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Dream Machines Argumentative Essay

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“What if Luke hadn’t joined the Dark Side? What if Neo isn’t the One?” Only one form of media allows viewers to interact with these possibilities, and many more, in a way that encourages and exercises creativity: video games.
In Will Wright’s “Dream Machines”, the writer explores the arguments for and against video gaming. Wright claims that video games can train a generation to “treat the world as a place for creation”, meaning they will develop creativity, self-esteem, and problem-solving skills. Often, gamers learn these problem-solving skills through the scientific process of trial and error, which may appear to be random and unorganized to non-gamers. Children who game gain confidence as they learn how to use the control, navigate the game, and eventually win or reach their goals. Non-gamers and older generations generalize games as addictive, immature, or a waste of time. Part of this is due to the fact that older generations view problem solving differently; they read the manual and …show more content…

Rather than picking up the manual, the new generation simply lifts the controller before they “start mashing buttons to see what happens” (565). This alarms older generations because they have always believed in reading the manual to understand a game before they begin pressing buttons. However, it seems that both methods work. In this section of his piece, Wright makes the assumption that all children and all elders perform tasks in this way. Wright ignored those younger children who actually prefer to read the manual prior to starting the game. Those children can still exist, even if the majority of the generation does it another way. Wright also seems to neglect the idea that the older generations he speaks of are capable of adapting to a new way of doing things. It is possible to, after learning new information or having a change of heart, try a new way of performing old

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