While I don't play as many online games as some people I know (I purposefully avoid MMORPGs and Facebook games), I know about and have had a little experience in these types of games. On top of that, I have a number of interesting perspectives I could get for interviews - my aunt and uncle who play facebook games with people they have never met in real life, my friends who play MMORPGs, the group that I play AIM-based games with (By the way, sorry I missed last Saturday's game. :( ), and any number of people who have played just online-content games. Heck, I could even interview my brother and nephew who play X-Box games together online and see how their experience compares.
Selecting topics to divide it into might be a challenge. I could divide it into areas of different types of games, but that wouldn't really create a good progression, and I'd prefer to have the end point be emphasized by the data. I could do it by date of creation, though that would only help the emphasis go so far. OR I could ignore organizing it by different game types entirely and make the structure be based entirely around the issues being discussed, which might be the best choice.
The best thing about this is that most of my textbooks will be able to help me with this too. I've got a book on Cyber-Ethics, dated as it may be, and a few books on gaming theory that will help with the analysis. On top of that, the articles I saved from my Virtual Worlds class will come in handy for analysis of MMORPG-style games and internet social interactions. I'll have to sift through the rest of my articles to see if any of them will help, and check to see if I can find anything else that'll help, but not only do I already know about this topic, I'll be able to draw on my education to make a paper that is actually pretty interesting to me personally while also being relevant and informative.
Of course, the big problem I always have with papers like this is that they want a conclusion, but also want the data analyzed to be weighed evenly without bias. When you realize that much of the data is already balancing against itself and that interpretation of most texts, even research texts, is still subjective, you realize that drawing an unbiased conclusion is essentially an exercise in convincing other people that you ARE unbiased, then going out of your way to alter the way you present the evidence to prove how unbiased you are.
Regardless, I'll be presenting the information the way I feel it ought to be presented, and starting with the conclusion that I already have in my head so that I can at least work towards a point. If it turns out that it will be detrimental to me to continue to argue that point, I might just have to go back and revise my work, but I think the conclusion of "you really ought to be careful, but you can still enjoy yourself" is pretty unbiased. And, as long as I can make that sound important, I think I've got a pretty good thesis concept lined up.
Two more days until the class starts. Little bit nervous about this last one. Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment