Analysis of a computer game

Part 1A

1.      How many different computer games do you play? I only play on consoles. It depends, because sometimes I’m focused on only one game and sometimes I’m being kind of variable. On average, I play at least 2 different games per day. Some of the games I play mostly right now is: Battlefield 4, Assassins Creed 4 and Grand Theft Auto V.

2.      How many hours a day (on average) do you play computer games? I would say I play at least 5 hours per day. If I don’t have homework of course.

3.      Why do you think video games have become so popular in the last few years? Because it’s fun and it has really become more than just a hobby now. I think it’s even some kind of sport now, with tournaments all over the world. It’s called E-sport. It’s really important for some people as well, because some Youtubers really need it for their videos to keep their channels up.

4.      In what ways do you think video games have changed in the last 30 years? They’ve become a lot more important and a lot more complicated. The graphics has become a lot more enhanced.  I think computer games have become a lot more like a competition now.

5.      Is there a lot of violence in the games that you play? Do you think the violence is excessive?  I think there’s actually violence in every game I play. Some people (parents for example) may think games are too excessive and isn’t good for the person. I think the games I play are not too excessive.

6.      Why is it important to think about both the positive and the negative aspects of computer games? For me, there are no negative aspects about computer games/console games. For some people there may be negative aspects though. It may be important to think about it so that you can get a clear view of how games affect people. One thing is maybe that you play too much and you forget about other stuff.

7.      How does the computer game affect your life? Positive and negative aspects?  I’ve gotten a lot faster in taking decisions faster and smarter. I react a lot faster than before and my English has become a lot better. In fact, games are actually the biggest source of my English studying. Games affect my life a lot. There’s some negative aspects as well of course. One of those is: you may forget about other important stuff you need to do in your life, like studying.

8.      Let us say that you are born in 1960, before the computer games were invented. What social activities would you have participate in, in your spare time? I would probably be with friends or play sports all day. I mean, what else would you actually be able to do anyway?

Part 1B

1.      Positive aspects: you learn a lot of English, you react faster in real life and you take decisions faster. There are a lot more positive aspects.

Negative aspects: you may get addicted to games very easy, you social life may decrease and your school studies could become very bad.

Analyzing a computer game.

I choose the game Grand Theft Auto: V.

1.      How frequently do acts of violence (punching, kicking etc.) and weapons (guns, knives etc.) feature in the game? Well, it’s GTA so….Pretty much all the time.

2.      How are male characters in the game portrayed? Are they portrayed as “hyper masculine” (i.e., males featured as violent, dangerous, macho, and superior to women)? Why do you think they are portrayed like this? Do you think these portrayals are fair (=rättvis) and accurate (=riktig)? The male characters are portrayed as the priority characters and women doesn’t have that much of a important role in the game. They’re not featured in cut scenes as much as the men, you can’t use women in the game, besides from the multiplayer though, where you can actually use females as a playable character. I can’t say I think this is entirely fair, but that’s how the GTA games have always been like so why change it now?

3.       How are female characters portrayed? (weak or strong, heroes or villains, loud)? Why do you think they are portrayed like this? Do you think these portrayals are fair (=rättvis) and accurate (=riktig)? Well as I said in the question before this one, women are more casted as the helpless characters that can’t defend themselves. Because in the game, you always see the women as a non-important thing. Basically, they’re only used for sex, and to kill in the game.

4.       Do you believe that the male and female characters in the game are portrayed as stereotypes? Yeah, the males and females are pretty much portrayed as stereotypes. Both of them got one role: male needs to be the masculine man and the female needs to be the helpless, non-defendable women.

5.        Pay special attention to the way female characters in the game are dressed. Why do you think they are dressed this way?  There’s three types of women in GTA V: the prostitutes, the trashy clothed ones (rednecks) and then there’s the rich well clothed ones. I think Rockstar (the developers of the game) made the women clothed like this because they wanted to show how many types of women there are.

6.      How often are images of violence found in the video game? Basically all the time. The GTA games are pretty much made to create violence in the GTA world.

7.      Why do you think that computer game designers include so much violence in games? Because that’s just the way it is in the modern world these days. Otherwise, people would probably not like the game that much. We need these kinds of games!

8.      Do you think that the violence in computer games teaches young players that violence/aggression is acceptable? There’s been a lot of cases where young kids have done some crazy stuff. One kid actually admitted the crazy thing he did was from a GTA game. Of course they think it’s acceptable, they’re just kids. At least some of them are.

9.      What message do you think images in computer games send to players? (consider violence and the stereotypical female when answering the question). That they are able to do what ever they want. They’re free and everything is legal.

10.  What is the timespan (tidsaspekten) in the game? Is this possible to determine (=avgöra)? The game is set in the presence time. With that, I mean 2013 of course.

11.    Select one image (scene) from the game that you found particularly disturbing or offensive in regard to the manner in which violence and gender was depicted (=framställt). In writing, describe this image. Well, there’s one scene in Grand Theft Auto V which a lot of players thought was very disturbing. In the scene, you play as the character Trevor and you need to torture a person. A lot of players also asked the voice-over actor of Trevor if he thought doing the scene was disturbing or hard to do.

Here’s a picture of the scene.

New Words.

1.      Excessive = overdriven

2.      Aspects = synpunkter/sidor

3.      Timespan = tidsaspekten

4.      Determine = avgöra

5.      Soared = stigit

6.      Cause of concern = orsak till oro

7.      Prevalence = utbredning

8.      Gender portrayals = genus framställningar

9.      Captivating = fängslande

10.  Accomplishment = utförande

4. Frequently used phrases. Frequent use of slang throughout the game.

1.      Nigger

2.      Fuck

3.      Shit

4.      Motherfucker

5.      Piece of shit

6.      Idiot

7.      Fucking

8.      What the fuck?

9.      What the hell?

10.  Nigga

These were some of the most used swear words and slang words in the game.

I would describe the language as very offensive and disturbing for some people. They pretty much swear all the time. It’s not formal at all.

Creating my own computer game.

1.     

This is the cover for my game. It’s called “Battleshield”.

2.      Game introduction and summary: The main character is “Seargeant Blackfirst”. The game starts out with an atomic bomb that creates major disaster in a town called “Henderson”, which was Blackfirst’s home town. His mission is to find the people behind this and get revenge. I want to produce this game because it’s an really thrilling story. My target audience is people who are at least 18 years old. The person on the cover is Blackfirst.

3.      Game characters: It’s about Seargeant Blackfirst who’s hometown gets destroyed by an anonymous mercenary group which is rumored to be called “PDR”.  When Blackfirst gets a hold of this information, he sets out on a revengeful mission to take the PDR down. His whole family was killed in the bombing of the atomic bomb.

4.     

Game settings:

This is the city called Henderson which was destroyed by the PDR. Not the whole city was demolished by the atomic bomb, but most of it. The parts which wasn’t destroyed was plundered by survivors who still decided to live in the city. The game is set on Henderson and the environment is mostly just demolished buildings and rubble.

5.      Game rules: the singleplayer campaign of the game features a EXP system which let’s you get points everytime you discover a new place of the city or if you kill someone special/important. The multiplayer is a basic “team deathmatch” and other playlists mode. With the EXP points, you can buy new equipment and weapons for your character in both Singleplayer and Multiplayer.

6.      Reflection:

1.      I didn’t learn many new words but I did learn about the perspective a game developers gets when creating a game. Kind of at least.

2.      I really didn’t find any negative parts about this assignment. The positive parts was that I got to create an own game and decide myself.

3.      Not that much actually. This was a fun and great assignment.