Disaffected Puts Gamers Into Real Life

The Guardian Gamesblog writes of a new Persuasive Games game called 'Disaffected'. The title puts you into the shoes of a Kinkos employee to discover why real-life minimum-wage employees are often so miserable. From the article: "It presents a very simplistic premise, and one which may offend both Kinkos and the employees themselves. As a casual game, it can't get as deep into the sociohistorical aspects that dog underpaid, under-trained and often under-age employees of US national corporations that Eric Schlosser's books Fast Food Nation or Reefer Madness expose, but it's an interesting scat on the seemingly pervasive branded advergames that have taken over."

Comments

Wow, that's really silly

[Pluvius]

If you really want to know why minimum-wage jobs suck, why not just get a real job at Kinko's (or McDonald's, or whatever) and get paid while learning? It's not like it's hard to get hired.

Rob

Re:Wow, that's really silly

[Thing 1]

It's not like it's hard to get hired.

Actually, if you're overqualified, it is rather difficult to get hired. They'd rather have someone who won't jump ship (and take away the training that Kinko's paid for) when the economy recovers. I went through this a few years ago.

Re:Wow, that's really silly

[iocat]

What games like this may miss is that there may be reasons to work at Kinkos or Starbucks other than that is the best job you could get. You may not be into having a career track job. Maybe you're an artist or a writer and want something that can pay the bills (more or less), gives you no mental stress when you're not on the clock, and may have fringe benefits (health care and coffee at Starbucks, and free copies for your fanzine/bandfliers/whatever at Kinkos).

Summary Blows

[StikyPad]

Since the article (which was little more than the summary) sucks at least as hard as the actual game, I went ahead and found an equally less revealing post by Ian Bogost who seems to be the programmer. Additionally I found an MTV review (no need to thank me; it was linked from the first article) which has the enlightening quote: "We're hoping this experience is a gateway drug to more sophisticated critique."

Although somehow I have difficulty imagining a serious discussion relating a video game to a gateway drug.

Oh, also you can download it for (amazingly enough) FREE, from here or here.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go bathe after being such a dirty karma whore.

Re:A big....fat.....

[LGagnon]

Given that there has been a controversy over whether or not video games are art, especially on Slashdot, a game such as this (which seems to be trying to achieve the merits of art) would be worth mentioning here.