Social Impact Games

TeachingMachines writes "If you are interested in the cultural potential of gaming you might want to check out Social Impact Games. It's a site that catalogs links to over 200 games that are entertaining but not necessarily designed for the purpose of entertainment. For example, the Monkey Wrench Conspiracy is a first-person shooter game designed to teach mechanical design engineers to use 3-D CAD software. A game titled Incident Commander will model situations that include acts of terrorism, school hostage crises, and natural disasters."

Comments

Social Impact, eh?

[maskedbishounen]

Here's one a lot of /. folks might enjoy. The Anti-Bush Video Game.

Re:Social Impact, eh?

[KDR_11k]

This game sucks as far as gameplay goes, the story is absolutely ridiculous and the propaganda is thinly veiled. And I'm not even a Bush supporter!

Seriously, if you want to make a game to get a message out, good, but please make sure the game part deserves its name! I'm not going to play a crap game, no matter how much it's trying to teach me.

Re:Social Impact, eh?

[KevinKnSC]

This game offended me on a very deep level. Say what you will about the president, but do not speak ill of Voltron!

Monkey Wrench Conspiracy

[HanClinto]

This game looks really cool, but I can't find a place where I might be able to download it / buy it / try it. The manufacturer's website is giving me a 404, and while it has vague allusions to it on a search through the site, there's no hard information on it. It looks like it might have been renamed to "Time Mechanic", but I'm not finding that either. Anyone elae have better luck with this?

Re:i didn't check but..

[CodeMonkey4Hire]

It's called dating. You log on to this MMORPG called life and do things like chatting while competing with/against each other through myriads of mini-games. It even includes in-game cut-scenes that advance the plot.

Eventually, if your team works really well together, you might be able to expand your team by recruiting some newbies. Oh, but don't let your boss catch you playing at work. And make sure that you share your power-ups with your teammates or they might look for another team.

Sounds Familiar

[NashCarey]

This reminds me alot of http://www.persuasivegames.com/Persuasive Games. They are working towards the same idea of changing the minds of people playing the games. Video Games are the most immersive Form of Media out there so It is just a matter of time before people started this slant.

I created an Alternate Reality Game called http://www.ruaware.org/AWARE which dealt with the issues of privacy and terrorism. Many people before playing the games had different views than the ideals they ended with. ARG's probably have a REALLY big effect since the game really puts YOU in the action. The stange thing is I saw no mention of ARG's on their site.

Ultima IV was disqualified, I guess

[YetAnotherName]

There's a surprising number of games listed on that site, but no Ultima IV, apparently because its first goal was to entertain and not enlighten/educate/etc.. However, a large number of players took to heart the system of virtues expounded in the game; even to this day I evaluate myself as "high in compassion" but "lacking in spirituality." Social impact? A lot of pimply-faced youths were at least exposed to the concept of virtue and its value to civilization.

(Incidentally, Ultima IV fans may wish to check out the remake projecet.)

Re:Ultima IV was disqualified, I guess

[FortKnox]

Wow, I'm so glad that someone else thinks the same way. The Ultima series after 4 always involved the 7 virtues and 3 principles and the relation of them all. Every town had a fundamental virtue that life was based around. It really showed a player what it took to be a virtuous person.

That being said, the remake doesn't look as impressive as the NES version of Ultima 4 (which was very impressive, might I add).