How Video Games Help Society Essay -- Technology, Video games

â€Å"Lets play a money making game!† -The Legend of Zelda. Video Games are revolutionizing society. They have changed for the better, transitioning from mindless wastes of time, to useful tools of learning, video games are revolutionizing, and are becoming smarter, more complex, and healthier. Video games are not just simple, mindless forms of entertainment anymore; they can now teach, inspire, and provide the player with life skills, or the knowledge needed to start a successful career. Many games companies like Electronic Arts (EA) are changing the content of their games. The successful game franchise by EA, â€Å"The Sims† has developed games like â€Å"The Sims 2: Open for Business.† The focus of this game is to start a small business in a virtual world, and virtually run it. Video games have now even become a course in college. "Now games are a legitimate academic subject, with many university courses around the world offering degrees in video game design and development. And many game designers and researchers are seeing how games influence cognitive and other skills (par 2)." Students now have the option of exploring a career in gaming, which is very profitable in todays market. James Paul Gee, a video game programmer for Nintendo, explains what goes t hrough the mind of someone playing "Pikmin." " As Gee writes, the game requires a great deal of focus, critical thinking, multitasking, and problem solving to succeed. Players must manage teams of characters, assign them tasks appropriate to their behavior patterns, guide them to work together smoothly, and strategist how to optimize resources such as virtual food. Yet, even a 6-year-old can play it. Imagine, teaching a first-grader pretty complex, real-time, problem-laden resource manage... ...to "IEWTPT Tactical Questioning." (par. 6)"These repurposed video games can potentially save lives. The air force has been using video games to train pilots for a few years now. "A military or commercial flight simulator need not have perfect visual detail, but it had better mimic the behavior of the real vehicle, Haseltine says, "because lives are at stake." (par. 13)" Instead of letting a beginning pilot get in a $13,000,000 plane and waching him crash it, they can now get in a fake one and safely cruse around in a virtual world. The Military is using video games to save lives and train their recruits. Although parents may not view games as a tool like a book, they are slowly Changing and will soon be reputable sources of knowledge, and will most defiantly benefit society. So †Pick A Box, its contents will help you on your way.†-Toad, Super Mario Bros. 3.