Out And About

I'm at Games For Change today, which is coming out OK, and I'll round up my coverage at Kotaku for you guys later today when it's all up over there (or you could just keep an eye on Kotaku if you don't want to wait). I don't think I'm bored, my eyes are just full of pollen so I'm practically falling asleep at my keyboard.

Just in case you missed it yesterday, my feature responding to the Feministing "critique" of GTA IV is up at Kotaku. Lots of you asked me to respond to that a month or so ago when it came out, and so now that I've finished the game, I did.

Maybe not the best forum or context to state what I really feel the "point" of GTA IV is, but in general, I feel that the game is a complete and thorough satire of American culture, the way that only highly observant outsiders could have done it. I think the most widely criticized themes in the game are almost mockeries of us, the players - they know if they build the means for us to do those things, we'll run pell mell to do it, and vigorously defend our actions.

As I told someone in the comments of the feature, validity and value is not the same thing as virtue. I'm not finding it wholly excusable or justifiable; not once have I ever said "it's only a game" and "it's okay." All I ever said - and I've said this about lots of games with touchy subjects -that if we're going to explore, mirror and satirize our own culture in an open world, we should have the right to experience the ill alongside the beautiful.

On the upside, a vigorous, civil and deep discussion of feminism taking place on the comments at Kotaku. I'm impressed.

Anyway, I've been talking a lot lately about how I think we're underserving games' ability to make us think about real world things, and that they can do this without ceasing to be entertainment and without changing their nature. Sitting here at Games For Change, I often find that many people interested in making games specifically for activism end up with projects that are too divorced from the essence of what makes a game compelling. But I've also seen more and more folks with legitimate and experienced design skills begin a migration towards games focused on social change.

I asked Ian Bogost what "social change" means in the context of these games, and I think he and I agree that that objective needs to be defined a little bit better. At the end of the day, though, there's tons more work to do for these kinds of games across the board, but it's a start that we're all here talking about it.

By the way, the picture on the post yesterday was "Mellow Maromi," a toy/mascot character from the Satoshi Kon anime Paranoia Agent. The suggestion is, I think, in this postmodern show, that the illusory fantasy of security a character like Maromi provides strips people of their power to deal in the real world. And no, the people seen laying around Maromi aren't dead, they're dreaming. It's a peaceful yet ominous image, and I thought it was appropriate for the subject matter.

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