Through reading the book Toys, Games, and Media one is able to more fully understand how the phenomenon of how current games and media trends have evolved. This book describes the evolution of the toy through history into the use and cultural understanding of “war toys” during the 1930s-1950s and the evolution of the these toys into the modern day toys being used today.
Through the beginning chapters studies are made to show the ways people interact with toys and how culture and society as a whole perceive and understand the use of toys and their intended audiences. Reading along specific instances about phenomenon such as the Pokémon series card games and the overnight success of children’s heros such as Harry Potter and how these simple yet productive ideas were able to catch children’s attention into making them each a multimillion-dollar success. Then leading on to suggest how toys and games the use these successes to build similar copies that will lead the consumer to be interested and buy into the next big thing.
By using direct case studies of some of the more up to date toys and game such as online gaming and video games you are able to better understand the interactions people have with the games themselves as well as each other when a community interaction is put into place. Using games like first person shooters and then comparing interactions with straightforward games intended for educational use, information was collected from observation and questioning of players on how they use their senses to interact with each other and how both have different ways of stimulating the player.
This is where the most interesting to me was in talking about the different form of stimuli received from playing games.
“Touch sense arises from stimulus to the thousands of mechanoreceptors contained within the skin and produces tactile perception of heat, pressure, vibration, slip, and pain. Kinesthesia is sensed by end organs located in muscles, tendons, and joints, which are stimulated by body movements, limb position, and applied forces. These contribute to the analysis of weight size, and shape. Cognitive processes analyze the information provided by the sensory and motor systems.”
It is through these stimuli that a player or an interactee can experience understanding of interaction and use of the senses that is not as actively available with standard educational tools used in technology-less schools.
Through the beginning chapters studies are made to show the ways people interact with toys and how culture and society as a whole perceive and understand the use of toys and their intended audiences. Reading along specific instances about phenomenon such as the Pokémon series card games and the overnight success of children’s heros such as Harry Potter and how these simple yet productive ideas were able to catch children’s attention into making them each a multimillion-dollar success. Then leading on to suggest how toys and games the use these successes to build similar copies that will lead the consumer to be interested and buy into the next big thing.
By using direct case studies of some of the more up to date toys and game such as online gaming and video games you are able to better understand the interactions people have with the games themselves as well as each other when a community interaction is put into place. Using games like first person shooters and then comparing interactions with straightforward games intended for educational use, information was collected from observation and questioning of players on how they use their senses to interact with each other and how both have different ways of stimulating the player.
This is where the most interesting to me was in talking about the different form of stimuli received from playing games.
“Touch sense arises from stimulus to the thousands of mechanoreceptors contained within the skin and produces tactile perception of heat, pressure, vibration, slip, and pain. Kinesthesia is sensed by end organs located in muscles, tendons, and joints, which are stimulated by body movements, limb position, and applied forces. These contribute to the analysis of weight size, and shape. Cognitive processes analyze the information provided by the sensory and motor systems.”
It is through these stimuli that a player or an interactee can experience understanding of interaction and use of the senses that is not as actively available with standard educational tools used in technology-less schools.
Works Cited
H., Jeffrey, David Buckingham, and Gilles Brougère. Toys, games, and media. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004. Print.
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