The Cake is a Lie!

Gaming is one of the, if not the biggest forms of entertainment in the world today. You can now literally play a video game anywhere and any time that suits you. Gaming on mobile phones has grown in popularity in the past several years. At one point Angry Birds was one of the worlds best know video games and it originated as a casual game to play on your smart phone. It was not one of the 'blockbuster' games that major game developers spend a fortune on making and advertising. Gaming has evolved.

Gaming is such a massive part of our society now. You can almost play a game on any device you are given now. No longer do you need a TV and the latest console or even a computer to play a video game. You are able to do so in the palm of your hand. We enjoy when we are victorious at beating the game, but there are games we enjoy that we will lose at. "If you play Tetris, you are guaranteed to lose." (McGonigal, 2011, p. 24).

We still enjoy the failure as we progressed to a harder stage than before. Gaming is joyful largely as we are in control and know what is expected of use from within the game. It is the mirror opposite of our lives as we as a race have so many unanswered questions, such as what will the future hold, are we alone in the universe and is there life after death. These thoughts can easily sadden us and so therefore we play games as we are in control and know what we must do to exceed within the game's world, unlike our own real world. Also within the game's world we can be whatever we wish and aspire to be.

Vsauce- Why do we play games?

Bibliography:

McGonigal, Jane, (2011) Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, (The Penguin Press; New York)

Webliography:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5jDspIC4hY 

Video belongs to Vsauce youtube channel

Convergence Culture is here... Ready or not.

"By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms..." (Jenkins, P.2)

Just over a decade into the 21st Century the way in which we now consume our media has come along within leaps and bounds. We are at the forefront of a digital age that has rapidly developed the way in which we live our day to day lives. None more so than how it has helped us consume media. We can all now go online, watch a film, listen to radio, listen to our music, read books and communicate with others while we do these. 

"Ready or not, we are already living within a convergence culture." (Jenkins, P.16)

We truly do live within a convergence culture whether we like it or not. We may not like it but we come into contact with it on a daily basis. As we watch television we are now reminded to follow the programmes we enjoy on Facebook or Twitter so as we are kept up to date. Some television channels inform us to watch episodes again by going online on websites such as 4oD and iPlayer. As we enjoy socializing on Facebook pages we have liked of our favourite music artists link us to their lastest music video upload onto YouTube or to tell us we can download their album online from such sources as the all mighty iTunes store. 

We seem to be connected to all forms of media even if at that moment in time we only want the function of one. This does not seem as if it will stop at anytime soon as the new generation of technology is trying to become more multi-functional than the previous. An example is the Xbox One. It is by no mean the first Xbox, it is 12 years late for that title. It is called this as it is the all in 'one' home entertainment system and there is likely more to follow.

Bibliography

Jenkins, H (2008) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York University Press)