taxation inside video games?

http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/January-February-2006/feature_dibbell_janfeb06.msp Extremely interesting link. The author talks about the idea of selling in game items, currency, etc. over either online auction sites, such as ebay.com, to people you know, or whoever you decide to sell your in game stuff too. His thought is should those items and the money being collected for them be taxed as if they are coming from a department store? I thought it was a fascinating idea. This guy played an MMO game over a years time and earned 11,000 dollars from selling stuff over ebay.com. He then reported his income to the IRS and read the appropriate information regarding the taxation of his money. He then realized that in the listed taxable incomes you were supposed to be taxed on the income you make in game and out. which then brings up his point of why tax in game gains if you aren't making any real currency from them. Very interesting and a must read!

world of warcraft

The game forementioned has 9 million+ players. It is a RPG, role playing game, and has many fascinating aspects to it. There have been episodes done by South Park, the Simpsons, and even Family Guy portraying their characters in gameplay and the effects of them playing a game similar, or in South Parks episode they play the actual game. There is definitely hype behind this game, good and bad. many people play, therefore many people enjoy the game. There is a $15 a month fee for different aspects of the game like maintenence, patches for problems, etc. So in essence along with the original purchase of the game, 9 million+ players are paying $15 a month for this game, giving them a grand total of 135 million dollars each month. That's a heck of alot of money. So it's definitely understandable why people are so fixed on either hyping up the game or putting it down as a horrible addiction and a game that is ruining our culture.

As many of the articles from before have shown there is a definite difference in opinion on this game. Many companies are actually thriving on the fact that this game is in existence, along with other games they service, world of warcraft is probably their largest amount of customers. I am of course talking about the businesses that sell gold and sell power leveling. So is this game a bad thing to those companies and those peoples lives?

More fun stuff

There have been two commercials right now that have been posted by World of Warcraft with Mr. T, William Shatner, and one more on the way with Verne Troyer (Mini Me). http://worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/movies.html Very funny videos there too along with the commercials.

Youtube.com definitely has some funny videos dealing with video games and their content. And honestly i don't know how the people who create the videos do it. Pretty neat stuff.

There was actually a report on CBS's early show a week or so back. http://search.cbsnews.com/?source=cbs&q=world+of+warcraft has a large amount of pander about addiction of one game, world of warcraft. It's one of those deals i believe that when there's money involved, there's controversy. More in the next post.

Judge Judy

This is funny actually. There is a couple who isn't a couple anymore and the girlfriend is filing to get some money back that her ex boyfriend owes her. Well... It got taken to Judge Judy and turns out one of the reasons he was gotten rid of was he played the computer game World of Warcraft. It goes along with the addiction blogs and the blogs about people needing help. The link to where you can see Judge Judy talking with these people is at http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/10/23/judge-judy-world-of-what/ But what it comes down to is even if you play games either on the computer or on a system will you have the motivation to either find a job if you are in need, do schoolwork, etc. Sometimes the answer is no. Lack of motivation can come from many sources that aren't linked to video game playing. The video game playing is just a means of almost relieving the stress that builds up. So, this is a funny video of Judge Judy and it's pretty self explanitory.

Video game playing?

This is a curious thing that people do, and my friend is actually about to do this as I'm writing this. There are sites, www.videogamegold.com, www.Pvp-Depot.com, and many many others that actually use your character's account and level it, play it, until a desired spot in the game. This happens with most Online RPG games. The logic? To get a higher lvl without as much of the work. Lazy of course but thats what happens. My buddy is paying $50 to get his guy from lvl 51 to lvl 58. What a waste. He's going to give his guy to the company tuesday and get it back thursday.

These types of things happen very often. Seems to me it's almost like paying someone to do your homework for you. Getting the grade without the work. That is how I feel about it.

Guitar Hero 3

This is a game that people might say is safe to play. But guess again. The in game content really isn't too horrible, it's actually great for hand-eye coordination. My friend who plays guitar with me in our band got the game and he's actually gotten better with rhythms and keeping on time. But the addictive factor is insane. The game has been out since October 28th of this year and already kids are engulfed with playing. The biggest hint of the addiction factor is the community website http://www.guitarhero.com/ There are scores on there for all the online players and the platforms they play it on. A kid has the top score of 102,497,107 points which means he had to have played this game non-stop since the day it came out. The closest competition to him is an Xbox player who has 97,384,487. The closest player in the Wii category has 51,551,24, so he has twice as many points on his platform than at least the next best player. That's scary if you ask me because i've played this game and it's not even that fun. But I play real guitar and the songs on the game are much more fun to play on that than on the game. I definitely cannot imagine the amount of hours this kid has put into the game. Should he be doing homework or going to school?

Addictinggames.com

This is a site that is full of short, easy games that take your mind off boredom and at the same time keep you hooked for a long, loooong time. http://www.addictinggames.com/ In case you didn't want to spell it out yourself. They have a huge selection of games, categories the games fall under, and new games that get added to their list every single day. One of the funny things that happened was when my girlfriend was showing me the site, and helping me see how it would be great for this blog, she had a problem with getting off of it. The answers i was getting was "just one second" or "after this." That's what this site does to people! These games aren't long enough or technical enough to really present a problem but there are a large enough number that in order to play all the games you'd have to spend a long time playing. Just thought that was a very interesting site to include.

Manhunt 2

Manhunt 2 goes on sale Halloween and there are already people who are opposing it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21535818/ The game is about players take on role of a man escaping from an insane asylum. There is torture and brutal killing in the game which warranted the original an Adult only rating and this new, modified sequal a Mature rating. The ratings speak for themselves, leaving the responsibility up to the adults. Game retailers like EB Games, McVan's Video Games, and GamStop all have an age restriction policy in which they do not sell rated M and Adult video games to minors without a present adult. Every time there is an outcry like this all i can think is "give me a break." If you are worried about your child playing the game don't buy it for the child. And if the child's friend has the game make sure the friend's parent knows you don't want the child playing the game. Simple common sense. But there are people who insist on being in groups that "advocate" for the safety of children when really they should be advocating in the education of parents not being stupid.

All in all, the original game was interesting, got boring after awhile though. Definitely not suitable for children therefore don't buy it for your 8 year old. period.

More addictions

http://www.aspeneducationgroup.com/gameaddiction/?gclid=COTdg7f2rI8CFQ6CPAodkWEyQQ

This site is an actual ad for an acutal video game detox program, or programs depending on what information you want from them. They talk about the addiction, what games are most addicting, and why your kid should be in their sessions. They also have other types of delinquents going to their sessions which brings up my question, why put people who have video game problems and heroin problems in the same place? That seems kind of inefficient to me.

The most addicting games they say are MMORPG's, Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. This includes the Final Fantasy Online games, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and any other game that you can play online with other human players. http://www.aspeneducationgroup.com/gameaddiction/wow.asp That is their reasoning why World of Warcraft is the most addicting game. I think it's interesting they keep mentioning that all the effects are on teens when, in reality, there are more adults that play that game and others like it. Is there a detox center for them? Not really. The detox centers for adults are for more deadly things like drugs, alcohol, depression, eating disorders, etc. The video game detox centers are based around teens who play, not adults. Very interesting...

Obesity

This is a study over video games and obesity, this time it's a positive correlation. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-02-obesity-video-game_x.htm It talks about a child who struggles to play sports and has a rough time in general. He changed his diet one week and lost 10 pounds, played an interactive video game called Dance Dance Revolution and lost another 10 pounds. The study is being done by a group called PEIA, Public Employees Insurance Agency. And on top of helping children become healthy, they are looking to install the video game package into many schools for use during physical education class and in the hopes the children will want their parents to get the game for them. It's an interesting concept, and though i'm skeptical i'm sure the game does do some good.

The funny part about this game is that it only sells for $60 including the dance pad. And along with the normal dance feature there is a cardio feature that will track how many calories the dancer has lost during the dance. How can Bowflex compete with this??

Surgeons helped by video games?

April 7, 2004 a study was reported on MSNBC.com, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4685909/. The basic idea of this article is a study was done on the effects of video game play on a surgeon's ability to focus and not make medical errors. The study then shows that with three hours of game play a week the surgeons mistakes decreased by 37%. That's a funny study considering how many people are hardcore against the video game play. The biggest factor is probably the amount of time spent playing video games. this is suggesting that with three hours it decreases mistakes made, probably by helping them focus a little bit. The article even says that the surgeon completed the surgery 27% quicker than his counterpart who did not playing video games.

The type of surgery they are doing is called laparoscopic surgery. It's where the doctor uses a tiny camera and instruments controlled by joysticks outside the body on any part inside the body. Hand-eye coordination is very important so video games are definitely helpful in that situation.

On CBSnews.com I found a very interesting article about video game addictions. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/03/health/webmd/main1773956.shtml Apparently in Amsterdam there are already detox clinics for video game addicts. Addiction, as defined in the article, is characterized by two things: 1. The addict needs more of the substance or behavior to keep him/her going, 2. Without the substance or behavior he/she becomes irritable and miserable. It's a very interesting concept that makes sense by those two criteria. Video games seem to have silently taken us captive, luring us into the fantasy worlds of our favorite games.

A few warning signs given by CBSnews.com that someone is a compulsive gamer are:

Playing for increasing amounts of time
Thinking about gaming during other activities
Gaming to escape from real-life problems, anxiety, or depression
Lying to friends and family to conceal gaming
Feeling irritable when trying to cut down on gaming

And these can be transferred to any addiction, not just gaming. Think about this in your own life and see if there's an underlying addiction that you might have.

Children

There is a pretty large discussion that is almost always ongoing about younger kids playing video games. One side of the argument wants children to be playing outdoors, interacting with other kids like they did when they were young. Others say what's the harm in playing video games? The Kaiser Family Foundation http://www.kff.org/entmedia/3271-index.cfm has an interesting fact sheet about children and video games. One of these "facts" is that 92% of children ages 2-17 reported playing video games and more than 2/3 of children have a video games system in their room. I personally don't see a 3 year old kid having a Nintendo in his/her room.

Some of the impacts they say video games have on children are good and some are bad. A good impact is that there are researchers who believe video games are the first step in a child understanding and becoming computer literate. The video games improve spacial visualization and visual attention skills which they say can help reduce the differences in these skills between boys and girls. Another statistic they bring up is that 25% of children say video games interfere with their homework and/or school performance. They also bring up the violence issue, stating that video games possibly account for adolescents' bad behaviors and aggressiveness. I think that statement still needs to be researched more.

A very interesting game was released last Tuesday, Halo 3. Now, I am not very interested in the Halo franchise and their games but a few of my friends are deeply in love with them. Pretty much to sum up Halo is aliens come to earth and destroy and take it over and you are part of the humans to stop them. The thing that is disappointing about the newest game is the amount of hours you spend in order to beat it. A very very popular game like this shouldn't be able to be conquered in one day. My buddy had to work the day he bought it and still beat it in one day. There are two modes to play, single and multi-campaign mode. Multi-campaign mode is where you and your friends can team up to play the story mode.

This is definitely a game that will be remembered for a long time, no matter how many people actually like it. On it's release last Tuesday, it gained the record for top opening day for an entertainment game with $170 million, even beating out the movie Spider-man 3 and the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. So, even if I don't dig the game obviously plent of other people do.

My statistic came from http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/h/halo3/launch/20070926halo3biggestday.htm

There is a certain genre of games called MMO RPG's. Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games is what the letters stand for. In these games there is currency that is used to buy, sell, and even produce items to be used. I found it interesting that there is a site that you can actually buy the currency in the game with real currency if you need it. www.videogamegold.com is that site and you should definitely check it out. Their prices are reasonable, according to my friend, but vary from time to time. It's an interesting spin on gaming.

Money

A large problem with video games and CPU games is that they outdate quickly. For example, the time between the release of a game system and the release of the previous game systems is around 5 years. At the same time, the average lifespan of a computer before it is obsolete is 5 years. This is really a short lifespan considering the amount of money that is spent on these consols. And the game consols are not getting any cheaper. In 2006 three game consols were released for sale, Xbox 360, Plastation 3, and the Nintendo Wii. Their respective prices were $499, $599, and $249. And, in approximately 2011 those systems will be outdated! A new and improved system from each company will come out and blow the face off the gaming comunity. I added that last part because that's what is said about every gaming system that is released, even if it isn't true.

This trend reminds me of cars and car buyers. A car is definitely alot more expensive than a video game consol. But the economics behind it are almost the same. If we take the same lifespan of a $500 game consol and compare it to a $20,000 brand new car we would have a 40 to 1 ratio. So if the lifespan of a game system is 5 years then comparatively the lifespan of a car should be 200 years. That is if you multiply 40 times 5. However, that is not the case. Cars are lucky to last 20 years, and even then most people decide to get rid of their car before it even dies. And if you think about time between release of products, new car models are released once a year. This almost immediately outdates that $20,000 car.

My point is, there is alot of money invested from dedicated gamers. Their need for something outstanding could even be compared to car enthusiasts' need for something innovative. Is this a bad habit? Is this a bad trend that is the reason other countries look down upon us because we wastefully spend money instead of making the products last? At the same time, however, is this industry helping the United States stay on top of the economic heap of wreckage?

Are video games dangerous??

Well, in my mind, the only thing dangerous about video games is the danger of someone not getting all their homework done on time. Yet, some people believe that video games are the reason kids become violent, angered, or mean. After the Columbine high school shootings people were trying to figure out a cause behind their shootings. They looked at video games as a culprit of instilling the violent aspect into the kids. Marilyn Manson was also blamed as a culprit, but I don't care about him anyway. I've read stories of kids who try to use swords because they played the Legend of Zelda, in which the main character uses a sword. There is one story I read in which one kid jumped on his brother's head because he saw it on Super Mario. These are probably worst case scenerios but they present a good question.

A good example of games that make you forget your homework is EverQuest. Parents television council reports that of those that play the game the average number of hours played a week is 20-30. That's a part time job! And, as they point out, that's an average number. There are those who play way more than the 20-30 hours of gameplay. So this really isn't a danger of a violent level but a danger of a personal, time management level.

There's some interesting, yet one-sided, information about dangers of video games here http://www.familyfriendlygaming.com/Dangers-of-video-games.html They talk about violence, epilepsy, warping the brain, causing brain damage, causing ADHD, addiction, exploitation of women, and linkage to obesity. As troubling as this all may sound, I believe there's a large agenda being pushed from this website in order to make video games seem worse that they actually are. So if you feel like looking at that link, BE WARNED.

My information about EverQuest came from http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/rgcolumns/2003/0508.asp

How popluar are video games anyway? When looking at just game sales the numbers are very significant. According to About.com, In 2004 the game and gaming console sales were down from 10 billion dollars to 9.9 billion dollars. Regardless of the loss, those are huge numbers. They report that the top games of 2004 included, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - PS2, Halo 2* - XBX, and Madden NFL 2005 - PS2. The top selling game, GTA, is a rated M game while Halo 2 is T and Madden is E.

So this says a little about the industry. In 2004, games that were violent and oriented to mature audiences were the best selling games. This says one of two things about the audience these games were made for. First, people who are playing games more now are over 18 and playing the games like GTA, Halo, and Bioshock. Second, people who are buying games are buying them for their children who are under 18, just because they want them, and not necissarily finding what the game is acutally about. That could be a problem for kids who don't even know what these games are really about.

All of my information was used from http://retailindustry.about.com/od/seg_toys/a/bl_npd012703.htm

Gamers

Who plays these video games that are so popular and in demand? More males than females play the video games. That is almost a no-brianer, but there are many many women who actually play and enjoy playing video games. According to the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) 38% of gamers (video game players) are women and 62% of gamers are men. Of those 31% of women are 18+ years old and 20% of men are 17 years or younger. I thought that was a very interesting statistic considering that you wouldn't expect grown, mature women to play video games, but most girls never did when they were younger.

I believe that when someone goes into college there are a few types of people they will encounter; druggies, drunks, hippies, and gamers. I'm not saying everyone has to fit into one of these categories but there are alot of people who hadn't tried all four of these until college. Let me also clarify hippy. My definition of hippy is anyone who decides that they are the progressive ones, leading the way for a better tomorrow. That's mainly activists. Women who hadn't tried gaming until college are the reason why the 18+ statistic is so high.

Back to the matter at hand. A few more interesting statistics from ESA state the average age of a gamer is 33, however the average age of those who purchase games is 38. And finally out of all gamers 28.2% are under age 18, 47.6% are age 18 to 49, and 24.2% are age 50+. I bet you didn't know that about your dad or grandpa?

The statistics I found for this blog were on the ESA website http://www.theesa.com/facts/gamer_data.php

The Video Game

I'm sure most people living in the 21st century have been acquainted with video games, but I'll briefly explain. Video games are games played in an almost virtual reality that is shown either through a TV screen or a computer monitor. Games have been around since the 1980's and are getting more and more advanced as we speak. There are three systems out that are dominating the market of video game sales. Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's XBox 360, and Sony's Playstation 3. All are selling very well and most likely some or all the people in this class own one of these systems. The games are fun, and they are becoming more and more realistic. The first games, PacMan, Space Invaders, Pong, were all video versions of different material games, crossword puzzles, or even sports. Now the games are diving into the future, into territories that a person under normal circumstances probably won't be able to participate. I think that is where the "addiction" lies. The hook is the fact that these games are giving us a look into places and things that we've never imagined could exist. Next time, we'll find out who exactly is playing these games...

Video Game Appeal

There are obsessions that are devastating to familys, friends, jobs, social lives, etc. Examples are alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling, and even fantasy football. One such obsession is not often talked about but can still be harmful to the well being of the addict. Video Games. Video games are played by virtually all who can afford them, even if you don't know you're playing. Just like every other addiction, video game play is harmful only if done in excess. Alcohol alone is not enough to break a marriage up but excessive drinking is. It's the same for video games. I personally enjoy playing games on our Wii and games on my computer. But there are some who take it to the extreme and play whenever possible. My example is one of the guys I know goes to work 8 to 5 then plays from 5:30 to 3 every night just to wake up and repeat the process. Is this addiction? If it is then we could also conclude that spending time with your family is addiction too because don't we do that every night? Probably a bad comparison but you get the gist. So, in the coming semester I'm going to dive into the video game realm to understand what's behind the controller.