This week focused on certain readings about how games are represented in the world. Reading through the source “How to Play Video Games” has touched on certain popular figures in the media. Stars such as Kim Kardashian have started to make their way into the gaming industry. I had no idea that these games existed but it seems they are quite popular. Having said that, the class discuss that this might be quite damaging due to the narrow mindedness in some of these games. In the case of Kim Kardashians game, there is a short selection of customizations you can pick. One may argue that it is to keep the game simple and easy to pickup while others have argued that not everyone fits into these roles. These roles include body types, and personality traits. Essentially, you can play as someone similar to how Kim Kardashian is portrayed which is far from the “normal” people seen in reality.

Another topic this week was based on a short series known as “The Guild” on Netflix. This was an interesting watch to say the least. It was essentially viewing a guild of MMO players and how their life unfolds. A lot of it was quite unrealistic but often opens up the possibility that certain people may live this way.

This show illustrated some of the fears some people may have with their guild members showing up at their door after stalking them online. I don’t see this as a regular problem but I am sure it has happened before.

Furthermore, this week touched on Ren’Py which is another gaming creation tool. I will also heavily consider this for my final creative project. This looks like a more amped version of twine that allows for a more robust experience. Definitely need some coding experience for this one but there seems to be helpful tools on line that anyone can pick up on over the course o fa semester.

On top of this, we watched through a playthrough of “dream daddy” in class. This game was nothing like what I have played on my own, this was a dating simulator on steam. Quite interesting and had flavors of Pokémon boss battles in the middle of a date.

This week definitely had a lot of topics and readings which allows for the class to learn a lot quickly with small doses of just about anything related to games, gender, and culture. I enjoyed all of the content this week and would like to tie in some of my own experiences. I started gaming with Wii which did not have any of the games listed above, the gaming industry has definitely expanded into much more over the past several years which is very good for those who like to play new game genres. I have now moved onto PC gaming and never realized there were many more platforms on PC aside from steam. I have set aside some time this week to explore some of the new game genres talked about in class and replay some of the games that are similar.