Week 7-Gaming, Ethics and Democracy.

Gold Farming, online multi player games, and cheating in video games are all topics of great discussion but in the articles I read, it didn't scream out, bad behavior. I think we need to look at each topic separately and really weigh out the pros and cons. The article, Everything you ever wanted to know about gold farming and the global economy, talks about gold farming in video gamesand that it is a way to earn game currency that can then be sold and gold farming in China has become a good way to earn money and keep down the unemployment rate. I think that if all that Heeks son is doing is selling, than there is nothing wrong especially since he didn't go against the games rules to get his money, he was given the money. Yes, there are going to be people that don't agree with gold farming because it can relate back to the poor China workers, but I merely just see this as another game that is going to be followed by another game that relates to something else that someone has a problem with.

Just like in the real world there are always going to be topics that bring debates. I am an avid Facebook and Myspace user and I would say I am on there everyday. I haven't played any of the multi player games and so I don't know much about them, but my friend was addicted to Mafia Wars and Mobsters. She found her self on their everyday because she was so addicted to knowing how many weapons other people had and how she could get more than others. Just like Sande Chen said, in The Social Network Game Boom, we all have ambient awareness whether we are interested in how are friends are feeling today or if a person acquired more weapons on Mafia wars. One of the interesting things she says is that even though most people have more than one social networking site, they usually devote their game play to only one. I think this go back to the beginning of certain people are going to have their game that they like to play. I know I would never get into Mafia Wars so I would probably look other places.

Do players cheat on games because it is exciting or is it to challenge the game. In the article, To Cheat or Not To Cheat: Is That Even the Question, its says that having different ways of playing can give players a range of experiences, the players can be rewarded and in turn challenges companies to understand who controls their games. I think this also goes along with the article, Cheaters: A Special Report, because to me a glitch will let the player decide what kind of experience they want to have. The player can either use it or not. A glitch to me is not consider cheating nor do I think that cheating is harmful to anyone. No one is getting hurt when you cheat in a game, even though some might differ.

I know growing up I was always looking for where my parents hid my Christmas gifts and even though they hid them different places every year, it was fun and it gave me a challenge. I wanted to see if I could figure them out. Of course they eventually figured me out and took the gifts to work. I think there are always going to be cheaters and no matter what they game companies do there will always be those people who figure the glitches out. So to me, the question is, Can the game companies be smarter than us? All of these articles bring up a good topic of the social networking that is going on and we are going to see a boost in it in the future.

Week 6-video games as in life

I started reading, Youth and Young Adults Find News and Information Online, and found a number of statements that pertained to me. One of the pages talked about how online interaction is occurring more, like on Facebook and email, but the physical interaction is decreasing. We are finding ourselves spending more time in our own electronic worlds.The basis for this article, was to show us what source of media each age group uses to find their news. I think what we are going to see in the future is that the internet will take over and so many more people are going to use the internet for a multiple of things. One of the main topics we will see more of on the internet is the political world and how they use the internet to campaign.

One of the best examples is in Introduction: The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy. In Jesse Ventura's campaign when he was running for governor of Minnesota, he used the Web to construct an online community where his supporters could go and discuss about the campaign. He also offered detailed position papers for his supporters to see. This in turn, caught the attention of the younger voters and brought them to the polls. I think in order for us to catch the attention of the younger voters they will have to advertise on the websites they spend most of their time on. This article also says that the Web has already had a powerful influence on how the public gets government documents and allows candidates to communicate with their constituencies.

In, A Social technical Vision of Democratic Knowledge Exchange, it talks about the IS example and how the computer field is not growing rapidly as everyone would have thought. IS stands for Information Systems like E-bay and YouTube. More Technology usage has created more jobs, but Information Systems faculty has been redeployed around the world. As the article said in the beginning, we need to becoming up with new ideas and not using our old one. We can always use the community for a resource as I think the politics will need to use more of. Just like in the first two articles I talked about I think the the internet is going to be a good source for finding communities to talk about the politics.

The Civic Potential of Video Games it states that of teens that had a greater number of civic gaming experiences, 70% of them go online to get their political information but 55% have infrequent gaming experiences. This goes to show up that the internet is becoming a useful source for information. One of the paragraphs talked about how educators can use games to reach children in learning about politics and what they can do. When we use tools that grab the children's attention, like video games, we are surely going to have a better response in learning about politics which can be boring.

The games I played was Fat World which seemed exciting and fun at first but then when I started to play it, I was disappointed. I think the topic of this game is a good one because obesity is present and more people need to take life more seriously when it comes to what they eat and how much exercise they get. But this game was slow moving and there was too much to do before you could even start playing. I was done before I even got started. If people are going to make these games they need to be a much more appealing.