When I was eight years old, my favorite game was Hay Day. It's a free farming game where you level up by collecting animal products, harvesting crops, keeping up your personal farm, fishing area, town, mine and steamboat. I was allowed to play 15 minutes every day on the family iPad, but as time progressed I lost much of my interest in the game. Recently, I remembered the days of fun I had playing Hay Day and downloaded it on my phone. I discovered that it was addictive, like most video games, and was basically a scam. The game has two in-game currencies: diamonds and coins. Coins are easy to get but you need lots of them to buy anything. A market system in Hay Day lets you sell and buy goods sold by other players, costing coins. Diamonds come into play when you want to speed up production of goods or crops and get special services for your farm. You can purchase loads of diamonds with real life money. Lots of little kids who love Hay Day don't understand the importance of money and the necessity of patience. The only reason that eight year old me didn't blow hundreds of my parents' money on Hay Day is that I was supervised. I think Supercell, Hay Day's developer, should consider putting restrictions on in-game real money purchases. But, we all know they won't because they're only in it for the money. However, they aren't the only company doing this: countless other developers make gargantuan profits off scamming little kids. Hay Day is just another interesting, addictive, kids game that makes money from exploitation. Maybe it's time the American people step up and say something. Summary
Oracle, Game. “Hay Day Guide: The Levelling System.” Game Skinny, GameSkinny, 5 Mar. 2014, www.gameskinny.com/zs7xi/hay-day-guide-the-levelling-system
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My group worked very hard on our video editing project this week. Max directed and videotaped the scenes, while Quinn made graphics for our facts. Without either of them, our project would be a disaster, but I also contributed a lot. Our progress was slow at first, though: we couldn’t decide on a good topic. We were going to do a project on arming teachers, but my teammates had conflicting viewpoints. After brainstorming for a while, I suggested we could do a project on vaping because we all have friends who do it. It’s an epidemic in American schools and we felt like an anti-vape PSA was a great idea for this assignment. I wrote the script almost single handedly, with Quinn and Max adding minute editing tips. During videotaping, Quinn and I followed Max’s directions and last-minute changes to the script to pave the path to success. While Max was editing videos, I offered suggestions to him while he thought of ingenious ways to shorten our project into the required length. Prior to Quinn making our group’s graphics, I did the research to find the devastating facts behind vaping. We made sure the full video was cohesive and made sense before Max submitted it for grading, and we reviewed each other’s respective blog posts. We were all leaders in this assignment; when someone was struggling the others helped him out. In conclusion, I am grateful I had hardworking, committed group members, Max and Quinn, as well as my work ethic for this project.
Summary
Watch our video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXH6hl2rNW4&feature=youtu.be Recently, a scam surfaced about parents paying grotesque amounts of money to get their children into college. The CEO of a college admissions prep company, William Rick Singer, sold two ways for rich kids to be fraudulently admitted into college. One was hiring professionals to take the ACT and/or SAT pretending to be students. Many test administrators were bribed by Singer of the scandal to let in people who were not students. Since the ACT and SAT tests are so crucial for college, good standardized test takers could give children a free ride to university. This could've been prevented by lessening the importance of the tests for success. The other way students were illicitly being accepted into colleges was via sports coaches. Some coaches, including ones from University of Southern California and Wake Forest University, were bribed into pretending that children were athletes. Parents sent pictures of their kids participating in activities to coaches, who showed them to admission officers. Gifted athletes are much more likely to be accepted into colleges, so Singer exploited this method. To prevent this, colleges should've paid less attention to athletes and dig deeper. This scandal has, however, only shown little of the corrupt American university system. Insane tuition rates, dependence on test scores, and pure athletic admissions have taken a toll on the future of low income, low ACT/SAT scoring, not athletic students. Imagine how many more people would be living the American Dream if colleges focused less on easily misused and unfair ways to be accepted. Hopefully this scandal will bring to life the inequalities of college and how well-off wealthy people are.
Summary
Bibliography Yan, Holly. “What We Know so Far in the College Admissions Cheating Scandal.” CNN, Cable News Network, 15 Mar. 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/03/13/us/what-we-know-college-admissions-cheating-scandal/index.html |
AuthorHI! I'm a 12th grader and on this page, I will blog about me and what I'm going through, both in Game Design class and in life. There are a mix of required blog posts and personal reflections, which you can sort, among other things, below the disclaimer and archives. DISCLAIMER
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