Cyber Games to focus on the masses

This article is mainly about the World Cyber Games (WCG), a domain and competition for serious competitive gamers, having casual games such as Guitar Hero III and Fifa 2008 introduced to it. Mobile phone games have also been included in the WCG. The WCG normally only consists of includes real time strategy (RTS) or first person shooters (FPS) games. These games generally attract serious and professional gamers. These games also require much more time, practice, coordination and knowledge of the terrain to win as compared to Fifa, Guitar Hero or mobile phone games. Thus, these types of games are considered as “casual”. However, I know that no games are actually “casual”, since every game selected for the WCG is very competitive and require a lot of skill to actually beat the other players.
The organisers did so to spread the gaming culture to the masses, including professional female gamers who have been increasing yearly. The organisers want gaming to be accessible to everyone, non-professional or female or even older gamers.
I fully support this change in the WCG categories. I believe that having a wider range of games would lead to more gamers wanting to participate or participating in the WCG. There are many gaming competitions, and the WCG is the biggest and most well known out of all of them. Thus, the changes in the WCG might lead to better changes in the other gaming competitions. This will also help aspiring and currently professional gamers in being reassured of them having gaming as a career. Why and how does this assurance come about?
Although a lot of professional gamers are sponsored by companies such as SK Gaming, having a wider range of games also creates a stronger belief for aspiring professional gamers since they will be further assured that there will be multiple competitions of games that they specialize so that they will be able to support themselves economically and make a living out of gaming. If people are insecure about their future, how will they be able to step forward? It’s the same concept with gaming. When aspiring gamers know that it is possible for them to make a living out of gaming, will they then proceed to become professional gamers.
So, where does this lack of assurance originate from? There are very few professional gamers as compared to athletes and musicians. Gaming requires as much time, effort, practice, coordination, preparation, and most importantly, skill and talent as compared to music and sports. There are people who love gaming and are addicted to it, but, the same goes for music and sports. The risks are the same, maybe even lesser. People have died through excessive gaming, but such cases are rare. However, much more people have died and multiple accidents have occurred in sports. Yet, sports are so much better recognized then gaming. People all over the world train, work and compete in the Olympics. Everyone is excited about the Olympics. However, how many people actually care about the WCG, the biggest gaming competition that occurs yearly. It is a miserable few as compared to those for the Olympics. It is considered an honor for athletes to win the Olympics in the name of their country. But, who actually cares when their country wins the WCG. The only country that properly recognizes gaming is Korea, where gaming is a national sport and the professional gamers over there are treated as rock stars. Why is this so?
This is largely due to society’s negative and discriminative mindset. Many parents and people think that gaming is “a waste of time and a waste of life”. Therefore many people do not choose professional gaming as a career. This causes the player base to be low, which in turn leads to companies or governments not sponsoring, assisting, or hosting gaming competitions. This finally comes back to parents believing that gaming is not good as a career. Thus, the vicious cycle repeats.
So, society’s negative mindset is the root cause of gaming not being well recognized as a career and a good hobby. However, I believe that this negative mindset can be corrected. One first step is of course to increase the possibility of gaming being a proper career that people can advance into. Athletes and musicians are able to do what they love to do as a career. So, why should gamers be any different? I believe that gamer should have a career foundation as good as those of athletes and musicians. Gamers should be well recognized and taken as seriously as athletes. I believe that this can be done through government and global assistance. If the people around the world and the government support gaming, then many companies will sponsor gaming competitions. This will increase the price money and thus gamers will be able to make a proper living out of professional gaming. The changes in the WCG categories are just a small step to achieving this goal. The mindset of the people is still very important and has to be changed. One first step to doing so is for the media to stop degrading gaming and associate it with people facing problems after having being engrossed in gaming. There have only been neutral and negative articles about gaming. When has there ever been an article that promotes gaming? This is not because there is nothing good about gaming, but it’s the mindset. Thus, changing the way the media portrays gaming is very important since the media largely influences the perception of the people.
To end it off, I think that this change in the WCG categories would set a stronger foundation for the gaming culture. This is just one out of the many changes to come that would assist professional gamers in their career. I believe that society should start correcting their negative mindset of gaming and think through it properly. I sincerely hope that one day, gaming would be on the same level of recognition as sports and music.

Word Count: 1000
Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Singapore/Story/STIStory_258472.html

Does democracy create stability in a society?

Does democracy create stability in a society?

Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. This means that people vote for who rules over them. Thus, the people govern themselves.

Stability in a society is a state at which the society faces very few internal or external conflicts. Thus, a stable society is a society which is peaceful, where the people living in the society will not create conflicts because they like it. A stable society is a society without conflict.

So, does democracy create stability in a society? I personally believe that democracy does create stability in a society. Conflicts are only created if the people living in the society are unhappy. People will usually vote for people whom they believe are “right”. If the people are governed by people whose views and actions they think are right, they will not be unhappy. Therefore, there will be no conflicts and the society will generally be stable. This is the outline of why democracy will create stability in a society.

However, this is only true when certain conditions are met.

For example, the voting must be fair. This means that, parties must not use money or any resources or incentives to persuade people to vote for them. This is because this will eliminate the reason of why democracy creates stability. When people vote parties not because they believe that they are “right”, in the future, when the party does something which the people dislike, the people will be unhappy and conflict will occur, thus creating instability. This is “fake” democracy, where the reason why democracy was created is not achieved.

Another condition would be that the winning party’s votes must be unanimous or dominating. For example, if the majority’s votes are only more than the minority’s votes by one, the majority will still win. However, if both parties have conflicting ideals, it would definitely lead to conflict. Given a scenario of a total of 11 votes between 2 parties, if 11 votes went to Party A, the people would be happy and there would be no conflict. If 10 votes went to Party A, and 1 went to Party B, then the voter for Party B will not dare to revolt even if he is unhappy because he will believe that he has no chance to win. But, if 6 votes went to party A while 5 votes went to party B, party B will definitely riot because they will be unhappy and they have the numbers to fight it out with party A. Therefore, it will lead to conflict and instability.

Along with these two conditions, there are also many others to be met so that democracy will lead to stability. However, it is very hard or not possible for these conditions to all be met at the same time. In conclusion, I believe that democracy will only create stability it many conditions are met, however it is not possible to do so, therefore, democracy will not create stability in a society.

US study rejects Internet sex predator stereotype

This article that I got from ‘The Straits Times’ is about a US study that shows that Internet sex predators do not act as teenagers teen to lure unsuspecting victims into face-to-face meetings that result in violent rapes, instead they are adults who make their intentions of a sexual encounter quite plain, direct and straightforward to vulnerable young teenagers who often believe they are in love with the sex predator.

In this current modern world, where the internet allows quick and easy communication between people from all around the world, where people can impersonate anyone or act like someone totally different from themselves, teenagers will obviously become more vulnerable to online sex predators because many teenagers are unable to follow a simple rule that we all learn when we are young, ‘do not go out with strangers’.

Why are these sex predators able to strike? What should these teenagers understand to prevent themselves from becoming victims? The article states what the sex predators act like, but I believe there can be more.

Not going out with strangers is such a simple task, yet many fail to accomplish it. Why? I think that this is because teenagers nowadays are very curious about these types of issues. They would also definitely be exited, anxious, or curious to meet the person they ‘love’, ‘Curiosity killed the cat’, a simple phrase that actually means a lot, could actually prevent these teenagers from becoming victims. They should understand that these sex predators will never be able to strike nor attack them if these victims do not step out of their houses to meet the sex predator. What I believe is worse is that these sex predators have already explicitly stated they would like to have sex, yet these victims still voluntarily walk into the tiger’s den. I think that these teenagers should exercise some awareness about these sex predators and have some restraint to not go out with them. The teenagers need to understand that strangers whom they meet online should never be trusted totally if the stranger would like to progress to a real life meeting.

What I think that these teenagers need to know, is that they have to draw a fine line between reality and virtual reality. They need to able to distinguish the difference between them and leave them separated instead of clumping them together. Virtual reality can never be combined with love to create ‘virtual love’. Large sums of teenagers fall in love with the people they meet online and these relationships rarely ever last or progress to a deeper stage. Teenagers need to understand that strangers, whom they meet online, should be regarded as online friends and only as online friends. Treating them like a friend whom one knows in real life is impossible. An online friend is just a virtual character in a game, their actions can be faked, their personality can be faked, and their looks can be faked.


Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Tech%2B%2526%2BScience/STIStory_208093.html