Sociology

Every video game lover knows that there is always something to achieve in each of these games. Every adventure lover, will be familiar to games like Super Mario, Tomb Raider, Diablo, Castlevania, Every game has a central figure around which the action revolves. The hero represents the player who is playing the game. In this essay, I attempt to look onto the philosophical and psychological side of gaming. I have taken five references to support my argument at each point.
The first reference is Chapter Three of the book Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul by James Paul Lee. It talks about the game Castlevania. The essay starts with a description of the game and how psychologists think this game has deeper impact and underlying meaning. It gives some thought on why people love to play the game, which is because the childhood love for solving problems, coming out with bright solutions is still active in many minds.
The author takes examples from day to day life, taking interesting facts into account but nowhere has he dealt with the exact realm of the topic.  The research is extensive as well but somewhere he fails to give examples which are very strong.
The essay is undoubtedly something which provides with a deep insight but it fails to come to a certain conclusion. Its method of rendition is not exactly interesting and one feels like reading a philosophical piece. In fact, in giving out other tit-bits, he completely misses out on giving out strong instances from the game, as in how the levels are differently designed and how this affects the human mind. It misses out on many key points.
The second source I have taken is, Chapter Four of the book, Vintage Games by Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton. The chapter is extensively detailed and cornered around the game. It gives out each and everything one would want to know, about the game. However, it gets a bit heavy and technical. But nonetheless, it is quite good a read.
The book doesnt however relate to real life, as in why anyone would want to play the game. It otherwise is extensive on the levels, but again the essence is missing as to what symbolism do these levels have on our daily life The place where the author could have had immense discussions about the psychoanalysis of the game is left blank.
This chapter is again a good read but the researcher has to draw examples and derive conclusions himself. It is so because the chapter gives out complete details about the game and how it is like the journey of a hero, but again your own conclusions need to be derived. Sometimes, it does hint on the games story being a greater one but still it never gives it out directly.
My third source is an essay written by MIT Professor, Henry Jenkins, Reality Bytes Eight Myths about Video Games Debunked. In this essay he gives out strong evidence to support the arguments he has given to completely shun the myths regarding gaming and addiction. Though it is not directly related to the research topic, it still provides with a good measure of reference for the topic.
He uses strong examples and also inferences from day to day life to support his article. It is quite evident that he uses strong and valid references and his work is extremely well researched. Also it is quite an interesting read because many a times the reader is inferring his own conclusion.
Why this helps as an effective study material for the research topic is because it has very strong references on how playing games is related to us psychologically. It states how the need for completion is necessary which we let go and fulfill it by playing games, because everyones motive is to win, that is, to finish the heros journey.
The fourth source is an article on Video Games Addiction. It is basically an article meant for parents but it does have interesting facts and points which will help researchers on this topic. It finds a reason as to why gaming tends to become so addictive and how parents can intervene to stop their children.
The examples and references are not very good. In fact, in some cases the need of exemplifying the point is felt but is missed. Also, there isnt any extensive research on why children are addicted to gaming.
How it helps the research, is simple. It tries to find out what is it that attracts children to these games. More often than not it is the love for adventure and curiosity of knowing what is going to happen. This again co-relates to how the journey of the hero is unknown and unpredicted which again heightens the excitement of gaming.
My fifth source is a news piece which reports how libraries are hoping that historical games will increase curiosity about history in the masses. It goes on to talk about some history based games and their fame and throws an open question to the readers as to how the curiosity about the past makes games like this famous.
It just takes references from a few games and doesnt delve much into depth about them. The whole content is quite trimmed with not much room expanding psychological or analytical referencesconclusions.
We all know that every ancient heros journey was a difficult yet celebrated one. Thus this article is helpful as it establishes that curiosity about our past leads us to play such games. Again, this curiosity is also to know what the heromythical figure encountered in his journey and how he overcame it. By playing the game, one can liken himself to that hero facing the evils bravely.