It's all fun and games until someone starts trying to communicate an idea.
Whether we're defending the world from terrorists in the latest big-budget Tom Clancy adventure game or trying to bomb Microsoft's campus in the free Flash-based game Redmond Raid, video games may be having an impact on the way we see the world.
Video games have become a powerful tool for delivering opinions. Political parties are creating games to promote their ideals; activists are crafting games to generate awareness of their causes; and individuals are building games to make statements about a wide variety of issues that are important to them.
One of the most well known games that makes no bones about trying to communicate an important idea is September 12th, available at newsgaming.com. In the game, players fire missiles at gun-wielding Arabs in a crowded city. Collateral damage is unavoidable. Civilians mourn their losses and come to hate the source of their anguish so much that they become soldiers themselves, exponentially increasing the number of potential targets. Players soon discover that the game is really a no-win situation, mimicking, according to the game's developers, a real war.
"The video game medium can expose us to a subject in a new context," said Dr. Henry Jenkins, director of comparitive media studies at MIT. "It's a medium that can explore issues."
Dr. Jenkins has been playing video games since the mid-70s, has written about the cultural effect of video games for well over a decade, and has testified in front of the U.S. Senate about violence in games.
"More and more games are becoming a vehicle for social commentary," said Dr. Jenkins.
He believes that the video game medium can act as a catalyst for discussion of social issues, much like books.
"The Tom Clancy books express the author's point of views, and so do the games," said Dr. Jenkins, referring to the successful military-themed games inspired by books written by popular author Tom Clancy.
"Like an artist in any medium, [Tom Clancy] is exploring the way he sees the world. He happens to see it in a more militaristic view than I do, but the games are expressing ideas, and that's a step forward for the medium."
Steven Lerner, a Canadian university student, runs Albinoblacksheep.com, a popular Canadian-based website that provides access to a wide variety of games available for free on-line. On one occasion he was forced to remove a game due to complaints he received. The object of the game, called Kaboom!, is to use a suicide bomber to blow up as many people as possible on a busy street.
"I thought the point they were trying to make was to make fun of the suicide bomber," said Mr. Lerner. "But everyone was getting offended. People were saying it was rude to the victims. So I took it off."
In fact, Kaboom! enraged several Jewish organizations as well as Israeli and American politicians, who demanded that the game be removed from the Web.
But many video game academics believe that games like Kaboom! should not be utterly censored. They argue that games such as these provide a insight into our society and can give rise to important discussions about not only the issues they depict, but also the medium of video games.
New York-based website socialimpactgames.com is devoted to exploring and cataloguing video games with a purpose other than just to provide entertainment. The site methodically logs all types of so-called 'serious games', even those that convey discriminatory messages about culture, race, and religion.
Marc Prensky, the site's administrator and a notable commentator on education and video games, provides warnings when necessary that certain games may be offensive to some players.
He stated that he catalogues these games "because they exist. I am trying to illustrate that games are a medium for the expression of ideas—any ideas. I am in favour of discussing ideas I or others may find objectionable, not of banning or eliminating them. Games with ideas that you disagree with are a great basis on which to begin a discussion."
