About My Term Paper

For my research paper I chose to focus on the video game industry, its social and economic effects.
The subject matter is somewhat personal to me because before returning to school, I often spent most of my free time on Xbox Live.  At this point in time, I cannot begin to fathom the number of hours I exhausted on Call of Duty and Gears of War.  

I chose to conduct my research primarily using Google Scholar and the EBSCOhost online research databases.  I found a wealth of recent information regarding the economic impact of the entertainment software industry.  Individual title development budgets run in the tens of millions of dollars.  Who would have guessed that 70% of Gen Xers now own a next gen game console!

More surprisingly, I came to discover that many serious issues have also arisen from this booming industry of online gaming entertainment.  Of the issues that I came to learn about, online gaming dependency I found particularly disturbing.  Some of the unfortunate consequences are discussed further in my paper.

As a form of new media, video games have evolved into highly immersive and complex realities.  We now have the virtual worlds of Second Life, the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game World of Warcaft, and the First Person Shooter realms of Call of Duty, were we once had Pong, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and Dungeons and Dragons!   Having witnessed each of these in their full glory, I felt it necessary to explore the the topic further.