Robbie’s Blog.

This is Robbie’s blog about classroom material. This is my 3^rd year of University. I am going into my fourth, majoring in Communications: Media Culture and Society.

I am currently twenty-two, turning twenty-three on May twenty-seventh. I love being outdoors especially at the beach. I enjoy skimboarding on Burlington Beach and in South Carolina and on vacation.

My experience with video games dates back to a Christmas long ago. My sister and I received the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that came bundled with the Super Mario World game. I then proceeded to rent games when ever my parents rented movies. Driving games were my interest. I never really kept up to date with gaming systems, partly because all of my friends did. I would just go to their house to play. I did however express interest in racing games on the computer with the Need for Speed titles. I eventually purchased Need for Speed Underground, which was my first taste of online gaming. I joined a car club and became a decent drifting driver online. The next consoles I obtained was a Nintendo 64 which my friend Brady gave to me, and a Sega Dreamcast bought form a friend at highschool for forty dollars. My current girlfriend gave me a Nintendo Wii for my birthday last year, and this is where I am now.

I really enjoy driving games. Forza 2 is a title I play frequently at my house in St. Catherines on an X Box 360. I play Need for Speed Underground and Colin McRae Rally on my iMac, Mario Kart Wii on my Wii, and various other titles on various systems. One of my favourite games is Wii sports, because of how it enables almost anyone to easily pick up the controller and learn to play. I like to play games with others, so this makes it really enjoyable for me.

Online gaming and in specific, virtual worlds are very important to study because they are first and foremost very popular. Anything that draws millions of users to participate and engage in activity is worth studying. What are people learning when they play? What are they exposed to? What to people get out of playing? Why do they play, or why do they not play? It is important to find out these questions to better understand the effects of gameplay and the messages being sent ad received. It can also be worthwhile to study in order to maximize profit that could be gained from these worlds and to further utilize these for marketing efforts. The vast potential of virtual gaming gives reason for study and analysis of the phenomena of gaming.