ENG 225 Rhetoric and Gaming

Rachels and Rockinson determine the effectiveness of an Spanish learning game Doulingo. The following is my annotation of their paper. This study seeks to compare a gamification app that provides Spanish language instruction called Duolingo and a traditional classroom environment in order to determine both method’s effectiveness at teaching elementary students spanish. By exposing two different groups of students to the different methods of spanish learning and then comparing the knowledge gained by the students through a test and learning scales, the study found there is no significant difference in the results of both learning processes. This led to the conclusion that Duolingo can be a useful tool in elementary level spanish acquisition, as it is effective as traditional face-to-face instruction. This study was performed at a private school in florida. It randomly assigned 2 third-grade classes and 3 fourth-grade foreign language classes to be taught spanish through duolingo inst...

The purpose of this article was to analyze the gender differences in games and the ways in which popular games can be beneficial in an educational setting. The author divided this article into five parts in which the relevance of the research was introduced, how video games have changed over time, research on video games in education, approaches that could be used to introduce video games into education, and the problems that might arise in this introduction. It was stated that some games that take place in different eras in history can be useful as they contain information about the time period. The research was not only on computer games but much of what was found applies to computer games. There was little research on video games until the late 1990s. Many viewed video games negatively and it was not considered that they could be used in education. The main increase in research was on the structural aspects of games and the integration of games into schools. Over time many thought t...

Companies have profited over loot boxes , EA sports has been widely successful based on their model of loot boxes and grosses an average of 800 million dollars even though there is no control over who purchases those loot boxes, EA has been widely criticized for allowing players to spend wild queantity of money in order to have a bigger advantage and expand their experience on their sports game and have a pay to win experience. Gambling has been a very talked about subject in the video game world, the reason that loot boxes become so addictive is because the players become eager to widen their advantage with a pay to win model

The Ingredients of Twitch streaming: Affordances of Game Streams This study identifies practices & elements used by the most popular Twitch streamers. Results indicate a convergence of various broadcasting practices among practitioners. Supports previous streaming studies and indicates social affordances as highly important. Revenue affordances are identified as an important branch of affordances in social media. Sjöblom, M., Törhönen, M., Hamari, J., & Macey, J. (2018, October 12). The ingredients of Twitch streaming: Affordances of game streams. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563218304965

Loot boxes are increasing in popularity despite concerns over addictions Spending money on loot boxes , which originated in Japan, has been linked to problem gambling since they involve a high degree of chance and a risk-reward factor, mimicking slot machines and roulette.

A recent ban on Netherlands on videogame loot boxes may kill Fifa Ultimate Team as we know it. These probability-based ‘loot boxes’ have become an increasing feature of all kinds of games over the last decade, both in triple-A titles such as FIFA and as the financial bedrock underpinning free-to-play titles such as Fortnite . However, they’ve often been criticised for introducing young people to what many consider a form of gambling, and today a government committee has recommended restricting the sale of loot boxes to children. Children have been affected because they have no money awareness and sometimes they end up in tremendous debt because of lack of control

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