Exam Q8

Explain at least two uses and gratifications of video games using Blumer and Katz's theory. Refer to the Lego movie video game to support your answer. 

Video games of ideal worlds are a great way in means of relationships, values, communication, surveillance and escapism. Video games help an average human pursue or do something they haven't or can't do in the real world. This is especially true with the Lego movie video game as it is an ideal world for many people. Everyone is happy and joyful, you can do or make anything you want and you have free will. This is very important as this is what kids at a young age want. Kids want to have control of what they do and free will in video games helps them do this. It makes kids feel they are free as long as they are playing it as no adults or people of more dominance can tell them otherwise. This sits under the idea of escapism. This Lego movie game is used as an additional piece of the actual Lego movie. People would go and watch the film and think that it is an amazing world, this is what the makers of Lego are trying to get across. They create happy scenes in the movie so that people would want to experience it themselves. This is one of the reasons why people would go out and buy the game.

Another use of Blumer and katz's gratification theory is when the viewers of the movie might see the movie through a certain characters eyes depending on their personality and values. This is the use of values when people might have been though similar times and therefore make personal connections with some characters.

 As well as these there is also the use of relationships with other people, otherwise known as the water cooler conversations. This is when some people don't see social media of the news and movies. This could end that people could be isolated from their social groups as they have nothing to talk about. It not only isolates them for their friends but the world as well as they do not know what is going on. This is when games like the Lego movie could make a change because there are items of the news and what’s happening that have been incorporated into the game. For example the Lego movie shows the government spying and corrupting everyone as they basically control everything. This means they can manipulate people in thinking differently.