Tasks: Gaming
The article Gaming contains a lot of facts about what gaming is, but does not explore why gaming is such a popular activity.
Work with a partner in a shared document and write a text that answers two or more of the following questions.
- What is fun about gaming?
- How can you make friends through gaming?
- How can you get good at esports?
- Why are esports popular?
Work together as a class, and decide how you will conduct this survey. Are you going to make an online survey using a tool or will you simply collect answers from everyone in class?
Make a class survey that finds out:
- How many hours in average a week does the class spend on computer games?
- How many hours in average a week does the person with most gaming activity spend on computer games?
- Do girls and boys spend the same amount of time gaming? If not, what is the difference?
- How many of you have made online friends through gaming?
- Have you learnt anything through gaming that is useful for you in other parts of your life?
- How many of you think that they are addicted to gaming?
- How many of you have parents who tell you that you are addicted to gaming?
Discuss in class:
Once you have the complete results and have shared them in class discuss the following questions:
- Did any of the results surprise you?
- Were any of the results exactly as you would have predicted?
- Do any of the results give cause for concern? If so why?
The concept of modding software has become more and more prevalent since it was first introduced with Doom in 1993. It allows skilled gamers to modify the games they play, but it also alters someone else’s property which raises several ethical questions.
Work with a partner of in a group:
- Read the blog post Thinking before Modding.
- Discuss whether modding is positive or negative.
- Discuss who owns the mods: the creators or the original game designers?
Pick one of the tasks and write a longer text.
- Find 3 Newsgames on the internet, play them, and write a 5-paragraph essay where you briefly describe each game and discuss whether the game assisted you in understanding the topics they highlighted.
- Gaming has introduced an array of new words and expressions into the English language. Terms like: Battle Royale, Sandbox, Open World and Deathmatch just to mention a few. Use this list of gaming terms and write a creative text in which the protagonist is a gamer. You should use at least 10 expressions from the list in such a way that you reveal an understanding of what the gaming terms actually mean.
The Block by Block project is one of several projects in which gamers and gaming are being used to solve problems creatively. According to Patricia Gouveia in Serious Gaming gamers are solving real world problems. She claims that “Serious games can be applied to a broad spectrum of application areas, e.g. military, government, educational, corporate, healthcare”.
Write a paper in which you discuss the statement. You need to research relevant projects and look at not only the projects themselves, but also their success rate and replicability. Focus on academic writing and try to form an objective conclusion.
- As mentioned in the article, despite all the positive aspects to gaming, there is also an increasing problem with cyber bullying and online harassment. Certain groups, especially female gamers, are often being targeted by other, malicious gamers. Write a creative story with the theme cyber bullying in the gaming community. Use the title the Dark Underbelly of the Gaming World.