I'm trying to identify individual games, or individual game developers who are creating video games as a form of social commentary, or as a form of protest. I don't think that there are many people working in this vein. I've identified few who work within the US, and who identify themselves principally as artists. Protest may be in the eye of the beholder. Maybe its about subject matter of a game. Maybe it's about a contrarian attitude in the mind of the maker. I'm trying to reach out to the community of makers to see if there are people who work in this fashion. Hopefully someone knows someone who knows someone. If you have created a game of this type, or know of one, please post the name, description, and url. I'm also interested in the motivations for producing this kind of game. Rafael Fajardo sweat [edited by - sweat on September 20, 2003 4:54:39 PM]

Most people who feel the need to say something do so through relatively easy exercises. Game development is extremely complicated and time consuming. It is much easier to write a song or paint a picture and thus if you are looking for those who cannot express themselves properly with words it would be most productive to look there.



James Walkoski
Lead Programmer, JEI

I''ve been toying with the idea of a revolution-type game, maybe for portable platforms. Build up an underground, storm the President''s Mansion and climb over the bodies of your compatriots...that sort of thing.

James,

thank you for your response. I am well aware of the difficulty and of the collaborative nature of the game development enterprise. It is precisely because of that difficulty that I am looking. Imagine how passionate one would have to feel about an issue to dedicate the time and effort to create a game that attempts to deal with that issue in some way.

The mod-ability of certain games may actually make the creation of protest games more imagineable.

Also, creative expression in any media is not simple. Novel creative expression is outrageously hard.



Rafael Fajardo
sweat

Edward,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. This revolution project of yours, what motivates the revolution? Is there a back-story in your imagination?



Rafael Fajardo
sweat

Most protest or message-oriented games are made with Flash and ShockWave. Contacting the IGDA might yield more info.

I would say Postal 2. Your enemies consist of angry parents protesting against violent video games. You simply blow their brains out!

I''m going to do something like this, a game protesting against today''s society. I believe in games as a progress in art, and as such they can be used just as well as poetry or painting to convey one''s feelings. It''s just as James said though, that it''s extremely complicated and much else that you have to do other than the actual telling of your message. I will persevere though .

It''s not a finished game, and there''s nothing to show yet, but I still wanted to tell you that I''m working on something in this vein.

Thanks for realizing that there are people like us.

My thanks to the anonymous poster(s). As you suggest, there is an ongoing conversation at IGDA, where I asked the same question. The curious can find the thread at:

http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.php?threadid=6711&goto=newpost


The artistic community that will use flash, or other similar authoring environments, will self-select and self-organize around Rhizome.org. But to limit one''s worldview to that community is to close off the possibility that there are others working in other places, who may never have thought of themselves as artists. To this end I have attempted to reach out to all of the game fora that I can find. If this were an anthropological excercise, this would be considered field-work. I''m not just an observer, but a participant as well. I have produced two games that serve as social commentary, and have completed design narratives for two more. (see:
http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol3_No2_gaming_fajardo.html
for a description of the first two)

When the first two were completed, there was nowhere to "show" them. It now seems that curators and academics and educators are extremely interested in testing the full range of expressive potential of digital video games. This interest creates an opportunity for alternative voices and visions within the game industry to be heard and seen. Buzzcut.com offers interesting arguments as to why this is important to the gaming industry as well.

I''m starting to ramble.

The upshot is that we are identifying an emerging trend within and without digital video games.



Rafael Fajardo
sweat

Rafael,

I loved the article about Crosser and La Migra. Very good stuff.

I''m not convinced that games can ever show the artistic range of drama or the written word, but you do make a good case for their satiric possibilities.

According to a game designer whose name currently escapes me, games are "a series of interesting choices." (Sid Meier?) Because the designer controls the choices available, a game effectively forces the player to choose a "winning" path that reflects the designer''s prejudices/beliefs/whatever. In the case of Crosser and La Migra, the player cannot "win" unless he puts himself into the role of either the "illegal" or the border guard, forcing the player to consider both sides.

I like it. Keep up the good work!

-David


DavidRM
Samu Games

The Indie Game Development Survival Guide