Week 7

This week’s lecture looked at video games. I watched the youtube clip “Nintendo Sixty FOOOOOOOOOOUR” again at home and remembered what it was like at our house on Christmas morning, although my little brother was never as bad as that kid in the clip. But it does show how video games have taken over in the toy market.

I’ve seen how computer game technology has developed over the last few years by being fortunate to receive computer games as Christmas presents like the youtube kid. For Christmas or birthdays my brother and I have received: a Sega, Nintendo Sixty-Four console, a Sony Game-Boy, an X-Box, and a Nintendo WII.

All of the above games that I’ve played (including Arcade games) all have a set of rules that have to be followed and a mission to complete (i.e. a way to win the game). Academics call this “Ludology” and the theory is that games are simply games that are there to be played.

However some games also tell a story and the player needs to follow the story in order to complete the game. I remember playing “Toy Story” on the Sega when I was around seven or eight years old and the game followed the movie storyline all the way through. The study of games that tell a story is known as “Narratology”, and while it may appear that computer games have been moving away from ludology towards narratology, the reality is that computer games are a combination of both.