Eric Urbanowicz – Special to The Southern News
The line outside of GameStop twists and turns as the company Bungie’s highly anticipated game, Destiny, is released. Lately, it hasn’t been the only big game to be released; in fact, it’s one of several highly anticipated games. September is the second of three months of the year’s biggest releases in terms of video games. it appears that more success is to come for the industry.
According to Game Informer’s video game release date list, August saw the release of EA Sports Madden NFL 15 as well as Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo 3. The following month saw Destiny as well as EA Game’s The Sims 4 released. All of which have already sold millions of copies and don’t appear to be letting up anytime soon.
With EA Sports FIFA 15, Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers, and countless others coming out within the next month, it appears that gamers will have more fun to enjoy. Angelica Miller, a former Southern student works at GameStop and expects a big rush.
“I wasn’t there for the Destiny release,” said Miller with a look of anticipation, “but I heard from co workers, as well as social media, the rush to pick up the game was huge.”
She also believes that titles such as the new Super Smash Brothers and Borderlands will have the biggest storms when they’re released.
In this gamer’s paradise, Jake Chambless, a senior at Southern, believes more impact is to come.
“I think that since they’re throwing out all these new games,” Jake said with a cheek-to-cheek smile on his face, “I believe they’re trying to prime us up for something big.”
With each game appearing to have sequels on the way, he may be right. He also believes that online gaming will become even bigger than ever. In fact, he’s helped Southern gamers unite.
“When I was a freshman, I started a club here at Southern, the gamers club, so people could play games,” said Jake proudly.
He believes that if students connect through games, they can make friends, as well as get all their gaming in as so they don’t get distracted.
Not everyone believes that gaming should be done so much. Andrew Mushin, another senior at Southern, hasn’t had the success Jake’s suggested.
“I’ve been a procrastinator anyway, so yeah, it has,” said Andrew sighing, “that’s why I haven’t played games in a while.”
While he only has played Madden NFL, he’s played in online leagues since it first started in 2013. He also believes that sports gamers will be playing the game for many years to come.
“It’s one of the biggest video game franchises in history,” said Andrew “along with Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, etc. Even with the recent problems facing the NFL, people love football”
Though not as big of a gamer, it still has affected him and his grades.
In a study done by the Penn State University, it appears there may be a correlation between poor grades and video games. Using children aged six to nine, two groups of students were formed; one half getting a PlayStation 2 and the others being promised one after four months.
Students who didn’t have the system did better in after school activities, while the others were shown to have lower reading scores, as well as even lower writing scores. While college students may be older and more mature, their brains are still developing in the first few years so essentially the correlation may still be there.
Gaming is here to stay, no matter the results it’s up now to the user to balance priorities with responsibilities.
Photo Credit: Dicolplio Family
