'To a lot of readers, this no doubt sounds like self-important bullshit. Games -- political? But don't forget the same things were said about film in its infancy. And when it comes to music, the same hooting and derision was no doubt much in evidence back in the late Fifties and early Sixties, when rock musicians first started suggesting that their twanging could become a political force.

The notion that music could become a powerful medium signaling a cultural revolution was laughable. But that did happen, and a west coast lad named Jann Wenner was there to document it all with this little music magazine called "Rolling Stone" that he started in the late Sixties. "RS" chronicled the era, one of widespread social tumult, in a way no existing media outlet could, and became the voice of a generation.'

Might the politicization of music have been a one-time aberration driven by Vietnam and a media-driven youth culture insanely out-of-sync with the mainstream? Maybe it's just my lack of knowledge, but before then and since then there's been close to zero political content in popular music.

Ignoring that, the point of this article seems to be that "games should say important things, like movies!" Except the movies that do say really important things are rarely designed as such, and the things they say are culturally related, not political.

'How about a game on environmental degradation, for example, or a game on globalization or anti-globalization or capitalism or dysfunctional families or poverty or homelessness or government corruption or corporations or technology or whatever. If movies and music and novels can tackle these issues, why not games? In light of the recent horrific terrorist attacks in New York and Washington -- and the short and long-term ramifications -- you just know that the other mass mediums are somehow going to address them for sometime to come.'

Poverty? Homelessness? The environment? Why, I'd love to purchase preachy games about those topics!

'They should raise awareness to real-life issues and problems'

And here we find our revelatory code phrase: "raising awareness." Fruits.

Books and movies and even songs are different from games. People go to them for different reasons. Games will develop (mature) into richer products over time, but not necessarily in the same fashion as other cultural items.

Games, like music, appeal to certain segments of the population based upon content. However, I tend to perceive games as escapism rather than commentary. While this isn't to say games can't have any political impact, I don't think there are many developers who set out with that goal in mind. Of course, then there are the Squaresoft people and their environmental emphasis. *grin*

However, I think games can do a wonderful job of involving the player in moral dilemmas. This serves a far more useful purpose, as it stimulates thought on the topic of belief systems and has much more potential to alter political viewpoints.

- Alan

If people want games that are preachy for the sake of being preachy, the market will support them. However, I will be surprised if this happens. As a case in point, I direct the reader's attention to Chris Crawford's "Balance of the Planet" (1990), which I think sold six copies. I have one of them somewhere.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/sheet/gameId,2514/

I liked Balance of Power (which also contained a strong moral message) a lot more than I liked Balance of the Planet, but that's because BoP was more interesting as a game.

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Quote:

Games, like music, appeal to certain segments of the population based upon content. However, I tend to perceive games as escapism rather than commentary.

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I think they can be as long as the focus of the design is on gameplay. I can't help but think of Europa Universalis as both an educational tool and quite a statement about how the politics of that era worked. It's also a killer fun game.

That may be an obvious kind of example. There are probably others.

Shaping the intent without destroying gameplay is entirely possible.

EU is a great example of a game that's fun, educational, and maybe political. I get the feeling it's not what the writers of the article had in mind, though I'm also not sure exactly what they want. Hmm.