Plan, Analysis & Research

 Video Game Documentary

Deadline:

January 22nd 2021

requirements for documentary:

• 5 to 15 minutes long.

• The aim is to engage young people and to encourage them to think about the impact of the digital age on modern society.

• Highlight what defines that culture, and talk about my own experiences with it and other people who identify with it.

Reliable Sources of Information:

• Google scholar

• Books

• Research books

• Academic journals

• Statistics 

Plan:

I am going to do a documentary about video games and how they have evolved over the years and how video games have impacted us. I'm going to study video games from the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and more modern games now. I’m also going to study the impact video games have had on people and society.

1990s games:

• Resident Evil 2 (1998)

• Tomb Raider I (1996)

2000s games:

• Resident Evil Remake (2002)

• Resident Evil 4 (2005)

• Bioshock (2007)

• Saints Row 2 (2008)

2010s games:

• Saints Row The Third (2011)

• The Walking Dead (2012)

• Bioshock Infinite (2013)

• Fallout 4 (2015)

• Detroit: Become Human (2018)

• Resident Evil 2 Remake (2019)

• The Outer Worlds (2019)

2020s games:

• Resident Evil 3 Remake (2020)

• Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020)

• The Last Of Us: Part II (2020)

I can compare the original Resident Evil 2 from 1998 to the remake that was released in 2019.

Most of the information I need can be acquired by myself, as I own the majority of these games listed and can talk about my own experience and observations when playing them. I can also talk about how certain series of video games have formed their own communities of fans and how they interact with each other and things that have happened in real life because of these communities coming together (like creating events, for example comic con).

Charlie Brooker's How Video Games Changed the World analysis:

• Video starts with dialogue from Charlie and is straight to the point.

• Shows clips of video game characters and stuff that has been painted on the side of walls  in the real world and shots of people who work on video games in an interview setting.

• Also shows a few clips of video games from older ones to newer ones, talks about how some games can make you feel certain emotions or can even introduce you to your soulmate.

• Almost a minute into the video the intro starts, it is a walkthrough of a pixelated 'world' and features different things and characters from different games and then ends the intro with the title of the documentary.

• The music continues as new clips of people standing outside of 'game' and video games show and Charlie is giving dialogue.

• digital ping pong was referred to as 'the most exciting game you will ever see on your tv set' when it was released which is kind of funny to be honest.

• starts with the history of video games; when they started and what they were [see point above].

I’ll probably record some footage of me playing video games from different eras(?) and edit it together with a voiceover and music so that it isn’t boring.

I'll talk about how video games have changed and how video games have impacted us and how they have changed our daily lives. The mental and physical effects video games have on youth and how that affects their daily lives.

I might talk about how we see people wearing merchandise from video games or have collectables and consoles around their houses which links back to how video games have impacted people.

Research:

• (www.sciencedaily.com) research data suggests that playing video games can change the brain regions responsible for attention and visuospatial skills and make them more efficient. The researchers also looked at studies exploring brain regions associated with the reward system, and how these relate to video game addiction.

• *NOT factual, mere concerns* (www.health.havard.edu) These organisations express concern that exposure to aggressive behaviour or violence in video games and other media may, overtime, desensitize youths by numbing them emotionally, cause nightmares and sleep problems, impair school performance, and lead to aggressive behaviour and bullying.

• (www.sciencedaily.com) A study conducted in Norway looked at how playing video games affects social skills of 6 - 12 year olds. It found that playing the games affected youth differently by age and gender, but that generally speaking, gaming was not associated with social development.

• ^ Study findings suggest that girls who spent more time playing video games at age 10 developed weaker social skills two years later than girls who spent less time playing games.

• ^ Girls who play video games may be more isolated socially and have less opportunity to practice social skills with other girls, which may affect their later social competence.

• ^ Children who struggled socially at age 8 and 10 were more likely to spend more time playing video games at ages 10 and 12.

• ^ Times boys spent gaming did not affect their social development.

• The history of video games goes as far back as the early 1950s, when academic computer scientists began designing simple game simulations as part of their research or just for recreation.

• The 1970s was also the era of mainframe computer games.

• The golden age of arcade video games was from 1978 to 1982.

• In October 1958, William Higinbotham created what is thought to be the first video game. It was a very simple tennis game, similar to the classic 1970s game Pong, named Tennis for Two.