Social Implications of Video Games
Flew says that people are drifting away from the traditional mode of consumerism. He uses the term "pro-sumer" to describe the group of users who both consume and produce new media. These "pro-sumers" involve themselves in gaming communities in which online and offline spaces become merged and indistinguishable. Flew suggests that part of the appeal of MMORPGs lies in the idea of escapism, and the ability to assume the role of someone or something that is not possible in that individual's real life. To the player, his or her online identity may be more acceptable and desirable than their real-world identity. Flew refers to this form of hopping from one persona to another as "identity tourism". Players see their in-game personae as "theirs", whereas game publishers claim ownership of all in-game characters and property, leading to tensions between the two groups. In response to the perennial question of whether violent themes and action in video games correlate with real-life acts of violence, Flew argues that the research in this area is based mostly on a flawed cause-effect model of behaviour, and is often initiated in response to a moral panic.
See also: Video game culture
Read more about this topic: Terry Flew
Famous quotes containing the words video games, social, implications, video and/or games:
“I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“I think “taste” is a social concept and not an artistic one. I’m willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else’s living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another’s brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it—this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“The rules of drinking games are taken more serious than the rules of war.”
—Chinese proverb.