Final Essay

Sarah Conte: Video Game Emotions- Video games can make us feel a variety of different things.  They can make us sad or they can make us happy.  I explored if it is possible for people to experience genuine emotions when playing video games.  I included my own experiences and others.  Some games will make people feel more than others, but there are still emotions being shared.  Each game gives its own emotions to the player to further complete the gaming experience.

Final Essay

Final Essay: Interactive Fiction in Schools 

My essay is about how Interactive fiction should be included in school curriculum. It gives examples of many interactive fiction games.

- Athena Velazquez

Final Essay: Violence In Video Games

The focus of my final essay is video games and their violent content.  Video games have become increasingly popular throughout the years.  However, is the violence in video games causing children and teenagers to act violently also? I discuss why many people may believe video games are the cause of aggressive behavior in their children and why they may not.

Taylor Pierce

Ingress - potential to be the greatest game ever?

As I was growing up I was into video games, but as I grew older and had to take on more responsibilities I haven't had much time to sit and play video games. I had to be sure my kids got their homework done, ate dinner, and washed up before bed. My personal time dwindled after having kids. When Ingress was presented to me in Digital Humanities by Dr. Justus at University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Pa. I knew this was going to be something I liked. It was played on a portable device so I would not have to be tethered to the console at home. It is a augmented reality game which ties the virtual world into reality and the game player has to maneuver from location to location to capture portals and claim them for their faction. If you haven't heard of this jargon before feel free to click on the link provided to learn more about Ingress.

Michael McConnell

Convergence Culture

Convergence culture is said to be place where new and old media collide to create a new culture.  This was popularized by Henry Jenkins, a Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.  He wrote a book called Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.  In the book, he talks about three different concepts that connect to convergence: media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence.  

Media convergence is the combination of new and old media within a single piece of work.  In today’s age, technology is as advanced as ever.  We are all surrounded by so many forms of media convergence.  An example of this could be using a cell phone to listen to music instead of a device specifically made for music.  Participatory culture is a culture in which members believe their contributions matter and feel some degree of connection with one another.  For example, reality tv shows such as American Idol and XFactor use voting systems to encourage audience participation.  Collective intelligence is intelligence that is shared through people collaborating with each other.  An example of this would be a group project used for class or a team creating a video game.  There needs to be sharing of intelligence for these examples to work well.

Jenkins wrote, “Right now, convergence culture is getting defined top-down by decisions being made in corporate boardrooms and bottom-up by decisions made in teenagers’ bedrooms.”  This culture is driven by higher ups wanting to expand to the consumers while the consumers want to have media readily accessible to them.  Media is going to expand across different technology, and technology will be adapted to fit that media expansion.  As technology grows, media will grow proportionally alongside it.  Convergence culture will just keep expanding as our age grows older and the new generation grows into it.

Not my wife, but someone close enough.  “Come in.  The girls are waking up.  Prepare the exam for me while I look for more supplies.”  

He nods and gets to work on setting up the exam.  I feel like that decorations are missing something.  It’s a lot of red.  Hmm….What color are the girls’ eyes?  I walk over to my disemboweled victims and open their eyes.  Some were blue, few were green, many were brown.  I don’t really care.  Color is color, and irises really glow with color.  There is a scalpel in my bag I can use to remove the irises from the rest of the eye.  I start with a pair of dull brown eyes to practice.  The blue and green eyes I want to be perfect.  Brown eyes can be messed up.  They’re the most common.  With steady hands, I trace a light circle around the iris with the tip of the scalpel.  Once the tracing is done, a deeper circle is cut in the eye.  Clear fluid squirts out of the eye and onto my face.  I slowly lick some of the fluid off my face.  Such a unique taste.  Almost tasteless, but with a pinch of salt.  It has the consistency of very loose gelatin.  Getting lost in the taste, I accidentally cut the iris.  Damn it.  I sigh and work on the girl’s next brown eye.  This time I don’t mess up.  The rest of the irises are successfully cut out and taped onto some lights to create color effects.  The room blends with colors of brown, green, and blue.  Not bad.  Very Earthy, but contrasts greatly with the red.

Screams of terror fill my ears as the exam begins.  Pleads reach my ears, but they never process.  Beg all you want.  That only makes this more exciting.  “Don’t make them die too quickly.  Where’s the fun in that?!”  I yell back to my partner while laughing with pure malice.  The screams grow in volume as my statement reaches the girl’s ears.

A rustle is heard from the bathroom.  The liar is awake already?  I thought I made her dose stronger.  Oh well.  It’s not perfect but it’ll do.  I hide opposite of where the door would open so she won’t see me.  She slowly opens the door and jumps at the scream of her sisters.  She shrieks and I take my chance.  Arms twisted around her back, I hold her against my front.  Her screams increase in volume and her body starts to struggle.  I trap her between me and a desk that’s next to my bag.  Reaching down, I pull out some rope to tie her in place.