#4 - CS493 - Why I would take the Course

CS493 - Week 1 Writing

My name is Joseph Krall, and I'm a Ph.D. student here at the West Virginia University.  I study games for my thesis and study software engineering and computer science for ways to improve upon both the thesis and the game industry.  My thesis is something I'd like to call the "Theory of Fun", which handles an approach on entertainment in which "fun" is the desirable state of mind that we help acclimate players into and keep them there.

My whole life I'd been interested in video games and much of my Ph.D. thesis is based on the study of games.  I thought perhaps I'd get the chance to make some more games through this class and fill in some facets perhaps, of what I have yet to learn in the field.  I see this being one of the more fun classes I'd ever had and as a chance to impress and gain some exposure.

To me, the study of games is a study on psychology of the human desire in terms of what it means for a game to be fun - which is of course, the ultimate goal of any game in providing entertainment, in that it can provide for immersion of the human psyche into the game world - a world where rules are different and often reflective of real world values.  Though most people understand the differences between immersed worlds and the real world, there are those that cannot - particularly the mentally challenged and the young.  This perhaps sheds my view on violence in video games.