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Evolution of video game graphics : From 16-Bit to 2023

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Evolution of video game graphics : From 16-Bit to 2023

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Atari 2600 Game:  Asteroids (1981 Atari)

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I grew up with my father constantly saying how the video games my brothers I were playing promoted violence. This coming from a violent, abusive man, who taught us to shoot guns at the age of 7. I wanted to express my personal opinion on that matter as I feel that games that utilized guns and weapons such as Halo and even archaic weapons as in Prince of Persia had the opposite affect on my brothers and I. If anything it took the violence out of those objects that were all too real in our everyday existence. There was no spanking for holding the rifle wrong or watching a fight break out among adults over some idiot being careless with his weapon. This was a video game. The gun was an extension of the character or the mission and was in a way the opposite of a real life gun. This gun could not harm anyone, not really, and therefore was an exercise in diffusion. By making the gun digital it took away all the real life trauma and drama that guns our life really held. I think video games presented a calming affect for us as teenagers and young adults, giving us a place to cathartically mend from the negative reality of firearms in our everyday life.

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Quote from, 'The Impact of Video Games'.

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Quote from, 'The Impact of Video Games'.

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Benefits of Video Games

The combination of concentration and neurotransmitter surges when playing games helps to strengthen neural circuits, giving the brain a real workout. Video games can improve mental skills, such as: Problem solving and logic. Hand-eye coordination, spatial skills and fine motor coordination.

This is another study done by Sutter Health in 2018 that examined the health benefits in teenagers that played video games frequently.

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Another article I found that explores the idea of Politics within Video Games. Do you agree that they are inherently political? And is that something that should be changed? Can it be changed at this point?

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Recently, I was browsing Twitch, trying to ignore my growing to-do list, when I saw something unexpected: Alexandria Occasio Cortez, U.S. Representative for New York, was livestreaming Among Us to an audience hundreds of thousand strong. Among Us, I thought, is a fairly apolitical game, so why would a congresswoman play it on stream? The answer: to encourage Americans to vote in the upcoming election. After all, a key mechanic of Among Us is voting, and, by extension, democracy. My thoughts delved further: if Among Us can be used to promote a political initiative, how many other video games contain traces of politics?

There are, of course, the obvious examples. Dystopian game franchises like Fallout and Metal Gear Solid make no attempts to hide their anti-nuclear messages. Square-Enix's Life is Strange 2 bluntly addresses political topics ranging from immigration to gun violence. Then, there are games that exist in the same space as political topics without directly supporting a specific viewpoint. Most war games, for example, do not explicitly endorse the military, but their stories center around soldiers and, of course, warfare, placing these games in a grey-space.

"Most big, mainstream games are not intentionally [pushing a political agenda], because they don't want to limit their audience" explained Marc Olano, associate professor of computer science and director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's Computer Science Game Development Track. "It's really about setting up an environment where the kind of action and gameplay you want in the game could occur." War lends itself to fast-paced, tactical conflicts, making it the perfect setting for a first- or third-person shooter game.

Still, wars and access to firearms are, undoubtedly, political issues. Certain politicians have long been trying to link violent video games to a person's likelihood to commit mass violence or hate crimes. Last year, President Trump himself condemned video games for contributing to the "glorification of violence in our society." Even though the games themselves refrain from commenting on politics, their proximity to hot button issues connects them to politics nonetheless.

Departing from war games, even the most innocuous of titles cannot avoid traces of politics that are so deeply ingrained in our culture. For instance, capitalism is deeply embedded in video games and the culture that surrounds them, acting both as a key mechanic in many games as well as a method of making revenue for game developers. Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the most recent release in the Animal Crossing franchise, is all about "building capital," according to Torrence Barbour, a sophomore computer engineering major at UMBC. The game revolves around catching bugs and fish, harvesting fruits and collecting other items to sell for even better items, with which players can furnish their homes or expand their wardrobe. There is even a "stalk market," where players can buy turnips at a low price and then try (emphasis on - it can be very difficult) to resell them for a large profit. Sound familiar?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons never outright supports capitalism, but it is undeniably influenced by capitalist culture. And it is not alone. Countless games use capitalism as a mechanism for characters to level up their weapons, armor and abilities. Merchants in franchises like Legend of Zelda and games like Undertale have become iconic, and for good reason: these endearing characters are integral to the games they appear in, meaning that players interact with them often and grow attached. Even though Beedle constantly tries to swindle Link in Breath of the Wild, and Redd is notoriously shady in Animal Crossing, players love them because they represent fond memories of beloved games - games that would be incomplete without them.

For many players who have been gaming since childhood, these characters and mechanics have contributed a ton to their view of culture. They teach young players how to save money and how to spend it. On the flip side, not all games encourage responsible spending. There are plenty of games that ask for players' real-life money in order to progress in-game.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (commonly known as CS:GO) has endured several scandals revolving around skin gambling, a practice in games where players spend real money on mystery items, often contained in virtual "loot boxes," that have varying degrees of in-game value. Usually, these boxes contain nothing worthwhile, and consumers keep buying and buying and buying them, waiting to get something good.

Keonte Wilson-Robinson, a junior computer science major on the game development track at UMBC, explained why he will never implement loot boxes in his creations. "Instead of play to win, [it becomes] pay to win" and players "don't want to spend all their money" just to have an enjoyable experience in a game, he said.

In addition to criticisms of skin gambling taking all the fun out of games, players and activists alike have condemned gaming companies that feature skin gambling for predatory practices, such as advertising gambling to minors. Skin gambling and other similar practices abuse capitalism and its flaws to collect obscene amounts of money.

Video games can tell us a lot about the relationship between entertainment and consumers. From them, we can pinpoint flaws in our governmental, legal and economic systems, and try to address them. For as much as video games are influenced by politics, politics also have the potential to be influenced by video games.

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Politics and video games are more linked than you might think

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Recently, I was browsing Twitch, trying to ignore my growing to-do list, when I saw something unexpected: Alexandria Occasio Cortez, U.S. Representative for New York, was livestreaming Among Us to an audience hundreds of thousand strong. Among Us, I thought, is a fairly apolitical game, so why would a congresswoman play it on stream?