This
Thursday we read the article "Can a Video Game Tame Toxic Behavior?" by
Brenden Maher. I really loved reading this article because I love this
game and was really excited to see something on the curriculum that I'm
familiar with. This article discussed how neuroscientists were able
to collaborate with game designers to create a less toxic game experience for
players. I have been playing the game for about 4 years. The decision to
include feedback from the Tribunal, color coded advice, and automatically
generated feedback are reported to have increased the satisfaction
of gameplay.
My personal experiences have been somewhat similar to the stories about toxic behavior in the article. While I am nice to my teammates, this game can be very frustrating and I understand why some people get angry with each other. The majority of the disrespectful comments said to other players are said to people who do not possess the same skill level with their champion (character that they play during the game) as their opponents. These bad players can easily cause the entire team to lose the game, which can be frustrating because the game provides many perks for winning games and losing games can be very disappointing, especially because so much time is devoted to finishing one game (games can last over an hour and require constant concentration). Team cohesion and willingness to fulfill your specific role in the game are really important to the overall experience.
I think that they also group accounts with penalties (which can be gotten from delivering abusive comments or being away from the keyboard during the game) together during gameplay, so that most likely has also improved my experience. I've played with some really nice people over the years and it still is a great stress relief when I've had a bad day.
Many video game and movie franchises (especially ones that I played as a child) tend to sideline women into support roles, so I enjoyed that this game actually has female characters that are 3-dimensional, powerful within the game, and defy gender stereotypes. While many of these powerful female characters are sexualized, I'd rather them be there than not at all. The male characters are also frequently very muscular, tall, and good looking, so women's bodies are not the only ones that are idealized. The game lore draws upon legends all around the world, so a wide variety of cultures and mythical creatures are represented within the game. The lack of racial diversity is disappointing; There is only a handful of characters of color within the game. I hope that they address these issues of diversity in the future.
I
think that our speaker did a great job of educating us about the gender gap. I
think that I was a little too excited during the Jeopardy game, but I
was mostly just excited to talk about one of my favorite games. Some of these
statistics can be discouraging because I'm worried about working for companies
that might not protect their employees and might not find
many other women to relate with at work. However, I love programming/computers
and hold onto hope that I can find a company that is good to work for. Based
upon her great presentation, I think that a higher representation of
women in the media that work in STEM will most likely increase the enrollment
of women within technology. I think that the movie Hidden Figures did a great
job of showing doing that women and people of color are fully capable of such a
technical job. I hope more media is created in the future to increase the
depiction of diversity of the people that can fill these roles.
