CCT300-Lab1

__**LAB #1 - GAME STUDIES**__

Aarseth's article is posing the question whether computer games should be an independent academic field of study. From one perspective, computer games are apart of a variety of fields and rely on a number of different fields to create. It is compiled with different elements like cinematography, visual arts, architecture, computer science and more. It can touch base on so many academic subjects but it has received little scholarly attention as a field of its own. Games have adapted and developed since the first modern game that was introduced three decades ago. It has become a genre of its own because the cultural roles of computer games have broken past the old mass media communities into one that is interactive.

Computer games are cultural products much like film or fine art that changes throughout time. Various forms of media genres and cultures in the past have eventually been accepted as academic disciplines, fields like photography, film and music. Computer games is similar because it is a field that can be studied and researched much in the same way. There are many underlying social effects and elements in computer games that are not found in any other field. It brings together new ways of communication within a simulation that allows for social activity.

A major cultural aspect that has recently formed from computer games belongs to Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Users have the ability to communicate, interact and engage in a community that is mainly a simulation world. It's the interactive element that makes gaming unique compared to other forms and genres of media. Players can customize parts of their surroundings and appearances in inject it into a community within the game. Narrative is an aspect of the game that underlies the foundation for the game, but throughout the decades that process has changed. There are many ways to play the game that is unrelated to the main story plot because gamers can venture socially in the virtual world. It's the created community that can create cultural behaviours thats can be academically studied and analyzed. Computer gaming has evolved in the past three decades into something complex and independent; an area that needs a study solely on its own.