Assignment 1 – Assignment on Gaming

1. List top 10 popular Games in the following (2019): Android, iPhone, PlayStation and Xbox

Android

1) PUBG Mobile
2) Alto’s Adventure
3) Battleheart 2
4) Sega Heroes
5) Battlelands Royale
6) Shadowgun Legends
7) Monument Valley
8) Knights of Pen and Paper
9) The Escapists
10) Space Marshals

Play station

1) Control
2) Outer Wilds
3) A Plague Tale
4) Heaven’s Vault
5) Shenmue 3
6) Judgement
7) Sekiro
8) Falcon Age
9) Mutazione
10) Star Wars Jedi

Xbox

1) Control
2) Outer Wilds
3) A Plague Tale
4) Sekiro
5) Star Wars Jedi
6) Outer Wilds
7) Mortal Kombat 11
8) Sea of Solitude
 9) Kingdom Hearts 3
10) Devil May Cry 5

iphone

1) Fortnite
2) Donut County
3) Hearthstone
4) Battlelands Royale
5) Pubg Mobile
6) Sega Heroes
7) Plague
8) Alto Adventure
9) Lara Croft Go
10) Smash Hit

2. What are gaming cafes? Can you find any listings online for such cafes in India?

A small business resembling an Internet cafe but with an emphasis on computer games.

Gaming Cafe in India – The Chain Where in India

Arknemesis Gaming Chennai region

LXG Karnataka region

Zone Cafe West Bengal and East India

Nexus Delhi region

RFD Gaming North Kolkata region

3. List top 10 violent incidents / news related to PUBG in 2019-2020

1. Self harm
A fitness trainer in Jammu was admitted to the psychiatric hospital earlier in January, after he began self-
harming. Supposedly the sixth such case in the state, doctors suggest he might have undergone emotional
distress related to his addiction to the game, after he played it near-nonstop for 10 days. After finishing up a
round one day, he reportedly began hitting himself hard, injuring himself and having to be rushed to the
hospital.

2. Missing a school year

A youngster from Pune apparently became so addicted to the game after a year of playing, that he refused
began to skip school to keep playing. When his parents noticed and took away his phone, he became violent.
Eventually, he ended up missing an entire academic year in the process.

3. Suicide when stopped from playing

A 17-year-old boy from Jind in Haryana committed suicide after his mother took away his phone for playing too
much PUBG. Though he had passed his class X exams a year before, he never bothered going to classes at
his new higher secondary school for a year, instead opting to play PUBG instead. When he was found trying to
secretly play PUBG on the roof of their family home, his mother took away his phone. The boy was found
hanging in his room the next day.

4. Suicide when denied an expensive phone to play

An 18-year-old boy from Mumbai committed suicide after being denied a Rs 37,000 smartphone to play PUBG.
Distraught that he was missing out, he hung himself from the ceiling fan in the kitchen of their residence.

5. Distracted and run over by a train

Earlier this year, two men in Maharashtra were run over by a train while playing PUBG. They were distracted,
playing the game near the railway tracks in Hingloi district, and were mowed down by a train. 

6. Drinking acid instead of water

A 25-year-old from Madhya Pradesh was engrossed in his match when he felt thirsty. He reached for a drink of
water without taking his eyes of the screen. Unfortunately for him, he accidentally grabbed a bottle of acid,
drinking a lot of it before realising what was happening. Though he survived, he was rushed to the hospital with
serious injuries.

7. Playing till you drop

A 16-year-old from Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh apparently though it was a good idea to play the popular
game for six hours at a stretch. Shortly after losing a match, he reportedly complained of a headache and fell
unconscious. He was brought to the hospital with no pulse and doctors failed to revive him. They suspect he
may have suffered a cardiac episode thanks to too much adrenaline from the prolonged gaming session.

8. Nerve damage from bad posture

A 20-year-old from Jagitial in Telangana died while playing PUBG, apparently after he'd been playing near
constantly for 45 consecutive days. He was rushed to a hospital in Hyderabad where he died while undergoing
treatment. Doctors theorized he might have caused irreparable damage to the nerves in his neck, bending over
his phone for so many hours at a stretch.

9. Killing a brother to play

A 15-year-old from Bhiwandi in Maharashtra allegedly killed his 18-year-old brother when he scolded him for
playing too much PUBG. The boy reportedly got so angry he slammed his brother's head into the wall and
stabbed him repeatedly with a pair of scissors.

10. Killing father for 'peace of mind'

A 25-year-old from Karnataka killed his father so he would have a chance to play PUBG "in peace". He would
reportedly fight with his 65-year-old father regularly over his PUBG addiction. Eventually one day, in a fit of
anger during an argument, he cut off his father's head and legs.

4. What are the top five most controversial games and why?

1. CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2 “No Russian”

The “No Russian” mission was probably one of the most controversial missions in the franchise or any other
shooter for that matter. The mission, though optional, places the user amongst a Russian Terrorist group as an
undercover in circumstances of which, the user is forced to commit a massacre at an airport. It seemed that
the intent of the scriptwriter was to make the scene to be deliberately disturbing and upsetting, but also
something that people could relate to. Not that the sales of the game were affected with this controversy, but
it’s a popular opinion that the mission was one of the most morally reprehensible thing that they could do, upon
completion, made them feel pretty much like s***.

2. RESIDENT EVIL 5

No sooner did the first game footage of Resident Evil 5 get released, it was under some heavy scrutiny for
racism. Set in the fictional village in Africa, Chris Redfield has to shoot down as many of the African zombies –
this of course caused an intellectual riot where critiques argues the game played into the colonial sense of the
dominant white male to treat Africans as “savages”. The game also was seen to have strong rape insinuations
where the African Zombie drags a white woman off to be “infected”. However, most people disagreed with this
entire analysis, including the University of Kent and the British Board of Film Classification saying that there
was nothing “racist” about the game and in fact had an “anti-colonialist” theme.

3. SILENT HILL 2

Silent Hill 2 is easily one the bone-chilling games ever and frankly had many players on the end of their pants
though most part of it. While you slowly explore the creepy house and in weak attempts are try to hide away
from monsters, you run into the Pyramid Head doing…things to two mannequins with female lower bodies. Not
only is that scary as hell, but it’s scarring to a very different level. Though in the recent HD version of the game
that was released in 2012, the developers sought it right to wordlessly remove the rape scene. Be that as it
may, I can’t un-see what I saw.

4. Doom

Though there was nothing outwardly “wrong” about the game per se, it is said to be described as the “mass
murder simulator” for its violent gun fare and graphic violence, not to mention, the satanic references. One of
the reasons this game got an infamous drag in the controversial list is because of the Columbine High School
Massacre of 1999. The two teens that gunned down their classmates and teacher were known to play Doom
and Mortal Kombat in excess, causing people to believe that it was the games influence on the teens and
indirectly, the cause of the massacre. A rumour went about suggesting that the Columbine shooters had
created a level in Doom that resembled the High School in order to prepare for the attack. This however, was
of course not true or proven as the level was never found.

5. RAPEPLAY

The game itself was the most controversial game ever, having been of course tagged as a “rape simulator” or
a “realistic sexual simulator”. Rapelay was a Japanese Video Game where the player took on the role of a
rapist, who stalks a number of women and rapes them explicitly in different situations, with the ultimate goal to
make them their sex slaves. The player’s target is a mother and her two daughters. The game is so sick, that it
was very correctly banned from almost every country that it was released in. Its reception was so poor that the
game was completely erased from the developer’s site, and possibly never to be seen again.

5. List top 20 articles related to gaming deaths globally in 2019-2020

1. A 16-year-old boy shot both his parents over a disagreement with regards to his video game being
confiscated
2. Boy, 12, Killed With Stones By Friends In Fight Over Playing Games On Phone
3. Rajasthan Man Kills Wife With Scissors, Sits Near Body, Plays Video Game
4. Pak Teen Beaten To Death By Friend Over Video Game Token: Report
5. 18-year-old dies after playing video game for 40 hours
 6. An 18-year-old from Taiwan died in an internet café after continuously playing for 40-hours non-stop.
7. A 17-year-old Philippine teen murdered his 68-year-old grandmother for interrupting his game in a
neighbourhood internet café.
8. A South Korean man was totally addicted to the game, and he ended up spending all his time in front of
the screen. 
9. An 11-year-old was stabbed to death in the Philippines by a 16-year-old boy
10. A 28-year-old from Philadelphia beat his 17-month daughter to death after the latter crawled into his
room and accidentally toppled the gaming console and broke it.
11. A 12-year-old girl was stabbed 19 times and left in the woods to die. Two of her friends, 12 and 13,
were playing the video game and hoped that the ghost in the game would not haunt them if they
sacrificed their friend and left her in the woods. They planned this for months.
12. A 23-year-old Chinese gamer died of exhaustion after continuously playing the game for 19-hours non-
stop in an internet café at Shanghai. 
13. A 17-year-old Russian teen Rustam dies after playing the game continuously for over 22-day with just
enough breaks to snack and nap.
14. A 17-year-old from England was sentenced to life for emulating a death scene in a video game, where
he stabbed a 14-year-old kid over 50 times until he died.
15.  8-year-old boy from Louisiana shot his 87-year-old grandmother in the back of her head for being
stopped from playing his game.

6. List top MMORPG online

1. LOST ARK

2. Neverwinter

3. Star Trek Online

4. Guild Wars 2

5. Final Fantasy 14

7. Spend 1 hour on watching various streams on Twitch.tv

8. List top 5 Gaming magazines globally

1. 110% Gaming.

2. PC Gamer.

3. Retro Gamer.

4. Minecraft World.

5. Edge. For the more mature gamer in your life, Edge magazine provides unbiased news and reviews
from around the world.

9. What are the top symptoms of excessive gaming? Write a 300 word essay on this.

Video games have captured the imagination of Americans since the 1970s, with the introduction of very simple
games. Although the graphic features of these basic programs were primitive compared to today’s complex,
multifaceted games, many children, teens, and adults quickly became enthralled with this new pastime. It soon
became apparent that video games had the potential to consume a large amount of time as the players tried
repeatedly to win. Today, video game addiction has been recognized as a process addiction similar to
compulsive gambling, in which the rush of winning becomes one of the primary motivations for playing.

In the early days of video games, most games were available only on arcade machines, which were not
accessible 24 hours a day. These days, games are one of the most popular features of social network sites,
and they can be played almost continuously on handheld game devices, personal computers, or smart phones.
Video games have become much more elaborate, with rich alternate worlds, multiple characters, and
complicated storylines. Introverted children or teens may find that they can avoid interacting with “real” peers
by engaging primarily with other online players, in the guise of characters with awe-inspiring gifts and powers.

Video game addiction is a real mental health condition affecting millions of people around the world.

The World Health Organization recognizes it as “Gaming Disorder” in their International Classification of
Diseases (ICD-11) as “a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour, which may be online or offline,
manifested by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes
precedence over other life interests and daily activities and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the
occurrence of negative consequences.”

Although billions of people play video games, the majority of them do not have an addiction to gaming, and the
World Health Organization estimates the number of people with an addiction is 3-4%. The difference between
a healthy fun gaming hobby and an addiction is the negative impact the activity is having in your life.
Typically a gaming addict will have a level of severity resulting in “significant impairment in personal, family,
social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning,” and the pattern of gaming behavior
is “normally evident over a period of at least 12 months in order for a diagnosis to be assigned, although the
required duration may be shortened if all diagnostic requirements are met and symptoms are severe.”

10. What are the measures you will take as a policy maker in India to prevent gaming addiction? Write
a 300 word essay on this.

While playing online games, if something wrong happened, stop immediately and take a screenshot (using the
'print screen' button on the keyboard) and report it.

Help your child to protect their privacy online, get them to use a screen name (avatar) that does not reveal their
real name.

Use antivirus/spyware programs and configure web browsers securely using a firewall.

Activate parental controls and safety features on the device or in the app or browser as it helps restrict access
to certain content and limit spending on in-game purchases.

Notify if a stranger tries to start a conversation about something inappropriate or requests personal information.
Check the age rating of any games your child is playing.

In case of bullying, encourage people not to respond and keep a record of the harassing messages and report
the behaviour to the game site administrator/block, mute or ‘unfriend’ that person from their player's list, or turn
off the in-game chat function.

Play alongside your child to get a better sense of how they are handling their personal information and who
they are communicating with.

Help your child understand that some features in online games are used to encourage more play and
spending.

Talk to them about gambling, what it is and its consequences both online and in the physical world.

Always ensure that your child accesses internet from a computer placed in the family
space.

Keep your eyes open for:

Unusually secretive behaviour, mostly related to their online activity

A sudden increase in the time they spend online, especially social media

They seem to change screens on their devices when approached

They become withdrawn or angry after using the internet or sending text messages.

Their device suddenly has many new phone numbers ·and email contacts.

Install an internet gateway at home that has features like monitoring, logging, and controlling the types of
content that children can access.

Teachers need to keep an eye on falling grades and the social behaviour of the students.

If teachers observe something that may seem suspicious or alarming, they should inform the school authorities
immediately.

Teachers should ensure that children are sensitized about the pros and cons of the internet from time to time.