Area 51 To Deal With Tense Political Issues

Since the days of the arcades, the Area 51 games have been brainless bughunts: find the aliens, shoot the aliens. When game designer Harvey Smith was hired a few years ago to work on the next iteration of the franchise, he began to despair at the lackluster story elements in the game. As he put it: "Area 51 just bored the sh-- out of me, and I was like, 'How can we make this interesting?'" As MTV News reports, frustrations with politics both in the United States and abroad led to a solution that required months of convincing executives to see implemented. Blacksite: Area 51 will feature a new and more poignant story, as the aliens become poor American citizens put in harm's way. "Wait, what if they are terrorists we helped create? What if the people supporting us in our fight against the terrorists aren't completely clean either? What if they're sending us after them now, but what if 10 years ago it was safe for them to create them?' ... So what we have in 'BlackSite' is a delta-force assassination squad hunting down and killing members of an Army training program. So on American soil, Americans are fighting Americans, basically." The game is intended to be enjoyed regardless of subject matter, but Smith hopes that gamers will accept a title that even touches on some of the issues that popular television shows deal with on a regular basis. What do you think about this? Is there room for politics in gaming, or do you just want to shoot stuff?

Comments

Fallout did some of this...

[seebs]

Fallout 2's explanation of how the holocaust happened blamed American politics. :)

I am all for having some story to games. It's generally a plus.

Re:Fallout did some of this...

[ectal]

Execution and presentation are the keys to good storytelling. Originality is cheap.

I will now avoid the cliche of citing most of Shakespeare's work as a key example of this--Whoops, there I go.

That said, I doubt the story will be any good for an Area 51 game. Though I don't see anything about the basic storyline that would make it hard for someone with enough skill to weave a good story, one better than Deus Ex, even.

Plenty of room in gaming for politics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like there was in earlier wartime cartoons.

Re:Plenty of room in gaming for politics.

[Rei]

Oh, dear God. Careful, or you'll end up spawning a bunch of new Uncyclopedia articles. The concept of a zombie rights movement has already been done.

politics, not polemics

[theStorminMormon]

I think there's room for politics in the sense of relevant issues with today's politics, but I don't want polemics in my video games. I think a lot of people who want to inject "politics" really mean "polemics". They have an axe to grind. Even if it's someone who shares my general political outlook (which I highly doubt, coming from a video game designer) I would really hate to have basically propoganda in a game I'm playing.

I mean bad story and bad dialogue and bad characterization aren't horrible enough? Now we're going to get stupid 8th-grade reading level political treatises as well? When game designers figure out how to write a script that doesn't suck maybe I'll trust them to inject politics.

Until that day this can only end in tears. Frustrated tears of tortured gamers crying out for entertainment that doesn't suck.

-stormin

Re:politics, not polemics

[bunions]

> Until that day this can only end in tears. Frustrated tears of tortured gamers crying out for entertainment that doesn't suck.

So business as usual then, gotcha.

Re:politics, not polemics

[Valdrax]

I mean bad story and bad dialogue and bad characterization aren't horrible enough? Now we're going to get stupid 8th-grade reading level political treatises as well?

Hey, sometimes it really works out well for you. Just look at Ayn Rand.

Re:politics, not polemics

[SalaciousPucker]

Talking about politics without expressing any actual viewpoint is pointless. The purpose of debate is controversy. Rational arguments can & SHOULD offend people.

It was fear of polemics that let a nation ignore debate on an issue as grand as war. It was our (corporate friendly) 'creative' people - hollywood & music industries - that were scared into avoiding any discussion/debate of the war in Iraq. The right wing martyr'ed the one country act that spoke their minds, and everyone else fell in line. Only now, when the war is well past being a lost cause, quite obviously, to even casual observers, can people stand up and question it. All that death, destruction and instability.....in an abuse of fear, wrapped in the flag, to sell the fear of polemics....of debate....of controversy.

Re:politics, not polemics

[Valdrax]

Talking about politics without expressing any actual viewpoint is pointless. The purpose of debate is controversy. Rational arguments can & SHOULD offend people.

What the GP is talking about is crossing the line between presenting a moral dilemma and pushing an agenda.

The best political plot lines ask a question. The worst try to force an answer. You most you can do without ruining a story is to suggest one by framing the story to be in favor of it, but once your characters become mouthpieces for the "correct" answer, you've lost the story.

Re:politics, not polemics

[theStorminMormon]

Talking about politics without expressing any actual viewpoint is pointless. The purpose of debate is controversy. Rational arguments can & SHOULD offend people.

The purpose of debate is controversy? No, I think not. That sounds more like the CNN.com obligatory "teacher sleeps with student/ random celeb does something awful/ etc.". The point of debate is to arrive at truth, or at least somewhere in the vicinity. If controversy is necessary along that path, so be it. But controversy for the sake of controversy is good for nothing but selling papers.

Furthermore, that's debate. We're talking about a game. I'd prefer games to have enough substance to provide fodder for interesting extra-game debates, not actually take a side in the debate. I'd prefer my games to raise issues, not try to tell me how to vote.

This is what we expect out of good literature, and it's what I love (and all to often find missing) in sci-fi. Good art, in my opinion, should raise questions. Not try to answer them.

-stormin

Re:politics, not polemics

[Rei]

Politics has been done well in games. Final Fantasy Tactics had a pretty harsh assault on Christianity, for example (read the Germonik scriptures?). Besides, sometimes there are things that are just subtle, amusing jabs. I ran into one in FFXII the other day (I took a picture of the screen, but haven't offloaded it from my camera yet), and no, I'm not talking about the fact that the game is about a powerful empire that exploits weak desert nations for their natural resources, whose actions can be seen as "evil" even though its citizens and soldiers tend to be good people.

Take the mindflayer hunt and talk to the petitioner. The petitioner talks about twin brother. He talks about how power hungry he is, and how dangerous he has become. The brother's name? "Ashkroft". ;)

Re:politics, not polemics

[Anonymous Coward]

You're being unfair to 8th-grade reading level political treatises by comparing them to Any Rand's work.

Re:politics, not polemics

[pyrrhonist]

I've always wanted to play alternate history games where you assume the role of victims of American tyranny, such as a slave or a native American, and then turn the tables on your oppressors.

There is no need to use an alternate history to find good examples of this that could be used for a game.

Re:politics, not polemics

[theStorminMormon]

You'll never find the truth if you only ask questions.

Two things. First of all, I think it's naive to assume that you're going to "find the truth" at all. There is no truth to be found about exactly which type of government works best, how much socialism, how much free-market capitalism, etc. Not that there isn't any such objective truth, but pat answers will never be found. Getting closer to the truth is a cyclic process of asking questions and proposing possible answers. Any body that says "this is it, the final concrete truth" on any given serious topic is lying or deluded.

So I'd say the process of asking questions and proposing intelligent, open-ended possible solutions is more important that rushing in with "solutions". I'm not really sure which end of this spectrum you fall into, and I don't want to judge you, but your tone so far is a little too "the truth is obviously X" for my taste. Anyone that takes that tone in a game is going to make a game I don't want to play.

2. And that's really the point. We're talking about what makes a good game. Even if you did find the right answers, even if you could prove they were correct: why foist them into a video game? It makes the games annoying (to people like me) and it's arguably not a great way to get your ideas spread across. People don't like to be talked down to, and that's exactly what you're going to sound like when you try to present a tight, final, immutable answer in a game. Even if you're right. You'll turn people off, whereas a more subtle question-raising approach that allows people to put the dots together is both more fun and more effective.

This is the same way plot works in a movie/book/game. If you have to get into long-winded exposition to explain the plot, the theme, or the point of your narrative you've already screwed it up.

Much as you seem to want to turn this into a discussion about the war in Iraq and politics in America, it's a conversation about what makes a good game. And someone trying to foist their particular political philosophy onto the players does not.

-stormin

Of course there is.

[88NoSoup4U88]

Is there room for politics in gaming, or do you just want to shoot stuff?

Is there room for politics in art, or do you just want to listen/watch/taste/sense it?

Of course there is place for politics in gaming: It's not as if there -haven't- been any 'political' games around yet, some might be more upfront about it (random example: www.powerpolitics.us), while others still give out a political message, but are very clever in hiding it (see americasarmy.com).

For myself, I don't mind if a game has 'politics' in it: But I think that the game from the article is a lame attempt at trying to intermix all the popular elements of today, together with some hot mix of controversial sauce. Trying to pass it off as anything more than that, is ridicilous.

Shoot stuff. Sorry.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Is there room for politics in gaming, or do you just want to shoot stuff?

Shoot stuff. Sorry.

In real life, I'm a left-leaning SOB, but I completely enjoy smacking people over the head with a hammer and jacking their ambulances in GTA. I also enjoy squashing other cultures under my heel in any number of RTS games and generally being a dick in MMORPGs. Do you know why? Of course you do: it's not real.

Is this new game really political? I'm not sure. Remember in Warcraft III you had all these random "stories" behind why battle 1 is humans vs. humans, battle 2 is humans vs. elves, etc.? I think what this guy's done is similar to that rather than being political.

If you want political treatment, write a sim where you're an arms contractor and you need to pay off your local congresspeople in a legal or at least hidden way. Or, write a sim where you get send to a base in Cuba with no hope for escape, rescue or legal representation. There's plenty of dirt to really dig into without making up crap about spec.ops. vs. spec.ops.

Re:Lame

[adamstew]

Some people like interactive stories. I for one, am a HUGE fan of the entire Myst series because of that. Myst certainly was not an action game, nor did it necessarily require any reflexes, timing, etc. (okay, there were one or two puzzles in the last few games that required you to finish something before a time expired).

People play games for different reasons. The online multiplayer is nice, because AI just can't measure up to real people...but I buy and play games for their stories.

Flashback

[Rob T Firefly]

I for one was hugely offended and disgusted when the mayor told me "My dear Mr. Firefly, we are at war with the SPANISH."

So...

[Quiet_Desperation]

So on American soil, Americans are fighting Americans, basically."

Ah. A Civil War sim.

Re:Shoot stuff. Sorry.

[kabocox]

If you want political treatment, write a sim where you're an arms contractor and you need to pay off your local congresspeople in a legal or at least hidden way. Or, write a sim where you get send to a base in Cuba with no hope for escape, rescue or legal representation. There's plenty of dirt to really dig into without making up crap about spec.ops. vs. spec.ops.

Nah, by writing the spec.ops. vs. spec.ops. the general public gets paranoid and thinks of that movie Enemy of the State. When they look for that, they don't find it. All the issues that you state, make a boring game so they won't play that or blow those issues off as they know that the government only engages in spec.ops. vs. spec.ops warfare with itself and that's obviously not going on so everything is perfectly normal except for those few crazies. Sort of makies you think of MegaTokyo and how Largo views all the scifi stuff going on in the background while to Piro and almost every other major character its just a normal day. We don't see the government acting badly out in public so those that scream at the top of their lungs that some thing is wrong that Miho is the zombie queen are looked at like absolutely crazy people and ignored.

I think what would make a great game would be to start off with something like SimCity or the Sims as a backdrop and everything is normal except for your team of either magic users, super heroes, scifi hightech good guys, or covert gov. looking out for the bad guys. You raid random Sim's home for evidence that they are an "evil" doer however you define "evil" be it drinking, drugs, alien contacts, terrorist contacts, unlicensed magical use, being a general villian, or just being someone our team doesn't like today. I guess some one could make Police Sate the game and see how people like playing as Nazis or KGB agents. Nah, that's predictable. Police State the game with legit terror, disease, alien, and anti-government targets to search out and destory. Don't ask why that guy was a terrorist or bad guy, you are just in the swat team and taking his whole family out and take it as a given that he was a bad guy.

Re:Shoot stuff. Sorry.

[drinkypoo]

Shoot stuff. Sorry.

Does that mean you're opposed to political content in videogames when it doesn't interfere with shooting stuff?

In real life, I'm a left-leaning SOB, but I completely enjoy smacking people over the head with a hammer and jacking their ambulances in GTA. I also enjoy squashing other cultures under my heel in any number of RTS games and generally being a dick in MMORPGs. Do you know why? Of course you do: it's not real.

Yeah, werd to that. Like just about everyone else's my girlfriend hates GTA. Says she's worried about me.

But of course you realize that the GTA games are themselves political statements, right? And I'm not talking about the freedom of speech issue of getting the game out in the first place. I'm talking about the world you can see that (for example) Carl lives in in GTA:SA. Now THAT is a political statement...

wasn't all of this done with "destroy all humans"?

[teh_chrizzle]

in the first one you are an alien in the 50's fighting traveling across america fighting police, soldiers, and "men in black" agents called majestic. the game is full of sarcasm about how cold war americans in the "golden age" were all secretly gay, or on drugs, or worse.

in the second one you are an alien in the 60's fighting the KGB for world domination in america, britain, japan, and russia. the game is full of jokes about cultural stereotypes.

in both games, the governments hate you and want to destroy you, but harvest your technology and stuff to use against you and their enemies.

Politics has been in games since at least 1990

[turing_m]

Ultima 6 is a prime example. That fictional universe was probably a prime reason in me becoming pro-multicultural at the time. Looking back on it, the propaganda aspects are obvious.

All these Gargoyles have invaded Britannia. You start off killing them, encouraged by your king, Lord British. Of course, part way through you discover that they are only coming through to your world because their world is falling into a void and they need you to rectify it. And they aren't evil, they in fact mean you no harm and are a very cultured and learned race. As an added bonus, you will pick up a gargoyle character who has better stats than anyone in the entire game. And of course, the only way you can finish the game is to help them out. (I'm somewhat surprised that the game didn't have you lobby Lord British to give amnesty for undocumented Gargoyles or go on a quest to get the local bards to put on a Live Aid show.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_6

As the audience in games has grown larger and recognition has dawned on people that you can buy tens to hundreds of hours of influence with a game compared to 2 hours with a movie, it's no accident that anyone with the desire to manipulate public opinion and the means to create video games decides who is cast as villain or hero in games, what the quests shall be, and what assumptions will be challenged by the protagonist in the game.

Propaganda in art is as old as art itself. I'm not sure why this is news.