Weekly Blog #6 – The Wonderful World of Gaming?

Growing up we had the original Nintendo and Game Boy but they were my brothers’ so I rarely played them, opting instead to play board games like Monopoly. In high school and in college I was familiar with Yahoo! Games and would frequently play Literati, Text Twist and still Monopoly (now online). While I knew there were chat and other interactive features unless I knew the person I was playing with, I wouldn’t participate. And during college I of course had heard of Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft and while I had never played them I certainly had watched my guy friends play a few times.

So when we were asked to read about the world of online gaming and play some ourselves I thought I had a fairly good understanding of that world. That was until I actually began reading about and researching the online gaming community.

Overwhelmed during my research, I happened to mention my assignment to my neighbor Mike (a good friend for more than two years who I thought I knew well). I quickly learned that Mike was formerly part of this huge online community. In fact, he met one of his best friends while playing Quake in 1997. They played online, met up and became friends, eventually starting two dot com businesses together. And, in 2002 when Andy got married, Mike was in the wedding.

Armed with the knowledge that I had a real-life (though retired) gamer at my disposal, I had Mike teach me more about the massive world of gaming. I set up my Second Life account and honestly, I didn’t get it. I explored the site for some time and anytime an avatar would approach mine and start talking to me I would run away. Blame my mother, she taught me not to talk to strangers. I guess I would just rather spend the time on my real life than a second one.

I then set up my World of Warcraft account. This one I was more excited to try – it seemed to have more of an end goal and purpose and was a bit more competitive. But, I had technical difficulties and couldn’t get it to work. So instead I just watched the South Park episode that parodied the game.

Finally, I downloaded the America’s Army 3 game. Again, this type of game seems to have more of a purpose and I understand the benefits of using it and other simulation games as a training tool for our armed forces. I think it is a smart way to train soldiers and prepare them for war without the dangers.

My experiences gaming were interesting. I see how the industry can be so large and lucrative and I do not blame companies for trying to capitalize on the trend by both creating new games and advertising in existing games. It is just not an industry that I am going to start participating in. I think Wii is about as high-tech as I want to get.