Neat and well-thought idea by SVGL regular Patrick Dugan in the serious games arena. Check out his Electioneering idea, and note how sensibly he lays out his objectives and ideas in designing a game to motivate support for grassroots candidate Ron Paul-- and to educate players about grassroots movements in general, a unique way of looking at the challenges faced by candidates without big budgets.I'd recently noticed that perhaps causes shouldn't be so quick to leap on the serious games bandwagon-- after all, sometimes making a game is only "the cool thing to do"-- and may not necessarily be the most effective way to explicate a cause or reach a certain audience, or may be over-ambitious given the skillset (or lack thereof) of the parties involved. NYT's Clive Thompson spoke at the Games for Change event, and pointed out that one of the general shortcomings in socially-conscious games is that they all use the sim format-- without the budget or vision of Will Wright. Nobody's Will Wright, so everyone else oughta stick to what they know (or read Ian Bogost's book, at least).
Anyway, Dugan is a trip designer and seems to know what he's talking about, so I look forward to seeing his idea in the project phase. And, of course, he reads Sexy Videogameland, so he must be a smart cookie. A good egg, even. <--Click that. Trust me.
