Kids
Keeping Up in the Digital World
A
first step would be to look at the medium, video games,
and what it represents. Well, first of all, video games
represent a new medium, and is reflective of how information
technology is changing the forms and uses of media. Video
games are interactive. This interactivity allows users
to not only to be consumers (the recipients of the media
message - the purpose of mass media), but to also create
it. This new ability to create is now being called "personal
media" vs mass media.
Video
games are an example of "personal media" They
give a sense that you can control the content - the more
you are able to do, the more successful you are. You get
more points and get bumped up to a more challenging level.
The user has a say in what happens.
Video games are expected to be a $31 billion industry
by the end of this year, several times as big as the world's
film industry. Video games are changing the way our children
are growing up, the way they see themselves, and, ultimately,
after years of interactive entertainment, the way they
think and the society they're going to create.
It
has been suggested that games can provide a low-risk avenue
for learning high-quality life lessons. An example is
"Seaman" by Sega. This console game uses voice-recognition
technology to enable a cyber-creature to "hear"
and respond to players. The goal is to create and raise
a creature that is half man, half fish. By the time players
produce an adult cyber-pet, they feel like they have created
a new life and written a story in which they are the characters.
They also begin to understand what it means to be responsible
for someone else - as a parent or owner of a pet.
SIMS is another example, sometimes called the "God'game"
because participants playing on their computers, can create
and control the cyber-universes of small towns, discotheques,
birthday parties, or whatever else appeals to them. This
is a game where the player has to make lots of decisions,
each taking the story in a new direction. By writing their
own story, the player becomes the author. This game is
scheduled to go online in the fall, and the author, Will
Wright, expects 80 percent of the content to be invented
by participants.
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