Video games are constantly becoming more and more approachable. At first video games started with teenagers, and now sprouting to younger children. Just last Easter my six year old cousin, who is a girl, came up to me with her Nintendo DSL and started speaking to me in Spanish. Her mom then told me that her DSL had over fifty games on it, one of which teaches Spanish and other foreign languages. I doubt ten years ago you would have seen many young girls playing video games and now it seems like its affecting the older generation as well. Nintendo’s Wii has caught the interest of my parents’ generation along with my grandparents. The games have very little strategy and are rather easy to comprehend. The Wii also offers more activity than standard video game systems which is a major reason why older gamers enjoy playing.
Johnson states the term Sleeper Curve in his book Everything Bad is Good for You. My cousins’ video game ties right in with this. The sleeper curve is the growth in complexity and diversion in the last thirty years and how, in a way, it has made us smarter. It has been shown that intelligence is on the rise, and Johnson believes pop culture is responsible. I have to agree in a way that pop culture is equipping us with new ideas and pulling us forward in intelligence. If this is so, then our generation has created a new form of social learning, in which we don’t always know we are even learning and taking in new information. Just by sitting in front of the TV and taking in the characters activities and dramatizations, we’re learning. The same is true for gaming.
But first we must ask why do people enjoy video gaming? It can’t just be Wiis’ ability to incorporate some form of physical activity. I believe there are many reasons why one might enjoy the gaming world, maybe even more than the real one. Video games give you a place to escape. You can’t go wrong in the gaming world and there a no punishment for your actions. Well of course you can die, and flash a big familiar GAME OVER on the screen. But you won’t be harmed physically or hopefully not too emotionally if you fail at a video game. There may be consequences to your real life through video gaming, only by lack of social behavior and healthy activity. Even those are not possible with out going to an extreme.
There are very little negatives to today’s video gaming; most can pull a few positives no problem at all. One of which, like Johnson says, “In the game world, reward is everywhere.” So what do you have to lose? You can come to this world and be filled with constant rewards where in real life you live the day in and day out. You also get to be whatever you want to be. There are games where you can choose to have special powers, be good or bad, or live the life you live in the real world. People play video games for all different reasons, and with options like that how can any one person not choose a game they enjoy to play?
Steven Johnson states in his book Everything Bad Is Good for You that “Most video games differ from traditional games like chess and Monopoly…” After playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess over the last few weeks, I think that Steven Johnson couldn’t be more right. Since the days of chess and monopoly to Pac Man then Zelda, video games have become more complex. Video games continue to grow more and more complex with addition to new features and gaming systems. Over the last few weeks I’ve examined Zelda: Twilight Princess with Steven Johnsons’ terms and thoughts, these are my results.
I can’t make the relation between Johnsons’ twist on pop culture and the popular video game with out first giving you a brief over view of Zelda. The story line for a Zelda game is never a distanced reach from the last. In each Zelda adventure you will meet characters from other Zelda games, or even conquer the same tasks. Two things for certain are that your main character is labeled a hero and the final battle is between you and the evil lord Ganondorf. You are also most likely to be fighting to save the Princess or the Kingdom of Hyrule. If you haven’t noticed, Zelda holds key to repetitiveness and tradition. This is also true in the game play, where though the temple may be different, you still go from temple to temple conquering and defeating Ganondorfs’ minions. But the bosses and weapons are always changing and this is the element to keep you hooked on playing the game till the very end.
Zelda is a game full of things to do and no rush to do them. You can simply travel about talking to others, or find random enemies to combatant. This is what brings us to our first relation with Johnson. He identifies this ability to free roam with no penalty as Probing. It involves traveling about the game and interacting with different objects, then discovering the consequences. In my video game I was capable of either continuing to the next Temple to defeat a boss, or I could collect bugs and exchange them for rupees (Zelda Money). Either way no matter what you do through out the game, you can choose whether or not to do it and there will be a consequence for your actions.
Zelda: Twilight Princess is also full of what Johnson calls Telescoping. This is described as being given many objectives with one major objective in goal. In Zelda I am faced with finding keys, reuniting scattered pieces of artifacts, and solving puzzles, all to gain access to a bigger objective. Just recently in my video game I had to collect a rod, which then I had to collect a book, then having to collect the pages for the book, which then must be decrypted by another character. It’s all very complex in which there are many threads of things to be accomplished and yet there is a major tread which is the overall accomplishment. The temples themselves are just other threads to the major which is defeating the Main Boss, in this case Zant( Twilight Ganondorf).
In result, with comparison to my game, I have to agree with what Johnson is telling us. I believe his statements on those turning to gaming are true. I also believe he has a good insight of what today’s video games are turning to, full of Probing and Telescoping. Knowing some more about why I game and some inner workings of video gaming has opened my eyes to what a fascinating thing gaming is. I can understand why people might confine themselves to it, and I don’t judge if they do. It’s just right for some people and not for others. Those others will find their outlets through film, internet, or television. But either way people will be learning while enduring their very own form of pop culture. I’ll probably continue to play video games. Not as much as others, but I will continue to play. Besides a video game is just a game, right?
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