Extra Lives Why Video Games Matter Analysis

Tom Bissell, in his essay, “Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter” has described video games and how they are unique and different from movies, books, or even interactive films. Bissell says “I came to accept that games were incompetent with almost every aspect of what I would call traditional narrative.” This is showing the readers that even though there is a plot and story line, as characters can control and alter the story line or outcome by what you do or see throughout the game.

Tom Bissell’s, a teacher at Portland State University, main idea was to indicate to his audience why video games matter to him by using various argumentative appeals. One must ask themselves, can this author be worthy of respect? Can he give his readers enough facts to get his argument across? Will he try to give us a soft story to buy his way into in his argument? Throughout most of Bissell’s book, he uses the logical appeal by describing, in great detail, Fallout 3. Sadly he lacks the Emotional appeal to complete this argument and he loses my credibility throughout the article.

This usually happens after I have already beaten the game. I don’t like to be ignorant, so I just read the manual for personal knowledge. The audience of this particular essay would have to be the non-gamers of the world. From what I said before, it is obvious that I am not part of this audience, but I can comprehend what Wright is saying about them. Wright was basically right on the ball with this one. Many people do have some preconceptions about games and their benefits or lack thereof. I would say that I am more biased to the gamers’ side of this little one-sided debate. I have been playing games since before I can remember, so I have a little trouble seeing the opposing side sometimes. This makes it a little harder to understand both sides completely.

The author of this essay, is not intending to persuade the reader to feel a type of way. What he is expressing ideally are his opinions on said games. Yet, one is somewhat persuaded, because of how he speaks, clarifies, and uses rhetoric in his writing. It really makes someone want to stop what they are doing and get on the nearest gaming system. In fact, it is consolidating to know that he isn’t characterizing the game as just a game, but an aesthetic and an art. Tom Bissell questions himself, “To what part of me do games speak, and on which frequency (361)?” We all would like to know the answer to this question, because there have been so many games, some good and some awful. However, we as a world continue to try and try again. Some of the appeals that Bissell uses in his argument were emotional and descriptive. Basically, in the entire article he described to the audience in intimate detail the world of

Alex Carta Mr.Harper English 1102 30 January 2015 Summary and Analysis of “Be a Gamer, Save the World” In the article “Be a Gamer, Save the World”, author Jane McGonigal explains how virtual reality could prove to be a “key resource”(465) in solving many of the issues that we face in modern reality. As a researcher at the University of California Berkeley, McGonigal found that video games can provide users with “satisfying work, a real hope for success, strong social connections and the chance to become a part of something bigger than our selves”(465). Although these benefits can also be found in video games, research has shown that they are more consistently found within the video game realm. Alternate reality is a large industry, in the

Video games are a profound art form, incorporating trades and mediums that span the artistic spectrum and beyond. To refute this is to ignore decades of rich history, disregard hours of artful labor, and discredit the immeasurable devotion of many whom worked to perfect this art form. Although video games may not suit every individual’s tastes, one cannot claim with credibility they possess no artistic merit.

Conflict is the key to all narratives, and like how Percy faced monsters, our friendship faced its own conflict. In the middle of our seventh grade year, Jacob moved to New Zealand, where his mother is from. This forced a shift in the dynamic of our relationship. Suddenly, we didn’t see each other everyday in school. However, our love for Percy Jackson kept us together- with the help of social media. Our exchanging of ideas became daily Facebook messages that expanded from the books we were reading to science, art, and culture. As the stories thrived, so did our friendship. Then, in the late autumn of 2014, the last Percy Jackson book, Heroes of Olympus: Blood of Olympus, came out. My heart clenched. Would reading the last book mean the end of our friendship? The question waged war on me, so I avoided reading it, until one day a package arrived.

The game seeks to trick us for a time into abandoning what is real (home) and focus on what is inside our monitors and T.V.s. Baudrillard spoke on the process of a simulated reality in a multi-step process. “In the first case, the image is a good appearance – representation is of the sacramental order.” This can be related to the early days of video games when they used cathode ray tubes to project pixelated images onto a curved glass scene. Video games where very new, and exciting. “In the second, it is an evil appearance – it is of the order of maleficence. This can be related to games starting about 15 years ago till today. Video games were and still are thought to be a source of violence in people. Many view them as a waste of time and that they detriment a person. Though this mentality is starting to fade as we shift towards the third order “In the third, it plays at being an appearance – it is of the order of sorcery”. Technology is starting to advance to the point that anyone without training in the field cannot understand what is going on. As myths about video games negative appearance are being debunked or confirmed their negative aspects are getting swallowed up by the more exciting advancements in the fields. “In the fourth, it is no longer of the order of appearances but of simulation.” At this level the video game stops being a game, and starts to become a part of everyday life (home). For as much as some may dedicate their whole lives to games, in the

Tom Bissell makes a plethora of intriguing points regarding the way video games are perceived by mainstream culture and society, but one that stood out to me is “the majority of the games I have enjoyed most as an adult tell stories.”

B. Revealed Object and Speaker Credibility: The PS2 controller shows when video games really started to get diverse and went from simple games with sub-par graphics to games with exceptional storytelling and graphics that captivate and immerse players into their worlds.

Eyes running line to line, anxious for what would happen next, I sat wide-eyed, my body glued to the edge of my seat, as I read a book from my favorite series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. The book had me engrossed with the story of Percy and his best friends, dying a little inside every time I turned a page only to find out that my favorite fictional hero had not yet made it to safety. Just as I arrived at the most intense part, the part where the mastermind behind the great, inescapable Labyrinth would finally be revealed, my grandmother called for me downstairs.

A large gap exists between the public's perception of video games and what the research actually shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

For the past few years of my life, I had found myself strangely attracted towards the infinite worlds and possibilities that are unlocked by playing video games. Although I do agree that a well-written book or a film can have a similar effect of immersing someone in a world of pure fabrication, a game has the advantage of taking it a step further, by directly involving the player in the story and taking them to the point where their reality is replaced by something that is truly wondrous. I had also noticed that most people used video games as a form of entertainment so that they can experience things that would never occur in the real world and gain a tiny sense of joy that they can add to their normal, boring lives. This is an understandable process, as games can provide someone with hours of thrilling tales that can satisfy their sense of adventure, a trait that we all have somewhere deep down within us. There are also some people who compete within the gaming world and boast about their victories to an audience that is spread across the globe, proving to everyone that they are the best and that they deserve recognition. As for me, however, I never associated myself with either of these groups. I wasn 't the type of person who played games for the entertainment factor or the achievement that came with competition. Instead, I played games to escape the harshness of reality so that I could thrive in a multitude of worlds where the monsters can actually be defeated.

Video games are a special medium when it comes to storytelling. Video games hold the unique ability to employ interactivity with visual representations of the player’s actions within their narratives. No other medium, not even second-person novels, can compare with this experience. While second-person novels are essentially video games on paper, they lack the true interactivity that a video game holds. The visual representation of the player’s interactions with the game world is the reason video games are such a perfect medium for deep storytelling.

Changing behavior is a difficult task. It is difficult to quit smoking, save more money, or choose to take the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Behavior change is even more complicated when problems related to access are added.