Nov 15 | Week 10 This week’s article regarding DIY digital game based worlds, where players can customize avatars and use them to portray real life in cyber spaces, is difficult for me to comprehend. Although I am familiar with some of the popular digital games (World of War Craft, Tomb Raider, Sims) I have never actually played any of them. In fact, I personally have always seen these types of games as a waste of time and a promotion of inactivity. However, as we continued discussing Avatars and digital spaces in our classroom and learning more from my peers’ presentations. My mindset began to shift. The videos of the games that were shared by my classmates showed many possibilities. Discussions connecting gaming content to education sparked my attention, and for the first time made me think of the benefits video games can have on student learning and understanding of our diverse world. As I continue thinking more about this topic, a few questions arise in my head:
The virtual world can provide a sense of anonymity and safety to the user, I begin to wonder whether the actions one displays in virtual spaces reveal more about their behaviour then in the real world?
I also start to question, whether we get the same or maybe even more satisfaction in the virtual world by completing similar tasks that we would in the real world?
And lastly, virtual worlds allow us to experiment a type of civilized society that has no real rules or consequences for the user, what are the negative repercussions that this can have on the minds of the young players?
References: De Castelle, S. (2015). Mirror Images: Avatar Aestheticsand Self-Representation in Digital Games. In Matt Ratto & Megan Boler (Eds.), DIY Citizenship (pp. 213-222). Cambridge: MIT.