Friday Favorites #2

Sony's PlayStation division has always had a rather inventive approach to advertising their product. I have always been highly entertained by the adverts they create, even if they are completely bizarre as many often were. Just take a look at the PlayStation 3 "This is Living" campaign. With the recent lauch of the new PlayStation Vita Sony had some more marketing to do. The new campaign for the PSVita, "The World is in Play"does not disappoint me at all. It got me thinking about Sony's past campaigns and the adverts that captured my interest and imagination.

Schools Get in The Game. (originally published 03/06/2009)

Brock delivers his seminar

“Ok, it’s time to submit your school reports. Did everyone play Mario Kart at the weekend? Good. Let’s begin with group discussion, what is the premise and objective of the game?”
This may sound a little strange but for one Minneapolis teacher video games have become learning tools for his class of sixth to eighth graders.  Brock Dubbels of Seward Montessori in Minneapolis designed his ‘Video Games as Learning Tools’ class to span a three week period, requiring children to create detailed multimedia presentations from video games played in groups. He explains that the children are not just learning from the games content but also gaining key skills from playing and studying the games. Dubbels, who has a background in cognitive psychology, goes on to say “It connects to their lives. Research shows that children want to perform where they have competence.” Brock Dubbels spreads the word with training seminars and online courses designed to show other teachers how his three week course works.

Gaming is an Art. (originally published 02/06/2009)

Opinions of gaming and gamers are starting to change but the popular stereotype is still that gamers are nerdy, daylight starved kids with all the community social skills of a brick. We know that's not true of gamers and there are some of the rest of the population who see it that way too but not enough. We want people to see gaming for what it really is and gamer's as the real people that they are. This is understandably difficult given the rocky road the industry has travelled in terms of publicity through various media. "Videogames rot your kid’s brains" has quite a ring to it and sticks in the minds of concerned parents. Hundreds of articles in the newspapers about the horrors portrayed within these games and that they not only promote violence but encourage it. Causing the hapless, feeble minded social outcasts who play videogames to go and act out the brutality they have just witnessed from their games console. This, unfortunately, is the first impression modern gaming gave to Joe public and even though it is fading slowly we still need to fight it back.