Saturday, December 23, 2006

Can games affect change?

About a year ago I was sent a little flash based game where as a player you tried to bomb out the terrorist's in a village. It was a great little game each time you killed a terrorist some civilians would walk by start crying at the persons death and then turn into terrorists themselves. A step up from this is the Dafur is dying game where you can experience what it is like to live in the country, fetching water and avoiding bombs and guns.

I wonder how effective these kind of games will be. Like television before it, I suspect that it will expose us to how horrible war and suffering is, but will it help us to make a change? Personally I think the biggest problem to affecting change is not knowing that there is a problem but knowing what we as just individuals (surrounded by many different problems) can do to meaningfully affect any change.

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