Unit 2: Reflective Annotated Bibliography

Nowadays, especially around this time, video games are on most of our minds. Whether you are someone who constantly keeps up on video game news or someone scrolling through social media video games are getting more advertised. I have chosen video games as my topic because I have always been heavily interested in video games. My ambition one day is to be able to create games in the future. I wish to find out how influential video games can be and to highlight their impact on society.

Video games have had a major impact on social lives.Video games such as MMO’s(Massive Multiplayer Online games) also affect people’s social lives but giving them the opportunity to socialize and interact online with others in order to complete a common goal or agenda. Also, “social interaction is an integral part of the MMORPG game experience. Gameplay often requires cooperation with other player-characters, making gameplay a social activity as well. To complete many quests successfully and be victorious in combat and exploration, players must form groups that draw a balance between the various skill sets available in any particular game.”I have just explained how video games impact our social lives, now I will explain how video games affect their industry.

Video games have had a major impact on the game industry. As i stated before, The video game industry has constantly expanded over time making great advancements and progression which has led it to almost replace television as the main source of entertainment for children. Also, “video game sales have gotten a big boost all year due to social distancing during the pandemic. More Americans are spending time at home, and those numbers could ramp up during the winter season as coronavirus cases reach new highs.” The video game industry is like the galaxy, because it’s never-ending and ever-growing. Another impact on the game industry are consoles, “Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Sony Corp (NYSE: SNE) just released their next-generation PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Analysts are expecting the new consoles to be popular holiday gifts this year, and those console buyers and gift recipients will be looking for new games to play.” November and December have historically been by far the best months of the year for game sales because of this fact. Now I will tell you how video games have impacted school/work.

Video games have had a major impact on school/work. Video games can also be a very interesting field of work/study because it’s ever expanding and self rewarding. By giving the game designer full control over how to shape an entire virtual plane. It’s only right that video games have their own studies because “video games are also an industry, a technology, an art, a form of communication, an educational tool, and a social tool, video game studies tries to encompass all these things and examine how they are related.” Learning how to create video games is like painting a masterpiece, because it takes time to perfect. “In the late 1990s and early 2000s, video games began to be addressed from the perspective of media studies and were compared with other media such as film, television, and interactive fiction or hyperfiction.” Also, “Only once the field became more established late in the first decade of the 21st century could books and writings take for granted that video game studies had become an accepted area of study unto itself. This same decade also saw the increase of conference papers, on-line journals like Game Studies, and finally entire conferences devoted to video game studies, and today video game studies has become one of the fastest-growing branches of media studies.”

In Conclusion, Video games have a major impact on society by affecting social lives, the game industry, and school/work. I have accomplished telling you about this topic by explaining how MMO’s(Massive Multiplayer Online Game) give people the opportunity to socialize and interact online with others in order to complete a common goal or agenda.Video game sales have gotten a big boost all year due to social distancing during the pandemic. More Americans are spending time at home, and those numbers could ramp up during the winter season as coronavirus cases reach new highs,and how video games are also an industry, a technology, an art, a form of communication, an educational tool, and a social tool, video game studies tries to encompass all these things and examine how they are related.