ENG 225 Rhetoric and Gaming

Zendle et al explain that excitement and and competitiveness contribute to a player’s desire to purchase loot boxes with real money, which contributes to gambling, based on the fact that the items may be random and may not necessarily enhance player’s enjoyment or enhance performance.  Both when gambling and when buying loot boxes, individuals stake money on the outcome of a future event, whose result is determined at least partially by chance in the hopes of receiving a valuable reward. Gambling has been seen as a big problem by governments and some have moved to get rid of it  especially in Netherlands and Germany

Greitemeyer, T., Osswald, S., & Brauer, M. (2010). Playing Prosocial Video Games Increases Empathy and Decreases Schadenfreude . American Psychological Association 2010, Vol. 10, No. 6, 796 – 802. This article covers two experiments by Greitemeyer, et al, to show levels of malicious pleasure (schadenfreude) after playing games that were rated as “prosocial”, “antisocial”, and “neutral” in regards to the game’s theme. The first experiment used Tetris (Pajitnov, A., 1984) and Lemmings (Psygnosis, 1991) as the neutral and prosocial games, respectively. The participants were then asked how they felt about a celebrity's misfortune. Those who played the prosocial game were more likely to not feel schadenfreude about the celebrity. The second experiment included the antisocial game Lamers (MobyGames, 1992), a parody of Lemmings where the goal is to kill all of the animals, rather than save them. Those who played the antisocial game experienced the highest level of schadenfreude...

Backlund, P., & Hendrix, M. (2013). Educational games - Are they worth the effort? A literature survey of the effectiveness of serious games. 2013 5th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES). https://search-proquest-com.unco.idm.oclc.org/docview/304838683?accountid=12832 doi:10.1109/vs-games.2013.6624226 This article discusses the educational effectiveness of game based education, as well as what methods need to go into development of educational and serious games. It defines the differences between Serious games and edutaining games, as well as which aspects of education lend themselves best to game-based learning, such as Mathematics and language learning. This paper is focused on educational games, and was carried out using the frame established by the EduGameLab. The study was limited to games used in formal school settings, and only includes papers  published in scientific journals. Their survey of the research covered...

Ertzberger, J. (2008). An exploration of factors affecting teachers' use of video games as instructional tools (Order No. 3311370). Available from Education Database. (304838683). Retrieved from https://unco.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/304838683?accountid=12832 This study discusses implementing video games into a classroom setting, including the possible deterrents, such as cost, lack of relevance to the curriculum, and set up/maintenance time. It describes the innovations made by video games in education and in general, as well as why and how games improve student engagement with the materials being taught. This study used surveys and research synthesis to determine the data it utilized in its findings. The study dealt only with video games, not board games, and was confined to video game use by K-12 educators in North Carolina It discusses why kids find school so unappealing, as well as why video games can make learning more appealing. It a...