Video game heroics on a planetary scale are nothing new, in fact it’s almost a disappointment now when it’s only the world that needs saving. Gamers have gone from saving the day to saving the time-space continuum so fast that the fate of the planet Earth and its people are merely an afterthought, a bonus after the credits roll.

Well this week in New York hundreds of people attempted to take on that classic challenge, but the object of their quest isn’t a virtual Earth, but the one that exists between trips to the local game shop. They are not saving the world in games; they want to save the world with games. Their event, the 3rd annual “Games for Change” conference seeks to use the growing power of video games to teach gamers about serious global issues.

Independent game programmers, teachers and activists worked together to create shareware that aims to teach the populace about events and situations that are most likely escaping their attention. The ‘highlight’ program is a game called Darfur is Dying, a flash style game that I can only describe half MGS and half SimGulag. The Games for Change site gives the following details.

Darfur is Dying is an online video game that puts you in the shoes of one of the 2.5 million refugees who are fighting for survival every day in Darfur. Players learn more about the challenges these refugees face and to how to take action to help stop the crisis.

The game is, by design, an exercise in futility. The goal is to keep a refugee family alive under the worst conditions and you will most likely fail rapidly and completely. You will watch member after member of this family meet a horrible fate as the game tells you in detail about every aspect of refugee life. From time to time game will share another terrible detail and implore you help out in some way, either by sending money or asking you spread the game around, to raise ‘awareness.’

A man much smarter I once said that the medium is the message, and I can’t help think about what it means to have ‘socially conscious video games.’ Does the growing hold of video games have in our culture make games like Darfur is Dying and PeaceMaker just extensions of classic public service announcements or pleas for foreign child sponsorship? Can that model even work in a day where such appeals can be openly mocked in popular culture? Video games can be educational, but they are primarily a diversion, a form of entertainment. How long can someone play a game where they are told that because of their lousy finger-work a 14 year old refugee girl just got murdered? She was just trying to find water for her family, and after the third or fourth try, the next youngest family member finally makes it back with enough water to last a day at the most for the members left alive. The worst part is you knew this might happen, they even told you at the front end that this sort of thing is really going on, right now on the other side of the world from your $1500 gaming rig.

This exposes an ugly truth that gaming accomplishments hold very little weight in the real world. Sure one can complete the ‘world peace’ game and bring freedom and justice to all the people of the earth, but after he/she logs out, the real world is no different then when they started. Sure awareness has been raised, but who says it was dimmed in the first place? Is the implication that the aging and increasingly affluent gamer population can only be motivated by transforming their favorite hobby into a horror show? I would think better of gamers.

I will give credit where it is due, programmers and activists are giving their time to create these works, and their intentions are good. However I do not see a day when games like this become either popular or extremely effective. I also strongly disagree that the creation of such ‘cause’ games can replace (or even offset) the kind of negative media attention that the gaming industry is constantly being subjected to. To think that someday someone would spend $60+ on such a game over another GTA or God of War 6 is ludicrous. Guilt is a powerful motivator, but it will never sell video games, besides if the real world needs gamers to save it, we are all in worse trouble then we think.

THE RIDE BOARD:

Your Mail:   A lot of my readers asked why I had not commented on the “Left Behind” game and the surrounding controversy. I thought about the situation for a long time and I realized that there would no way to approach it without it devolving into the kind of hateful screed that would spew from the mouths of a hundred greedy lawyers or incompetent parents. Now I know that silence implies acceptance, but please don’t mistake my lack of a response to not having an opinion. This ‘game’ is a despicable piece of racist, fear-mongering trash and reflects the worst part of human civilization itself: man’s inhumanity to man. Not in the use physical violence, but mental violence. No one ever learned Kung Fu from playing Kung Fu, but hate is an easy lesson to learn and a hard one to forget. I will swear to you now, my loyal riders, that I will not drop the ball again, and I promise to come down like a ton of bricks on the next such horror that makes itself manifest.

This is my stop.

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Back of the Bus is © 2006 by Seth “4:10” Robison, used with exclusive permission by gamertransit.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.