The heat has kept me from getting a decent night’s sleep in days, with the side effect that I’ve been a little ADD since yesterday. While that helped me write a bunch yesterday, it also meant that I didn’t have the attention span for reading, and my brain was only half working. Is it only Tuesday? So, here’s some things that should been included in the last post, and a few developments I found in my morning reading.

Nikki pointed out that all of my previous examples meshed very well with my personal politics, but what about those games which express a strong opinion I disagree with?

The classic example would be America’s Army, the US Government sponsored videogame that was designed from the ground up to encourage more teenagers to enlist. Though I’ve never played it (no Mac support, of course), it does seem well designed and engaging gameplay, even if the propaganda is ever present. (For a quick example, check out the FAQ, which is full of double-speak, not actually deigning to answer the questions it poses, including “Is this a recruiting tool?” and “Should children 13+ be exposed to what the Army does?”) Still, despite the useless FAQ, it does appear to be pretty upfront about who created it and what their goals are. After some investigation, I don’t really find America’s Army too bothersome, even from a political perspective; I never really expect any government to be completely propaganda-free, and this seems relatively tame. Besides, I have a feeling it mostly gets lost in the shuffle - it’s not different enough from other games, and free will only last so long when all your friends are playing something else. (On the other hand, I’d much rather my tax dollars pay for more constructive game creation, along the lines of what Alice proposes for the BBC.)

Then we have Left Behind - Eternal Forces, a game which just thickens my ever-increasing disease with the role of religion in this country. It is, of course, based on the phenomenally (and inexplicably) popular series of novels, set in the end times. Now, I know good, smart, and even atheistic people who enjoyed those novels. I was not one of them - I found them simplistic and manipulative. (Speaking of videogames, I much preferred Jane Jensen’s pan-religious view of the apocalypse in Millennium Rising (now called Judement Day), the first novel by the talented creator of the brilliant Gabriel Knight games.)

At any rate, the game is a real time strategy - a Warcraft for the fire-and-brimstone set, in which your Christian army battles the Antichrist. That sounds kind of fun, on the surface (especially since the multiplayer version seems to allow you to play as the antichrist), but it’s the militant attitude that many will find disturbing.

According to a recent article linked on BoingBoing, just as Grand Theft Auto encourages you to slap that ‘ho around, Left Behind encourages you to kill all non-Christians (and even, it seems, moderate Christians and gays). Sure, you can opt to convert them instead, but it’s pretty much an “us versus them” attitude, in which people are either devout or heathens, and completing the game successfully establishes a Christian theocracy in America. It seems like the game’s creators would encourage the same sort of militantism in their faith that inspired 9/11 in another. And Left Behind’s ties to Rick Warren has even Jack Thompson denouncing it.

On one hand, just thinking about the sort of righteous violence Left Behind portrays makes me ill. The books hinted at the blind obediance that the game brings out in the open, the exact sort that we must no longer tolerate, as Douglas Rushkoff recently proclaimed. The most troubling thing about it, though, is the imbalence in our society at the moment. I’m afriad that some (crazy) parents will think killing heathens is just fine, while kiling Orcs is not. I doubt Left Behind will see much political backlash, whereas a game in which Christians were the bad guys certainly would. Hence my curiosity of exactly how evenly weighted the game is if you’re playing as the antichrist.

We have to respect anyone’s right to free speech, no matter how revolting we might find their message. Some will argue that, in a game, killing a hooker or killing a non-believer are not that different. It’s the opposite viewpoint, but no less extreme. In that respect, Left Behind may be too hardcore to have any real impact on popular opinion. Couldn’t we have a nice game about happy Jesus teachings, instead? Or how about Sodom and Gomorrah, that would certainly be action-packed.

Also, I vehemently believe that videogames do not encourage zombie teenagers to commit violence, and that kids and adults alike are capable of separating gaming from reality. I would keep my mouth shut, though, if someone would accuse Left Behind of inspiring youth violence - at least then maybe we’d reach a stalemate in this stupid debate.

As much as I loathe it’s politics, Left Behind has the sort of opinion in a game that I’ve been talking about. Though it seems to have gone too far toward camp to actually sway any opinion, in this case I’m a bit relieved. Now will someone make me a game where the atheists drive the militant Christians into the sea? It’s time to start crafting our response.

(note: I’m still wrapping my head around Left Behind, and trying to resolve my strong political feelings with it’s objective value, so I’d especially be interested in your thoughts on it.)

update:
Grey pointed me to this StickyBuffalo post that did the research that BoingBoing and I failed to do on Left Behind. It seems that the emphasis in the game is on converting non-believers (aka, those who have not yet chosen sides in the battle), and that, while there are copious corpses in the streets, there is no actual bloodshed.

There is a significant difference between a game in which players struggle against demons to recruit and maintain mortal followers, and one in which players are to impose theocratic rule and gun down “all who resist.”
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I definitely find the idea of “Eternal Forces” unsettling, but the same goes for the “Left Behind” books and the entire “Rapture” mythology on which they are based. These beliefs–including a close-at-hand end of the world, salvation for only a select few adherents of a narrow set of beliefs and a demonic threat resulting from secular government–can only promote intolerant and shortsighted attitudes.

The StickyBuffalo blogger is right - this does make the game less easily objectionable. Especially in light of the argument I’ve been making about swaying your gaming audience thematically, I think Left Behind might actually turn out to be a great example of what I’m trying to describe. But being less hateful certainly makes it easier to put aside my personal feelings and accept it as a progressive method of expression. I’ll have to check this out once it’s available.

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Here’s a few other quick updates that I discovered recently:

I was all excited and set to write about McDonald’s Interactive taking a stand on social responsibility, but then it turns out it’s probably a fake. Oh well, I guess it was too good to be true. (update:It was a really good fake - they actually did present as McDI at the conference.)

Nonetheless, we’ve got two (!) “serious games” conferences back to back this week: the badly titled International Serious Games Event in Birmingham, UK, and 060606 at Berkeley, which is also hosting the Serious Games Competition. This comes as no surprise, as the past year or so has seen an explosion in public thinking on the usefulness of games. I just wish they’d use a different word besides “serious” - they can be fun and productive, guys.

Also, the NYT just gave Nintendo a big sloppy kiss, calling the Wii+DS double header “an almost evangelical mission to rescue video games from the clutches of the sunlight-deprived, testosterone-addled, slightly gamy demographic group that has come to rule the gaming world.” Which pretty much sums up phase one of Nintendo’s plan, I think. (via Joystiq).