Play: Digital Gaming

One most basic question is why do people play? There are some theories to explain this question. Cathartic theory explains that human play in order to express disorganized or painful emotion in harmful way. Relaxation theory explains differently that we play because we want to become relax from stressful daily life. From the explanation we can conclude that we play video games to get relax or express our emotion. Early video game appeared in 1940s but it started reaching its popularity in the 1970s. Today, video gaming cannot be separated with our modern culture. Video gaming is not as expensive as when it was firstly booming.

There is increasing number of people who play video games. For example, women who are playing video games percentage are 40 percent. This shows that not only gender base but also age of people playing game is varied. It might be the reason why playing video games are more popular than traditional games. Video gaming does not require a lot motoric activity that may limit gender or age.

Video gaming leads debates. Some argue that video games often expose violent content or bad behavior in their story. Narratology is an approach which views video gaming as a cyberdrama. While playing video game the player will involve inside the story and play as a character. The story may cause addiction and native behavior.

However, another side argues that video gaming include learning aspect that contributes to our analytical and adaptation skills. We are required to control human-machine interface that affect our cognitive. Johnson in his book Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter (2005) argues that video games as popular culture has grown more complex and demanding over time and is improving the society within terms of intelligence and idea by stimulating reward centers of the brain.

Reference

Aristotle. (2001). The basic works of Aristotle. McKeon, R. (Ed.). New York: Modern Library.

Huizinga, J (1994) HOMO LUDENS:  A Study Of The Play-Element In Culture. London: ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL

Guy, H (2007) Women video gamers: Not just solitaire. Accessed 10/12/2013 at: http://www.asiancanadian.net/2007/03/women-video-gamers-not-just-solitaire.html