LBS 850 Blog Post

Week 7

Online Social Networking and Gaming

I wanted to experience what a majority of my students did on, what appears to be a daily basis, by trying my hand at some of the more popular online games.  I chose online because I don't own a Wii, Xbox or PlayStation gaming system, as most of the kids seem to these days.  I chose first to register for a Minecraft account.  The first thing I noticed is that to sign up, I needed to check a box agreeing to the “collection of usage data.” It went on to read, “You're about to buy Minecraft and add it to your Mojang account, please pay $26.95”. Since I wasn’t about to pay to play, I moved onto to the other popular game, Fortnite.  I was relieved to find it was free to play on my laptop.  In order to sign up, I had to give my name, email address, and date of birth and I was then instructed to download the game to my Mac. I started by watching the trailer. I was already not feeling comfortable about this game as the screen illustrated men and big breasted, overly sexualize, girls (woman?) causally walking around with assault weapons. Two females blew up a gas station and then high fived each other as flames engulfed the station.  Maybe I am just of a different generation or sensitive to violence, but I wasn't sure I would be able to test out the game for this research. Some of the directions involved the information below.  In the end, I honestly could not figure out how to play and will have to ask a student at school if I decide to give this a shot!

-Hideouts and explosives: Hide in haystacks and dumpsters to get the drop on your opponent or go in blazing by blowing up gas tanks and explosive barrels.

-Upgraded Combat: Get back to basics and battle enemies with a streamlined weapon arsenal. Upgrade weapons using resources at the upgrade bench.

I hope what one of my students said is true: “…you might think kids are addicted to video games or more prone to violence because they play games. There was a study that showed people who shot up schools didn’t even play video games. And I hate how gamers are being put into a section of people that should be feared.” I was pleased to read that the game did offer parental controls: “Fortnite offers a range of parental controls to help you control what a player can see and do within the game.