Christ Church lecturer defends new media

Video games are part of the new era of entertainment, Canterbury lecturer Alan Meades believes they are not as addictive as the media would like everyone to think.

Mr Meades teaches new media theory to students at Canterbury Christ Church University. With an avid interest in games himself he can see the appealing side to them. He said: “I certainly think that they are compelling and designed in a way to seduce the player – but for me addiction has a very different connotation."

Video games have a certain stigma attached to them with controversies of violence and addiction mentioned when a new big release is pending. However the Broadstairs resident questioned the reaction to other media. He said: “I think that video games are initially attractive in the same way that any significantly emotionally engaging text is – think EastEnders, Treasure Island, The White Album.”

Elaborating on his point, he explains that a game differs to these other texts and media because it has a two way response, it can interact to the whim of a player.

Alan is widely regarded as an expert in the field of new media, he has conducted one of the largest studies on players of MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) and as invited to New York to speak about cultural identity in games.

The programme director for BA digital media, shows a balanced view regarding video games and whether they are addictive or not, saying games prompt a similar reaction to a film, TV show or book but “there are a number of people who simply find something unhealthily compelling.”

He goes on to explain how the pseudo social atmosphere that is created in the ever popular online gaming world can grip a player. He spoke about games that require a player to depend on a group to help achieve a task.

He said: “This requires significant social organisation and inter-dependency – if the ‘tank’ or the ‘healer’ doesn’t do their job (perhaps they just pop to the toilet at a crucial time) this can result in catastrophic failure (in terms of the game) with the loss of hours worth of accumulated effort.

Eventually these social bonds build and become persuasive – just like social groupings in real life.”

The award winning film maker protects a form of entertainment that he is so fond of, saying people jump to quickly to criticise video games and says they are reaching new heights: “take Fallout 3 and New Vegas for example – they are as deep and compelling as a work of literature.”

Mr Meades, who is currently doing his doctrinal research on online multi player video games finished by telling the critics that video game addiction is an under researched idea, with people jumping to conclusions and he said: “ I think that people are often referring back to early notions of video games and that they entirely miss out on the richness of the experience.”