Gaming: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Everyone knows the argument you have with your parents about gaming: It’s a bad influence, you should go outside and play. Well today we are going to cover Gaming: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. This is not the be all and end all of the argument but a cover of the basics.

The Good

There are many positives involved in gaming. A few can be broken down into:

Connect people across the world

With the introduction on online gaming and areas such as Xbox Live and Sony Entertainment Network connecting to others to play doesn’t mean they have to come over to your place. This has allowed for players to get a larger experience with other cultures. This is further increased with the addition of voice communications through headsets. This area helps players to be able to get experience of other people worldwide and able to interact and learn about and from them.

Connect to people you usually wouldn’t meet

There is no stereotypical gamer. Gamers can come from a range of different social groups. This allows for gamers to connect to and interact with different styles of people and learn from them. This allows for gamers to interact and learn social skills by reacting with these different social groups. It also allows for a wide range of ages within a game. This also allows for younger members to interact with older gamers which in turn can allow for some maturity and other areas to be displayed.

Personal Skills

Gaming not only improves your interaction with other people it also allows for gamers to improve their own skills. In games such as FPS areas such as team work, reaction time and hard eye coordination can be improved. This continues to RTS where planning and multitasking can also be improved through gameplay.

The Bad

A number of areas that have good sides can also be argued as bad with the addition of anonymity not helping the case.

Varies ages and maturity levels

With the interconnection online of gaming it does bring in a wide range of ages. This can lead to a bad thing as it means a lot of younger less mature kids are grouped together. This can lead to numerous issues as these groups of kids have no restrictions. This can impact on more mature players who are in it for the fun of the game and to have a good time as these groups can come in and ruin games for people.

Anonymity

With online gaming comes the idea of anonymity. This can also be a bad thing with gaming as it allows for “keyboard warriors.” These people can lead to people disturbing others or saying things that normally they wouldn’t if they were talking to the person in person. This leads to many people arguing and abusing others during matches with no fear of repercussions. This has a negative impact on games as it leads people to leave or get annoyed and leave the game or argue back and “feed the trolls.”

The Ugly

The ugly is an extension on the bad with specific areas that show the dark side of gaming.

Abuse

Abuse is the culmination of a mixture of ages, being able to talk to others from different cultures and countries, the mixture and maturity of players and the anonymity. This culmination leads to a large number of abuse between gamers. This is the most frequently seen ugly side of gaming with a large amount of posts, images or stories about abuse being thrown at players cause they have done something that the other player dislikes (generally beating them or doing well).

Discrimination when not the normal

This is a well-publicised ugly side of gaming. When someone that plays is not seen as being normal or something about them is not what people expect then the majority of the time they are discriminated against or are the focus of abuse. This is most commonly seen against females as they are not seen as normal gamers with common abuse such as “get back to the kitchen” or “make me a sandwich” A lot of these can be seen at websites such as: http://fatuglyorslutty.com/

Media Impression

As with most media bad situations are reported more than good information. This is no different with gaming with a focus being on negative ideas rather than positive. Most notable of these is any reference to gaming and violent acts. This is one of the ugliest areas as it put information into the public arena in front of people that have no experience or understanding of the games in question.

Final Word

These are a couple of areas in online gaming that can affect players and the community. Each should be taken with a grain of salt as not every game or gaming community is like this. This is just to show some areas that are both good and bad within online gaming.