Literature Review

Video games have always been on the front line of attack when violence is mentioned. Video games have proven to be influencial to certain degrees but cannot be proven to influence people so much as to murder or perform illegal actions. Evidence that needs to be looked at are cases such as Bjorkqvist’s (1985) look at children where he showed that 5 to 6 year olds that watched violent media showed more aggression together then children who didn’t. Andersons, Douglas and Katherine’s (2007) information about the realease of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 however shows that games didn’t really begging to emerge after and may not be the route of modern day children’s behaviour. It is hard to ignore that games may have some influence however as Pratchett (2005) found that 100% of 6 to 10 year olds and 97% of 11 to 15 year olds played games occasonally meaning that there actions could indeed be effected by the media. This works with Buchman and Funk’s (1996) research that showed that violence was in 73% of boys favourite games and 59% of girls.

Hypothesis

People and the media normally look at games when violence occurs (more frequently with children) and try's to pass the blame onto video games. Games are nothing more then interactive films and have no more violence in them then some of today's most popular blockbuster titles.

Refferences

Kent, D. A. (2001). The ultimate history of video games. Roseville, Calif.: Prima publishing page 465

Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile and Katherine E. Buckley (2007) Violent video game effects on children and adolescents

Funk, J. B. (1993) Reevaluating the impact of video games. Clinical Pediatrics 32, 86 – 90

Bjorkqvist K (1985) Violent films, anxiety and aggression. Helsinki: Finnish society of sciences and letters.

Pratchett, R. (2005) gamers in the uk: Digital play, digital lifestyles. London BBC http://open.bbc.co.uk/newmediaresearch/2006/01/bbc_uk_games_research.html

Buchman, D. D. and Funk J. B. (1996) video and computer games in the 90’s: Children’s time commitment and game preferences.

Visual aural read/write Kinesthetic

I recently went through the process of a vark questionnaire to learn how i learnt and revised so that i could get the most from my education and found that overall i am best at learning in a variaty of ways. I got 4 in visual, 7 in aural, 5 in reading and writing and 5 in kinesthetic meaning that i am quiet balanced in how i learn already. The lowest score i recived was in visual which means i must learn to learn more visually for example when people show me images or diagrams I will have to try and read them more carefully and try to work better with them. The key to a good grade is to learn and revise well and if i can better my visual learning ability then i'm going to have an easier time achieving the grade i want.

My Learning Timeline

In my life I have had many different opportunities to learn new skills and tools and have learnt to use these in other areas of my life. For instance over the years I believe I have developed several of my skills like my leadership, patience, my ability to learn and confidence. I have also learnt several skills which will help me in work and life such as cooking in a resturant enviroment, how to build and repair computer components and how to work with simple electronics.

Im also proud of the fact that I have concoured some of my worst fears for example I have always been afraid of heights and flying but when I was in the Air codets I had the opportunity to fly in a chinook helicopter and had a flying lesson in which i was giving control of the plane. I have also done some abseiling and mountaineering which has helped me to overcome my fear of heights.

When I have finished my time at university I do hope to move onwards and work for successful games development company's and gain enough experience for my portfolio. This is in order to help achieve my ambition to work for Bungie studios in Washington. I realise that Bungie is a large developer and it is hard to work for them but I hope that after years of working else where and gaining experience I will eventually be able to live in America and work for the team. I hope to be able to gain some respect and recognition within the team but still be an equal in the business.

SWOT Analysis

My strengths include my confidence, learning ability, passion, previous knolage, punctuality, friendliness, effort and patience

My weaknesses of University are that I will have a debt to repay at the end of the course and the work is very stressful and demanding.

Some opportunitys I can gather from this are to firstly learn more about computer games development, to learn new skills and improve those I already have, to meet new people and gives me the opportunity to work for business I want to work for.

Threats I can see are few but big issues such as money and work but these are things that i think i need to worry more about later in my years rather then right now.