on the title, when you could wait a month for a steam sale and buy the same game for anywhere from £20 to £7, which is crazy...... These big games that take years to make, cost so much, that they charge more to cover themselves.

Excessive play time
There are some quite significant health risks associated with excessive play time, including Blood clots and dehydration, mostly these are caused by a 13+ hour session, and include no break, little to no food or drink and just a monitor. With these cases, including a Taiwanese teenager who played 40 hours of Diablo 3, and a UK teen who played for 5 days straight. These are all extreme cases, but it links back to game addiction, and is easily avoidably, The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than one to two hours per day in front of any electronics. But that is nothing to a hard core gamer, and often you will find that they average between 7-10 hours daily. And how is it that professional gamers who play as a job, and practice day and night don't have the same health risks? and that's quite simple, you take breaks. I personally spend up to 10 hours daily on games, but ever hour or so go for a 10 minute break, get food and have a smoke (I know not the most healthy thing in the world) and I have a bottle of drink beside me all the time. Now there are people who get migraines after looking at a monitor for too long, and there are glasses that help that, but most of the problems can be solved with common sense.



impact on ‘mainstream’ application development
The mainstream is something that has been steadily declining over the past few years, and this is bad. The market is so over saturated that companies just produce sequels, prequels and add-ons and somehow get away with it and they still get a crap tone of money for it. That coupled with the success of games like limbo and minecraft, which gained the mainstream attention after a increase in interest, the competition is on, but nether parts seems to want to play ball. At big gaming conventions, trailers are shown for games that will come out in two years, and they build hype around it so much so that they make money from pre orders alone, as a result the big companies aren't incentivized to make a good game, 'Watch_Dogs' made by ubisoft, the game was so hyped that it made a profit alone (also they had a scummy preorder system where there were like 5 different versions, and one of them was over £100.....) and that game was mediocre at best, and then there is GTA 5, the game that got the most pre orders ever, and made so much money that it could have been utter shit and still got money, thankfully though it was decent so a million people didn't