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Child Soldiers in Sudan: The Videogame
in Video Games
Someone pitched a game at a con in DC: a horrific survival game where the protagonist is a seven year old refugee forced into prostitution to feed her infant brother (at least, that's one of the first major choices in the game: you can let the infant die instead).
A bunch of people in the audience walked out in disgust.
Turns out the pitcher was UNICEF, and the woman whose life story is told by that game idea was present. "...the woman who the character was based on, Mari Malek, was standing in the back of the room."
A bunch of people in the audience walked out in disgust.
Turns out the pitcher was UNICEF, and the woman whose life story is told by that game idea was present. "...the woman who the character was based on, Mari Malek, was standing in the back of the room."
Comments
I'm not sure how it takes away the escapism, you are in a position that you would otherwise never be in.
Also seriously there are a bunch of people screaming at their screens on how stupid other people are during their leisure time.
As with all things, if the game was done right it would be amazing and profoundly moving. In reality it would be Haddock black blops, miss the point and come across as kind of disturbing.
Hmmm. How about a game wherein you play a female journalist that has to contend with various double standards and prejudices just to get anywhere in your chosen industry. Then, your ex-boyfriend spreads vicious and untrue rumors about you, which inspires a group of people to threaten your life and make your life a living hell. Then, once the initial clamor dies down, a group of consumers, who have many, many choices for news sources and games, try to prop up your violation as a cause to keep games catering to their particular demographic to the exclusion of any others. Your mere existence becomes polarizing to those you previously thought of as your community.
Would you play that game? Would it help you to understand or empathize?
I'm not sure if you're implying that I don't already empathise with the GamerGator targets or not.
Lucas Pope did a masterful job of using his medium to invest the player's emotions into a set of goals (feed family, stop terrorist attacks, escape from Arstrotzka, etc), and then pit those goals against each other, or put them in conflict with human decency. I won't give any examples as to avoid spoilers, but needless at one point it brought me to tears.
Zoe Quinn, on the other hand, created a digital Choose Your Own Adventure book. She failed to manipulate her medium to invest the player's emotions in anything. She dictated how the player should feel, rather than simulating those feelings. Her failure to show instead of tell is evident even in just the first few actions the player takes.
So, no, I wouldn't play that game, because you haven't defined how it's a game. For purposes of analogy, if the game you were pitching was Skyrim, you would be saying "do you want to play a game where you kill dragons?" as opposed to "do you want a game where you can explore the world, create stuff, help or hurt people, etc. etc." One describes the narrative, the other describes the actual game.
Also, any game can be compelling, if done well. Flimsier plots have made successful games. The plots are often secondary to game play anyway. Duh and/or ok.
Rhetorical - (of a question) asked in order to produce an effect or to make a statement rather than to elicit information.