| | The benefits of playing video games! and professional gaming =P
One of my teachers last year had ignorantly stated that video games are
completely useless and that nothing positive can ever come out of
playing a game. Nothing! I'm sure that any gamer would've
been offended to hear that! While it's understandable that most
adults agree that video games are useless and a negative influence for
children worse than that of television, perhaps they aren't aware that
there are many benefits to be reaped from playing video
games! After all, there has to be a reason as to why video game
sales have exceeded that of the movie industry's ticket sales in the
past couple of years!
Video games can teach you a lot about life. Heck, to some people, it is
their life! Only a handful of kids in the U.S. have never played
video games before, and if you happen to be one of these people, you
probably know at least one person who worships their video game
consoles almost religiously, the kind of person who has blisters on
their fingers for pressing the buttons too long! While many
people will argue that this in an unhealthy practice, let's try to
think of the positive things that video games can bring us, not
the negative things that video games are notoriously known for (i.e.
violence). It builds confidence by teaching you to work hard and
never give up. It can improve many skills: pattern recognition,
problem-solving, visual attention, memory, etc, all of which will
benefit you in any classroom. And it's a great way to release
your anger when you aren't having such a pleasant day.
A video game tournament in progress!
You can even become a professional gamer if you happen to possess
remarkable skills in a certain game. But if you wish to be a good
player, a significant amount of time must be invested in order to
improve your skill at the game. Imagine devoting several years of
your life to an activity for two hours everyday. You could become
a national-class athlete, a lead guitarist for a local band, trained to
become a professional chef, acquired another college degree, etc.
But because of this, most people wouldn't consider a video game to be
worth that kind of investment. Those who have the luxury of time
to do so are most likely professional gamers who play video games for a living. Come to think about it, it has to be boring to play the same video game over and over again, right? But then again this is simply a replica of how life
is...you work hard to become the best that you can possibly be, and
being tired or "burning out" is not an option to stop working.
A little more information on professional gaming. In America, an
obsessed gamer is usually given the stereotype of an "uncool" person
who has little or no social life. However, quite the opposite is
true in a country like Korea, where playing video games is actually the
hip thing to do. Professional gaming leagues, e-sports,
and cyberathletics are prevalent in countries such as Korea and Japan,
where people compete for prize money among other things such as
computers and baseball caps. You can even watch the games in
progress on television!
The annual salary for many professional gamers...
How about the salary of a professional gamer? It varies greatly. In 2004, Lim Yo Hwan had signed a $2,000,000 contract to play StarCraft: Brood War for one year! For those of you who are familiar with this game, it was released as long as seven
years ago and people are still being paid to play it! Yet it is
still the most popular real-time strategy game in Korea. And then
there are many others who are paid barely enough to make a living, yet
most of their waking hours are spent to improve their gameplay.
Think about $15,000/year, or even less than that!
Soon I will write about the lifestyles of people who actually major
in video games, that is, if anyone is interested in reading about
that! But feel free to give me some ideas on what to write about
next! Also, Happy Mother's Day to all of the hard-working mothers on the planet! =)
What do you think about video games? |
| | Posted 5/8/2005 10:32 AM - 9 Views - 218 eProps - 117 comments
- recommend
  - recs0
- share
- email
 - sent0
|
