Video games, zombies and more

Image from Game Trailers: http://www.gametrailers.com/

Zombies tribute

Some early history of video games

Photo: Brookhaven History

• 1947 – earliest known interactive electronic game
• 1958 – Tennis for Two
• 1971 – Galaxy Game, Stanford U.
• 1971 – Computer Space, first coin-operated game to be commercially sold
• 1972 – Pong, coin-operated game first released by Atari

Image from Mirror’s Edge video game. Photo: Swotti.com

Video games today

• A true mass medium
• Multibillion-dollar industry
• More than half of American adults play video games
• Four out of five young adults play

Jobs in gaming industry

Angry Birds Space
Angry Birds Star Wars trailer

Digital Battle‘s list of the top grossing games
1. Over $10 billion – “World of Warcraft” (2004)
2. $1.5 billion– “Call of Duty: Black Ops” (2010)
3. $1.4 billion – “Mario Kart” for Wii (2008)
4. $1.35 billion – “Grand Theft Auto 4” (2008)
5. $1.25 billion – “Wii Play” (2006)
6. $1.2 billion – “New Super Mario Bros” (2006)
7. $850 million – “Gran Turismo 3” (2001)
8. $780 million – “Modern Warfare 2” (2009)
9. $740 million – “The Sims” (2000)
10. $700 million – “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” (2007)

Quinn Pitock, former video game addict

Story of Quinn Pitock, from ESPN:

Free from football, things really got bad. Pitcock was playing Xbox online up to 18 hours a day and sleeping for maybe five or six hours. His drug of choice was “Call of Duty,” whose franchise has generated $6 billion worldwide. He lost touch with friends. He ignored his family when they tried to reach out to him. He became a complete hermit.

“The only way I could get my endorphins was by playing video games,” he said.

He kept up that 18-hour routine for months. He tried to quit but couldn’t.

“I would break the games, try to get rid of them,” he said, “but I couldn’t stop. I’d say, ‘Quinn, what are you doing?’ Physically, I could not put down a video game.”

“The video games are an iceberg,” said Kevin Roberts, an academic success counselor and author of “Cyber Junkie: Escape the Gaming and Internet Trap.” “The behavior is a mask for underlying issues. For Quinn, it was the ADHD and anxiety. Those were some of the things going on with him that he was unaware of.”

Steven Berlin Johnson
Author of bestseller, “Everything bad is good for you”
He’s against the anti-pop culture forces.
He says pop culture makes your mind sharper.

Importance of reading

• Studies show that students ages 8 to 18 get poor grades if they don’t read.
• The more students read, the better their grades.
• Students with high grades read 46 minutes a day
• Students with low grades, 29 minutes a day.

One study showed that students with high grades watched about the same amount of TV as students with low grades.
Conclusion: TV watching wasn’t hurting grades.
Not reading is what was hurting grades.

As some see it, reading is slow, boring, obsolete, even irritating.
Average spending on books is down.
Spending on video games, hand-held electronic devices and laptops is up.
An Apple ad for laptops in Arlington, Virginia, said:
“The only books you’ll ever need.”

Image from Game Trailers: http://www.gametrailers.com/

Revolutions

• There was the Sex Revolution
• The Civil Rights Movement
• The Reagan Era. “Greed is good.”
• The Clinton Era. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
• George W. Bush. Bragged about not reading books.
• Now this: The Digital Revolution.

97 percent of teens play video games, according to the Pew Internet &
American Life Project.
81 percent of people 18-29 years old video games
23 percent of 65-and-over crowd play

• 55 percent of men
• 50 percent of women
• 76 percent of full-time students
• 49 percent of non-students
• 51 percent of white non-Hispanics and blacks
• 63 percent of Hispanics

Gaming is often a social experience

• Most teens play games with others at least some of the time
• 62 percent of parents say games have no effect on their child
• 19 percent cite positive influence
• 13 percent cite negative influence
• 5 percent say influence depends on the game