And another one...

Second attempt. Apparently copying and pasting from Word is not an acceptable method to post blogs.

Although video games are not as studied as other media in communication, it seems that there is already a lot of focus on gender and representation. I would like to take a different route and delve into the environmental aspects of video games. This interest was founded after hearing one of the Atari programmers speak on the in class video.

In specific, he was speaking about the E.T. video game flop. The fact that they buried a mass amount of plastic and heavy metals in the Mojave Desert. How did they get away with doing such a thing? How does someone scoff at such an event like burying video games where their environmental effects may be felt years from now?

In one of the articles assigned, the author dealt with the event in a much more realistic and appreciative manner. It is in this tone that my research will take place. I want to look into environmental design and use of video games and how it relates to environmental treatment in real life.  How does being able to destroy whole forests in Command and Conquer and Sim City affect environmental outlooks of the gamers? This is an example of the information I would like to examine.

To begin, I would use a textual analysis because it would be important to examine how video games of different genres and playing styles treat the environments they subject gamers to. It is important to create a strong base of research to enable further studies to build upon. Narratology would be the direction my research theory would begin in order to examine the stories and meanings generated in association with the environment.

The textual analysis would provide the appropriate method to extract meanings and information about game generated environments and how gamers interact with them. The limitations involved with this study would eventually point to the limitation of all textual analysis. That is, that a textual analysis will only examine the environment, and not draw conclusions related to the possible effects of how the usage interactive environments effects gamers. The theory is weak and drawing conclusions between actions and reactions of gamers, so a quantitative analysis would provide further information for the study. A mixture of both theories would produce a well rounded study with objective information.