SWOT Analysis of HM

SWOT Analysis of HM The paper provides an overview on Hennes Mauritz (HM), analyzing the industry environment and the position in the retail market. The paper also explores the impact of the recession upon the human resource management activities, based on publicly available details of HM, which has been analyzed and presented within the context of the perspective. Introduction The retail industry is usually a very dynamic, and a fast changing sector in the market. It represents one of the main sectors in the UK economy, in terms of employment, transactions and turnover, so that as a consequence, it is a highly competitive and a sophisticated industry. Thompson (2002) argues that economic conditions are an important element in the industry and he states that they may affect the way, weather easy or difficult, a business runs the activity successfully and profitable .Furthermore he claims that economic conditions may affect both capital availability, cost and demand. Companies in the fashion sector have to keep all the time the attention on monitoring the market, and should try to identify any new trends as soon as possible and, above all, they have to keep up with the customers increasing expectations, needs and changing tastes. As the paper shows above, the analysis will be on the HennesMauritz fashion business which is considered one of the worlds favourite and preferred designers of clothes and accessories for man, women, teenagers and babies. In addition, HM its also known not only for the fashion cosmetics and accessories but also because of the quality of the clothes ,using sustainable materials like organic cotton, wool and organic denim, all being environmental friendly (HM website (1), viewed 20 October 2010). According to the Datamonitor (2010, p.4) HM is a large clothing retailer with its operations primarily set in Europe, North America, and Asia, owning in 2009 1,988 stores worldwide and reaching sales of 119 billion Sweden Kronor. (HM website (2), viewed 20 October 2010). The companys main office is based in Stockholm, Sweden and employs almost 76,000 workers out of which more than 53,476 are on full time employment as of November 2009. HMs strategic approach is to offer designer clothes to general population at affordable prices, the company working with such brand names as Stella McCartney, Karl Lagerfeld, Roberto Cavalli and Lanvin (Capell Beucke 2005, p. 16; Kroll 2004, p. 71; Zimmerman 2009, p. D1; WWD 2010, p. 2). RECESSION IN RETAIL SECTOR Nowadays almost all kinds of industries are willing to maintain their competitive position in the market during the recession period. Most of the challenges that the retail market faces are related to the economic and the financial aspects. The fashion industry faced unfavourable situation due to the reduction of the money spent on clothes, but also due to the change in consumers behaviour. According to Kambil (2009) recession should last less than 2 years, and managers should take full advantage of this in order to rethink and renew their strategies and their competitive positions in the UK retail market. The UK retail market was just one of the industries hit by the global economic downturn, as shoppers were forced to limit their spending and consumer confidence was shaken by the failure of important retail giants like Woolworth. With the retail market getting back on its feet in 2010 particularly the online sales segment, where UK web sales grew by 18% in August 2010 (BBC website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11034030 ), compared with the same month a year earlier one of the most pressing concerns is whether there will be long-term effects on consumer confidence or spending. The retail industry has been an excellent contributor to the UKs economy. According to the British Retail Consortium, the retail sector is one of the second largest employers in the UK, employing 11% of the UK workforce, some 2.9 million people as of March 2009. Historical evidences depict that the UKs economic development has been dominantly fuelled by the successes in the fashion industry especially because of the existence of 286,680 retail outlets in the UK (British Retail Consortium website). Over all these years, industrial success in textiles and fashion goods component have been significant and can be attributed to the continuous change and improvements in the lifestyle of the shoppers and the increasing value being placed to such products. Consumers constantly experimented different looks, styles, fabrics and ideas and their interest in fashion accessories has been stimulated by high media exposure, which have been growing over the last few years. This assiduous rise in the consumer spending on fashion products led to practically unchallenged growth in the industry. Despite the crisis in this sector of the economy, some of the organizations managed to grow their market share. According to Kambil (2008) companies need to focus their attention on the market share and in addition they had to launch new products and adjust the existing ones in order to improve their relations with the customers. Using HM as a company example, they tried to beat the effects of the downturn, by launching designer clothes in partnership with well-know designers like Jimmy Choo, Roberto Cavalli and Lanvin this November (HM website, viewed 21 October 2010). Moreover the economic recession has affected many HR Processes and they needed to be adapted to the new economic environment and furthermore they had to be ready to face the new reality. The impact of the recession is not the same and many HR Processes can continue their regular operation without any adjustment. Even if recession has affected many fashion organisations, closing stores or slashing prices, one of the big retailers operating on the UK market, HM ,was keeping quite well, in addition they were opening stores, entering new markets, and adding new brands (Spiegel website, April 9 2008, ). Another major effect of the recession in the retail industry is the staff redundancies. According to The Telegraph website there is an important downsizing in this sector, which may affect retail organisations in many ways. The article shows that at the beginning of 2009 economists were announcing massive staff reductions between 100,000 and 135,000 jobs due to the severity of the slowdown. Moreover the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development predicted at that time more than 600,000 jobs will be lost and many companies will be forced to freeze their workforces pay. Sales have been also suffering by the economic downturn, reporting a volume of retail sales lower with 0.1% than October last year (National Statistics Online website, http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=256). Among the factors that should be taken into consideration is the current economic growth rate in the nation. This directly refers to an economys rise in value of services or goods produced. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the case of United Kingdom, the economic growth rate in 2010 grew by 1.1% in the second quarter of the year (BBC website, National Statistics Online website, http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=256 ). Another economic factor that may influence retail business in the fashion industry is the inflation. According to the BBC newspaper, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), inflation increased to 3.2% in October from 3.1% per cent in the previous month (BBC newspaper, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11784775, Appendix A) SWOT Analysis of HM According to Armstrong (2004) SWOT is defined as (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and is a popular framework for developing a marketing strategy. SWOT analysis is basically done to find out if they have sufficient resources to cover their weakness and still achieve their objective. Strength Hennes Mauritz AB build its strengths by operating through complementary retail channels stores, Internet, and printed catalogues. According to Datamonitor (2010) one of the significant strength of HM Company is the request for its products which rise up the inventory turnover and enables low price cut. Customer express their preference for HM product especially clothes because of its quality at the best price but also because of the stores which are refreshed and reordered daily with new garments products. Moreover, collaboration with designer like Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Roberto Cavalli and Lanvin this November, which are very well know worldwide, will improve the desire for their garments ,but also will accelerate sales growth ( Business week website, viewed 19 October 2010) . Another major strength of HM is the presence on different markets such as Europe, North America and Asia with almost 2000 stores (HM website (4), viewed 20 October 2010). This fact is a positive aspect for the company because they can diversify their risk, but also be sustainably- financially, socially and environmentally (CSR Report 2009). Weaknesses One of the most important and noticeable weakness that HM encounters is the segment that the fashion company targets. HM designs clothes for young customers offering them the HM Divided and HM L.O.G.G collections. Second fact that can be taken into consideration as a weaknesses is the shoppers base which is influenced by the macro economic environment in a negative way (Datamonitor 2010).The article claims that HM focus on the young segment of the market, which is one of the worst hit by the recession, with 21% rate of unemployment for teenagers under age of 25. Opportunities First of all, one of the most important opportunities that HM faces is the e-commerce. According to Datamonitor (2010) HM online sales grew by 22% with 4.7% of the total retail online sales in Europe. Moreover the online sales within more 17 European Countries (such as France, UK, Germany) are estimated to grow by 11% each year over the next five years. Even if the recession affected the retail industry, Hennes Mauritz opened in 2009 250 stores worldwide with 25 more than they planned. (HM website (3), viewed 21 October 2010) Second of all, the expansion plans 2010-1011 for HM intend to reach a 10-15 % each year. The Company tries to focus on markets like Asia where the sales double over, China Japan and South Korea. (Financial times website October 20, 2010). Another opportunity that HM takes full advantage of is the use of organic cotton which classified the company in the top twelve global brands and retailer using organic cotton. Threats Threats of the company are also related to the economic recession because shoppers spend less money on clothes. Over the year 2010 employment were expected to become worse, peaking towards the end of the year at approximately 10.3% and consumers were expected to apply for benefits. Second major threat for the organisation is the VAT which has been reduced in the UK in 2008 by 15% and in January 2010 has been changed again do 17.5%. Apart of this change the cost for cotton has been modified as well with almost 60-75 % by the end of 2009 and with 20-30% during 2010 (Datamonitor 2010 , http://web.ebscohost.com/bsi/pdf?vid=20hid=7sid=4b01c02d-b8cf-414f-b787-7f93a0b69865%40sessionmgr113 ). Human Resource Management in a recession The retail sector is one of the most hit by the global economic recession, so that managers should handle the effects of recession as professionally as possible in a downturn. But since when human resource management is dealing with the implementation of the strategies and policies relating to the management of individuals, the department become one of the most responsible to bring the organisation on the right track during recession time. According to Kambil (2008) there are some important steps that a business should follow in order to maintain their competitive position on the market. Some of these vital steps are the improvement of prices in order to grow margins, the increase of the financial and operational efficiency, but also the concentration on the market share. According to Armstrong (2009, p.5) the purpose of the human resource management is to make sure that an organisation is able to perform well through its staff, but also to increase the efficiency and the capability of the business. Furthermore, it also helps the business to reach it goals by using the resources available to their best use. One of the first processes affected by a recession is the recruitment selection policies which have been massively affected by the recession. Newell and Shackleton (2000) argues that recruitment and selection process involves making anticipation about what will happen, so that decisions are made about who is the most suitable person for a certain job that can increase the performance of an organisation. Now managers and recruitment agencies are being extra careful who they bring in, and they prefer to rethink and implement new strategies in order to improve their relations with the customers. In addition, companies are even more demanding than before, making sure that they recruit the best candidate that can bring real value to the company. Another significant effect on human resource management which impact an organization in recession time is the cost cutting. Retailers are conscious about the situation of the business and try to do everything to maintain their competitive position on the market. They started to cut working hours, holidays, labour costs, and travel expenses and they dont offer long-term benefits anymore. According to Retail Week website (http://www.retail-week.com/cost-cutting-the-lean-machine/1923604.article ) organizations needed to reduce its cost not only to their store level, but also to their head offices. The career and development process have been also affected by the recession, so that managers offer limited trainings to their staff. Selecting and training employees with great potential, contribute to the increase of the sales and organisations performance. It also leads to a more structured career path which ensures that staff has the necessary skills to improve the quality of services and products of a company. Introducing flexible working arrangements and part-paid sabbaticals is another effect of the recession that has a significant impact on an organisation impact on an organization. Managers prefer to make these changes, rather than implementing redundancy programmes, because it allows them to manage every cost. This measure eliminates the need of hiring extra staff for busy periods such as Christmas or Easter holidays. The operations are also suffering due to the recession, because managers develop different channels which imply lower labour costs, such as online sales. A number of retailers found more innovative ways to deal with cost cutting by introducing 9 day fortnights, reducing daily hours and offering unpaid sabbaticals, so we also saw an uplift in the request for interim specialists to renegotiate these new practices. Conclusion The middle of 2008 saw huge changes for the UK retail industry, with the sector suffering a very intense downturn and several well-known brands were disappearing from the high streets. But on the other hand there have been retailers that improved their performance during the recession. As seen above, HM is one of them, reaching a SEK 118,697 million turnover, and about 76,000 employments. The human resource management is one of the sectors that have been also affected by the economic downturn. According to Armstrong (2000) Human resource management is a construct largely invented by academics and popularised by consultants. So that many retailers took decisive actions, like concentrating and simplifying their operations by reducing staff numbers and costs, both through natural wastage and implementing redundancy programmes and flexible working hours. Furthermore, there is now evidence of significant change in the retail sector. In line with the drop-off in demand for goods not being as bad as had initially been feared, retailers are now re-evaluating and rethinking their HR strategies. In conclusion, the paper demonstrates that the current economic conditions have provided the opportunity for the UK retail industry to learn and deal better with HRM structures and recession, adding to what had already been in progress before the economic downturn, which in turn shows an opportunity to make the business stronger, successfully and profitable. Moreover, there is a lack of standard qualifications across retail sector which is also unfavourable.ÂÂ   Government policy in this area is ineffectual and needs to be improved as soon as possible.

A Little Help on Twelfth Night Essay

The following information is based upon my taped lecture on this play. Although this text version is not the same as the taped lecture, it does contain the same information. All references are based on the Signet paperback edition which you should consult in conjunction with this lecture. Twelfth Night was probably written in 1601 and first performed in January of 1602. We know this because the play is mentioned that year in the diary of a young man training to become a lawyer at the Inns of Court in London. We can also tell the approximate date of the play from the references to contemporary events and publications, things like books or new maps. To place the publication in Shakespeare’s career, it comes about six years after Roemo & Juliet. Shakespeare’s treatment of love and romance and his use of dramatic devices are even more sophisticated than they were in his famous tragedy. Twelfth Night is the fourth in a series of romantic comedies which all have very bright heroines who end up teaching valuable lessons to the men who will become their husbands. Three of these four plays — The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and Twelfth Night — feature heroines who disguise themselves as men and deal with their male-dominated societies from this secret vantage point. They all have very sophisticated attitudes toward love and reveal human folly caused by the excess of some particular quality. It’s interesting to note that Twelfth Night was written right after Shakespeare had written Hamlet, which is a very different kind of play, but it does give you some idea of the range of his creative talents. The title of the play is unusual. It refers to the twelve days of Christmas, which you may recall from the old song, â€Å"On the Twelfth Day of Christmas.† In earlier days the celebration and exchange of gifts which we associate with the 25th of December were actually conducted during the 12 days which followed that date, culminating with what is called Epiphany. For some reason this twelfth day was associated, and continues to be, with comic misrule, upset and especially confusion over gender. In this country many people observe a seasonal tradition by taking their family to see â€Å"The Nutcracker† ballet or The Christmas Carol, Dickens’ story turned into a stage play. More recent cultural expressions may be the film How the Grinch Stole Christmas or television’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. Well, in the United Kingdom the cultural equivalent is going to the pantomime or panto. Families will go to the local theater is see a series of comic skits which feature famous actors and actresses performing in drag. So you might see Benny Hill or John Cleese playing the parts of women and some shapely starlet dressed in tight pants playing the part of the hero. Shakespeare’s play recalls this very old tradition by being a play with similar gender confusion at its core. It is entirely possible that Shakespeare was commissioned to write the play for a group of law students to perform at their Twelfth Night celebration, later followed by performances at his public theater, The Globe. As such, the original audience consisted of young sophisticated gentlemen who would have been knowledgeable about the London theater scene: there are a number of references in the play to works by Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Many of the jokes in the play are lost on us in the 21st Century because they refer to things which were very much in the public mind in 1601. So when Feste, the jester, says at one point he could have used the word â€Å"element,† but he chose not to because the word is overused, it goes right over our heads. However, it was a howl in Shakespeare’s time because there was a big flap over Ben Jonson’s use of the word. Twelfth Night is one of the few plays Shakespeare wrote which has a secondary or sub-title: â€Å"What You Will.† Even here Shakespeare is having a little fun. At one level this title is just a throw-away line, much like the titles of Much Ado About Nothing or As You Like It, the Elizabethan equivalent of â€Å"Whatever† or â€Å"No big deal!† However, in his plays and poems Shakespeare often used the word â€Å"will† to refer to sexual desire. So the title â€Å"What You Will† also means â€Å"Whatever sexual desire you choose to pursue.† Throughout the play there are at least three places where characters consciously give themselves permission to chase some inappropriate sexual fantasy which will end up making them appear foolish. I’ll point these out as we go through the play. The source of Twelfth Night has been pretty well identified. The immediate source is a book by a man named Barnaby Ridge titled Ridge: His Farewell to the Military Profession written about 20 years earlier. Ridge wrote a collection of stories he had picked up from many sources and to which he added his own inventions. One of Ridge’s stories is about a young woman who disguises herself as a young man and goes to work for a handsome young lord with whom she promptly falls in love. The young lord orders his new employee to go off and win the love of a beautiful woman that he desires. The heroine in disguise tries her best, but the beautiful woman falls in love with her disguise. Comic confusion results. Ridge had stolen this story line from an Italian play written earlier, but in reality the ideas here go back to the ancient Greeks and Romans who often wrote about girls who used disguise to get around the restrictions of their own societies. The ancients also had lots of fun with characters who looked alike; identical twins were special favorites. One of the Roman playwrights that Shakespeare had read in school, Plautus, had written a famous comedy about a set of twins; Shakespeare had used it as the basis for his first comedy, Comedy of Errors. So this sophisticated comedy of Twelfth Night is actually based on very old ideas. There are four major themes which are explored in this play. All the themes have to do with love. In fact no other play by Shakespeare shows so many different kinds of love or reactions to love. The first theme is everybody who loves faces obstacles to overcome in order to achieve their heart’s desire. Falling love in a Shakespearean comedy is never easy. You really have to work hard to win. The second theme is that love takes many forms, and these coexist uneasily. There is self-love, misguided love, love which was gender inappropriate, or what in politically correct terms we would say was â€Å"deemed inappropriate by a dominant, sexually repressive society.† That just means that in this play women fall in love with women and men with men without ever having a chance for that love to be requited or returned. The third theme is that love makes the unworthy appear foolish while correcting the worthy who are simply misguided. Love is the mechanism by which we are shown people acting ridiculously. Those who deserve our scorn appear as fools; those who have something going for them are shown the errors of their ways through love and finally earn our respect as wise. The fourth and final theme is that love is an infection we willingly seek — in the words of one of the characters in this play, a form of â€Å"divine madness.† Despite the possibility of appearing foolish we give ourselves permission to experience it — the same idea I was getting at in my earlier discussion of the sub-title of the play, â€Å"What You Will.† The plot of the play combines three different story lines. There is the love triangle of the noble characters: Viola, a clever young woman who is forced to disguise herself as a young man; Orsino, the duke who employs Viola in disguise and with whom she falls in love; Olivia, the beautiful countess Orsino desires and who in turn falls in love with Viola. The second story deals with the low-life characters and their rough humor: Sir Toby Belch, whose name tells you everything you need to know about his character; Belch’s favorite pigeon, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, from whom he steals and with whom he carries out an elaborate practical joke on Malvolio, the business manager of Olivia’s estate. Malvolio is a character with special political significance for Shakespeare’s audience. The third story line is not as prominent as the other two but is absolutely essential for the resolution of the play. It involves Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother whom she believes has been drowned, and Antonio, a ship captain who rescues him, falls in love with him and pursues him, even at peril of his own life. These story lines intersect at different times and in different ways with different kinds of comic effects — from the slap stick to the romantic. Social distinctions are the basis for much of the humor of the play. I’ve made the point that gender disguise is what distinguishes this play from some of the other comedies and that the idea goes back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. This device is found in Shakespeare’s comedies of Two Gentlemen of Verona, Merchant of Venice and As You Like It. The device allows a heroine to exercise greater freedom of action. Young gentlewomen were under great social constraint. They were not allowed to go in public without an escort. They were forbidden to interact with men without a chaperone present. They were not supposed to be involved in choosing their own mates. Once they put on pants their opportunities expanded and the dramatic possibilities increased in the play. In Merchant of Venice a young woman dons the disguise and becomes a judge in a capital case. In Two Gentlemen of Verona a young woman plays a man and watches as her boyfriend tries to betray her with another woman. In As You Like It a bright girl fools even the man who is in love with her and trains him in how she wants him to behave toward her when they are reunited as man and woman. In Twelfth Night we see how a young woman, who is on her own, uses disguise to protect herself in a hostile world. The device of gender camouflage also provides a double vision. As women these pretenders see the world in terms of the traditional conflict between the sexes; as men they are able to inject a subversive note into the smug male world view. In this play, for example Viola is able to educate the man she loves as to the depth of passion and nobility of love women can experience for men, something he never suspected before. Finally Shakespeare could use disguise as a way of introducing comic effects and exposing male hypocrisy to his largely male audience. Women attended the plays, but most of the audience appears to have been men. Nevertheless, no one comes away from a Shakespearean comedy feeling that men are naturally superior to women. If anything Shakespeare’s comic heroines seem to be the intellectual superiors of the men they eventually marry, as if they had taken pity on some poor fool they had just tricked. The reputation of this play has always been very high. It is one of Shakespeare’s most beloved works, and many people consider it the best of all the comedies. The humor is sharp, the satire still biting and many of the jokes just as funny as they were 400 years ago. As we go through the play scene by scene I’ll point out some of the remarkable achievements Shakespeare realizes in this timeless comedy. Let’s look at the play itself now.

Evolution Of Video Games - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1939 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2019/05/06 Category Entertainment Essay Level High school Tags: Video Games Essay Did you like this example? Video Games have almost became a cultural phenomenon, expanding across all platforms and devices appealing to a wide range of audiences both young and old alike. Video games were originally intended to be a simple form of entertainment designed for children as a distraction like a normal toy. After years of evolution and advancements in designs they are used for multiple purposes other than simple entertainment and as a distraction. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Evolution Of Video Games" essay for you Create order They are used to tell a rich and captivating story that almost physically puts the player in a characters shoes. For more beneficial reasons they offer a new way to advance peoples cognitive skills with puzzles and games that improve upon this. Video games have even evolved to a point where people have become more physically active as the games they play offer a sense of achievements and accomplishments. Video games is a form of entertainment that has rapidly evolved in each generation and has significantly impacted people cognitive skills and physical activities. What I Already Know/ Want to Know The first videogame ever made was a tennis game created by Physicist William Higinbotham on October in 1958. He created the tennis for two that allowed for two people to hit the tennis ball back and forth. Physicist William Higinbotham created the tennis game at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island in New York and continued to reinvent the game until he felt it was up to par with his expectations of how the game should be. Methods/How I Found My Information Video games have always been apart of my childhood when growing up because I just loved playing video games, but I did not know what the first video game ever made was so I looked it up. I searched up on google what the first video game ever made was and looked for information on who made the game, when they made the game, why they made the game and how to play the game. I did find the information I needed on one site but I also used other sides to gather more information. Video games have basically been apart of my life since the day I was born, It was always the best way for my dad to keep me quiet when I was younger in places I was always either scared or bored at being. Of course he regulated it so that I wouldnt become so addicted that I wouldnt be able to socialize but he let me play. They were simple Games that I would play on my Game boy such as mario sonic or pacman, with also simple objectives, run jump or both. What i would like to know more about video games is that what point did they take a significantly big leap to being simple fantasy Games to realistic immersive games that almost made you feel as if you were there? What I Discovered Video games are now a major factor of entertainment in our society with a fast pace expanding culture every single year as they are now (Byrne) an entrenched part of our cultures and routines. As video games continue to advance and evolve it continues to peak the interests of many individuals both young and old alike as as the average american game player is 31 years McCoy 3 old and 48 percent of those playing being women. (epstein) This is do to the creative element and the wide range of appeal that games offer to everyone. With the early invention of the wii and shortly Xbox Kinect, this allowed people and specifically families to come together and be active with one another in one setting. Motion sensors helped to track peoples movements and display them onto whatever game they were playing. This was great entertainment for even the old to be involved in. Video games really started to spawn in the 1970s but given the limits of computing range the original Atari 2600 Featured just 128 bytes of memory ( no kil, no mege, no giga) there was room for just one idea(epstein). Video Games have evolved tremendously over the last couple of decades from simple run and Jump games to games that put you into the real bloody intense battlefields of war. When the first video game was made it was a very simple tennis game, similar to the classic 1970s video game pong. (Byrne) This simple idea is believed to have sparked the minds of a thousand other future creators in developing games that mimic our world only with a couple of twists. There are literally stories out there that put you in the shoes of someone else similar to how an actor plays a part in a movie. Some games like Battlefield and Call Of Duty offer and horrific and intense experience in fighting in a war with hundreds of your comrades dying beside you experience One video Game in particu lar thats sets players up in a realistic scenario was That dragon, Cancer. The purpose of this game was to put people in a situation that some parents have gone through themselves and allow them a slight glimpse of what a common pain is gone through with a parent with a sick child. It was released on january 12, 2016 and was made by writer Amy Green and developed by Numinous Games. The whole idea of it was a game where you fill the shoes of parents Guiding their infant through terminal  cancer creating a games like this for players delivers them with a heavy emotional impact and if a player can say that they were invested emotionally the same way that a person is when watching a movie now shows that videogames are becoming more than what they were. There is a deeper meaning to most games that may not always be as clear to video players. Video games  has evolved from mindless playing to engrossing stories along the way. For instance, there is a game called The Last Of Us which is a horror game about zombies taking over. This game does a great job of telling a story because it shows what would have if zombies were to actually take over. In the game there is a guy who loses his daughter in a zombie outbreak and years later he has to look after this girl who reminds him of his daughter and it shows how distant and mean he is because he is still mourning the loss of his daughter. In the beginning of the game he is mean because he is upset that he lost his daughter so he is not very nice to the little girl but over time she does remind him of the time he used to be a father to his daughter and he grows love for her and selfishly sacrifices the fate of the world to save this little girl even though she needs to die to get the cure. Like movies, there are a wide range of different genres for video games some even based on existing properties like the horror syfy Aliens or the comedic movie such as, Deadpool. Deadpool was first a hero comedy movie that soon turned into a game because of how great the sells and reactions were to the movie. The movie is extremely funny because it is about a superhero who saves the way and tends to do stupid things as he does so. Video games can either have horror, comedy or drama like a movie. Instead of just watching these things play out in a movie you can literally decide on your own, where you can  take these characters that you already enjoy on your own adventure. Of course as all our  technology advances with computers like the Apple two in 1977 most. On the other hand, people do enjoy playing video games, research has shown that video games cause people to do irrational things. Games that involve killing people, robberies and fighting glorify violence. There are many articles that talk about kids who play games such as Call of Duty where you shoot and kill people, encourage them to go out and actually kill people. There is an article that states, beginning in 1983 when U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop implicated violent video games as a leading cause of family violence, news stories about video games such as Death Race (allowing players to run over gremlins) (only sp) and Custers Revenge (with a naked Custer avoiding arrows to have sex with a Native American woman) have helped reinforce the idea that graphic violence in video games was potentially harmful. Although, some may think that violent video games causes people to do violent things, there are still other positive and influential games that are not violent that kids c an enjoy. Video games have evolved and changed the landscape and view of entertainment while generating thousands of new fans of the culture. Video game attract people of all ages because it is something fun to do after a stressful day and it keeps kids out of trouble. Not only are video games fun to play but they tell a story that people are able to relate to like Call of Duty, Madden 15 and 2k. These games are relatable because Madden is a game about football players, 2k is a game about basketball players and Call Of Duty is basically a reception on how war is. Overall, if games did not exist, there probably would be even more problems in the world because when kids are at home playing video games they are staying out of trouble. Video games have even  evolved to a point where people have become more physically active as the games they play offer a sense of achievements and accomplishments. Can Video Games Cause Violence? Reflection piece When I first heard that we were doing a Five page paper that was also a research essay with a lot of added criteria that I have never done before in another essay, I was pretty bummed out about the idea because I thought we would Have to write about some random boring topic that I had some interest in writing about. How very fortunate for me that writing just about anything isnt the case for me and instead Im able to write my own paper based off of my own topic that I have to decided to pick. With this one research paper I was able to pick something that I am already curious and fascinated with and that was Video Games. It only made sense to write about something you love to play and be involved with. However I felt that I needed to find a better way to approach and write about this topic that seemed like playing video Games was beneficial to the audience thats reading my paper instead of just a paper talking about video Game. Starting and writing this essay was a little hard for me because I saw multiple ways to approach this paper. My first way of writing this paper was with talking about the history of video games and how they evolved from what they were to what they are now and how they have a mass entertainment audience bigger than ever before. Another way was talking about video games or specifically and how they went from a simple mindless child games to something that is considered an intricate art that is now praised for their story and design almost like a real movie. Im thankful I have been given the opportunity to write an essay based on a subject i really love playing and I hope to write something similar soon.

Lao-Tzu, Machiavelli, and the American Government Essay...

Lao-Tzu, Machiavelli, and the American Government Lao-Tzus Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching and Machiavellis The Qualities of a Prince both have the ultimate goal of making better leaders. The tactics that each writer chooses to present as a guide for the leader are almost opposite of each other. Todays American government would benefit from a combination of the two extreme ideas. Lao-Tzus laissez-faire attitude towards the economy, as well as his small scale, home defense military is appealing to a liberal person. Machiavellis attitude towards miserliness and lower taxes, while being always prepared for war, would appeal to a conservative person. The writers are in agreement on some issues, such as taxes, but other ideas,†¦show more content†¦Ultimately, he believes the leader should do and say anything to keep the people happy, but when it comes down to it, what makes them happy may not be best for the state as a whole. An even mixture of both of these theories is the best for America. Something that our leaders in t he United States in past years aimed for is middle of the road politics, appealing to both liberals and conservatives. Although I do not believe Machiavellis honesty policy would go over too well in the United States, I am sure his tactics are used by politicians in creating an appearance that people want to see. A good combination for our government today is for the president to not be personally armed, but have protection. He does not constantly train for war, but has an appointed official dedicated for that purpose. In contrast to both writers, I believe the American people today are neither inherently good nor evil exclusively, but we all want what we perceive as a better life for ourselves and our families. As you can imagine, any government today that exclusively follows the recommendations of either Lao-Tzu or Machiavelli would undoubtedly fail. If Lao-Tzus philosophy alone is followed, the leaders would leave the state open for an outside attack. On the other hand, if Machiavellis tactics are used, the leaders would be in a constant state of paranoia, and the people would live in fear. Clearly, we see that no government or leader isShow MoreRelatedAmerican Government in Contrast to Lao-Tzu and Machiavelli Essay832 Words   |  4 PagesAmerican Government in Contrast to Lao-Tzu and Machiavelli In comparing and contrasting the governmental philosophies of the great thinkers Lao-Tzu and Machiavelli, I have found a pleasant mix of both of their ideas would be the best for America today. Lao-Tzu’s laisse-faire attitude towards the economy, as well as his small scale military is appealing to my liberal side, while Machiavelli’s attitude towards miserliness which causes low taxes appeals to the right wing. 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