Here's the task: pretend you're a professor! You have to do the following:

• Choose a focus for your class on gaming (with a snazzy title if you like)
• Choose the games that you, as a professor, will have your class dive into in order to convey key concepts
• Explain why each game you chose ties into your overarching exploration

Your class can have any focus, broad or specific: level design in first-person shooters; the history of pixel art; the psychology of non-linear narratives; the use of sound effects in mid-2000 platformers; the limitations of turn-based systems in tabletop strategy games, etc. Anything goes, and any forms of gaming are valid!

After choosing your specific focus, choose games that you would put on your syllabus as a sort of "required playing" for students, and talk about why you've chosen each item and what it brings to the table. If you decide to choose, say, NetHack and The Binding of Isaac for your class on "Roguelikes, Roguelites, and the Fallacy of the Berlin Interpretation", discuss how those particular games illustrate some of the key concepts you want to convey to your learners.

While I'm intending this to be serious and straightforward, I also like the idea of people having fun with it, so feel free to come up with some less serious or more entertaining classes. I'd love to see the outline for course that explored, say, the history of exploding barrels or an investigation of taste levels in the fashion of JRPG outfits.

Here's the background...
So, I tend not to play video games at all any more (not for at least 15 or 20 years). My teen daughter wants to get a Playstation gaming console...but it seems less about playing and more about socializing with her friends. Her friends - while i promised my partner not to call them 'idiots' - are not really the best decision-makers and they're quite affluent (and we definitely are not affluent), so their poor choices usually never impact them. (I think it is less about being teens, and more about them being rich, entitled poor decision makers, because my daughter and a few other poorer friends are actually good kids who know that we can not get all the things.) Here's an example: all of my daughter's rich friends will ask their parents to buy them widget X, and so of course my daughter wants one so she can connect with these rich teens. For these rich kids, after they inevitably abandon widget X, there is no issue; they merely drop them off in one of the rooms in their mini-mansions. But for me, i can not always afford to buy widget X and then have my daughter abandon stuff in our little, meager but love-filled house. (Please if possible let's avoid the topic of how I'm raising my daughter, because all of the parents of us poorer kids in town have the exact same issues with our kids.) Now, we come to the part about my daughter wanting a playstation...I don't mind saving up for a PlayStation - especially if she'll use it...However, since she really only wants it to socialize with her rich friends via a couple of games, i was thinking on getting a PC/gaming rig (not as expensive as PS or some sort of AlienWare) instead of the dedicated gaming console, but still plenty usable for some games...So that, after some time if she abandons it (because for example her friends have migrated to other avenues of socializing), i can always re-purpose the machine. In my mind it seems a more worthwhile investment. (I'm a software guy mostly, but over the decades, almost every machine i have/own has been franken-built by me...so i know just enough hardware.) Now, if I go the route of a PC/gaming rig, can i just sign her up for online gaming accounts like PlayStation Network, and that will suffice for her to use her PC but still connect, say via PSNetwork, with her friends playing PS games?? (To help, i should clarify the games these teens play are fortnight, minecraft, and grand theft auto...I think GTA does not support in game chat/comms with friends, though i could be wrong.)

So, is it possible for me to sign up my daughter on an online gaming account - like PS Network - that would allow her to communicate with hr friends? And, if so, which gaming network should I set up an account, PS Network, Steam, etc.??? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!!!

EDIT: This is now solved thanks to @Amarok! Solution is here. Changing the refresh rate from 60 Hz to 120 Hz fixed it.

My husband and I recently upgraded our TV to a Samsung Q70, and I have started experiencing an odd issue, visible in this video here.

The Issue

There's a horizontal section across the entire bottom of the screen that seems to be refreshing later than the rest of the TV. The game is running on a PC hooked up to the TV via HDMI, and the TV is running on game mode. This issue did not happen on our last TV (a 10-year-old Visio that I don't remember the model number of).

The Oddness

• It doesn't happen on the desktop or in video inputs.

We've been watching YouTube and Hulu through a Shield TV that we also have hooked up, and this issue isn't present in any of those, nor is it visible when I'm using desktop applications on the TV through the PC.

• It only happens in certain games.

The video is from Trackmania 2: Lagoon, where it is always present. Meanwhile, it is not present at all in Trackmania (2020). Likewise, I've been playing 428 Shibuya Scramble where it shows up in the exact same way in the exact same area, but it does not exist in Distance or Rogue Legacy, for example.

• It does not respond to v-sync.

I've tried toggling v-sync on and off, both through the game itself and forcing it through my video card. Neither alleviated the issue. The display looked the same whether or not v-sync was turned on or off.

I'm looking for any guidance anyone can give me, especially if this is a hardware issue with the TV itself, since I'm still in the return window.

Folks, I´m going crazy over here. My social interactions are extremely limited. Online gaming has been a timesaver, but my friends are not always available (I can´t even really work because both my computers broke down).

I play on the PS4 nights and daw, on the GMT-3 time zone, but that´s flexible. Some of the online games I have / can play:

• Path of Exile
• Rocket League
• Destiny 2
• Torchlight 2
• A Way Out
• Fifa 19
• GTA V
• Overcooked
• Doom
• Borderlands 2
• Titanfall 2
• Brawlhalla

My username on PSN is goombatrooper22.

Post your platforms and available games!

I find with a lot of video-games, particularly RPGs, I have trouble just doing a casual playthrough. I just can't really stop myself from chasing down every quest marker, so if anyone has advice about how I can keep my playstyle focused on stuff I actually enjoy, I'd love to hear it.

I've found what ends up happening is I will play a game long after the point where the core gameplay loops are fun or challenging for me. This negatively impacts my impressions of games I play. It's like, chewing a stick of gum for way WAY too long. My jaw is sore, it tastes like cardboard. But I. Just. Keep. Going. I don't go into dumb collect-a-thons as much, so I'm not the worst at this, but I end up chasing every side-quest, every "do thing to befriend party member," and so on. Basically everything that counts as "content."

To be clear, I definitely blame the game designers for this. They stretch 30 hour games to 60 with a bunch of filler. And with open-world systems, it's just really hard to tell what's important and what isn't which just triggers my FoMO about missing something cool or plot critical.I just want some strategies on how to work around the bullshit and not have to bother with padding content.

Here's the official blog post: https://www.blog.google/products/stadia/lineup-games-coming-to-stadia/

But since they decided to list the games in the incredibly convenient format of... three slideshows, I'll re-type the important info here and save you that trouble.

Launch titles:

• Assassin's Creed Odyssey
• Destiny 2: The Collection
• GYLT
• Just Dance 2020
• Kine
• Mortal Kombat 11
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Rise of the Tomb Raider
• Samurai Shodown
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
• Thumper
• Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

Planned releases in the rest of 2019:

• Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle
• Borderlands 3
• Darksiders Genesis
• Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
• Farming Simulator 19
• Final Fantasy XV
• Football Manager 2020
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• Grid
• Metro Exodus
• NBA 2K20
• Rage 2
• Trials Rising
• Wolfenstein: Youngblood