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Can a Video Game Solve Hunger, Disease and Poverty?
destinyland writes "Dr. Jane McGonigal of the RAND Corporation's Institute for the Future has created a game described as 'a crash course in changing the world.' Developed for the World Bank's 'capacity development' branch, EVOKE has already gathered more than 10,000 potential solutions from participants, including executives from Procter & Gamble and Kraft. '[Dr. McGonigal] takes threats to human existence — global food shortage, fuel wars, pandemic, refugee crisis, and upended democracy — and asks the gaming public to collaborate on how to avoid these all too possible futures.' And by completing its 10 missions, you too can become a World Bank Institute certified EVOKE social innovator. (The game designer's web site lays out her ambitious philosophy. 'Reality is broken,' but 'game designers can fix it.')"
I wanted to check it out for myself, so I clicked on the link in the summary. Alas, I was sent to a rather luridly written piece by a one "Surfdaddy Orca", which I was certainly not looking for. ... the link to the Evoke game's website itself!
Thus, I have googled it for you, dear reader, and thus present without (much) further ado
http://www.urgentevoke.com/
What is the incentive to grow and sell food if the UN is going to give food away for free to your customers?
I sort of research in this area (only sorta, but enough to keep up and know about half the people in it). So I can't help but throw out some additional resources, which you can interpret as "stuff I like".
FWIW, the general idea is usually referred to as "serious games", with a bunch of terms like "persuasive games", "games for change", "games with a purpose", "political games", "news games", etc. having more specific meanings.
I personally rather like Ian Bogost's book on the subject, which, contrary to a lot of stuff in this space, is more measured in talking about both the possible benefits and likely pitfalls. Although I love the idea and think it has a lot of promise, I've got to admit most attempts to make "serious" or "political" or "world-changing" games fall flat. Anyone played McCain's 2004 campaign game, "John Kerry Tax Invaders"? It's exactly what you think it is: a space-invaders clone with John Kerry tax bills coming down at you, in place of aliens. Hilarious, but kind of stupid. So I think it's important to not be fan-boyish about it, and figure out what would make the medium actually flourish for these sorts of purposes. (FWIW, Bogost also has a former blog on "games with an agenda", and a interesting Colbert appearance).
An interesting precursor is Chris Crawford's 1980s games, which tackled subjects like the Cold War and the environment in interesting ways. He's now giving away a .txt of a book describing the design behind Balance of Power (1986), still something of a high-water mark in combining the simulation genre with attempts to really make people think about the real world.
For more recent games, specifically in response to news events, some of which have activist content and some of which are just commentary, there's also a newsgame index. In addition, there's a recent paper discussing whether and how newsgames might become the 21st century's equivalent of political cartoons.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Level up! You are now 100% Ecomental-Think compliant!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I do not understand why these non-gamers or casual gamers think about changing the games all the time. I am an hardcore gamer and I will buy the product. Go save the real world not our fantastic world.
Non-gamer - I've seen the TED talk she did, and she is most definitely a gamer of the 'hardcore' variety. Was actually quite funny to feel her relief when she realised some of the audience were gamers too and were getting some of the references she was making.
Cheers,
Ian
Ignoring the issue of "poverty"--just because they don't live like us doesn't mean it's a problem.
Poverty in this case means starvation and death rather than not having a Wii.
Also education: exactly why do you need Western education to farm? But I digress.
Because farming requires education. Otherwise the farmers use slash and burn tactic which cause irreparable long term damage to their own land. It also allows for an infrastructure to be maintained, a proper government to exist, provided basic knowledge of medicine (ie: condoms bloody work), a working democratic process and so on.
Trying to fix the "problems" without going for the true underlying causes is how you end up with the shit hole that exists there today. Why do you think the place is such a mess and wasn't two centuries ago?
What you see now is exactly what happens when YOUR solution is used. What do you think the colonial powers did? They run the government, built infrastructure, provided food and so on. Then they left and the uneducated masses did exactly what uneducated masses do. The useful cultural traditions (ie: farming, government, etc.) were gone and the remaining ones were a menace. Having eight kids works great when seven of them die by age 10 but doesn't work when 7 of them live to puberty due to modern-ish medicine.
Not to mention that the fastest way to increase your standard of living is to have someone else pay for it. China knows exactly what it's doing and it's reaping the rewards quite nicely.
Here's her TED Talk on the subject.
Video game designers have a hard enough time creating hunger, disease, and poverty. At least realistically. You don't see part of Liberty City get poorer as drug lords thrive. You don't see the bums lunge at the hot dog carts. In X zombie game you don't see the virus spread through an un-inoculated population.
Maybe that's why the game looks a lot more like a comic book with a bulletin board system...
Sendou Wave Kick!!
Everyone that looks upon humanity and calls it broken is a dictator wanting to be born. They want to meddle in people's lives, arrange them like so many dominos, and then proclaim the carnage they have created as fixed. I wish these madmen and madwomen for once would have the self honesty to admit that they are the ones that are broken, because they hate a free people.
This is my sig.
The good news is that yes, a computer game can solve all the world's problems.
The bad news is...that game is Duke Nukem Forever.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Except for the part where the game designer gets to choose how the "subtle issues" are connected in a "complex interconnected system", I am sure you are right.
Take that stupid "kill the terrorist and make more terrorists" game. The group that made said game had an agenda and the rules of their game did not conform to reality but rather to their agenda. Their game ignored the fact that terrorists kill people, so the terrorists in the game never formed their own group of enemies.
Your post should be:
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
To me this is more simplistic, idealistic tripe. This is a more sophisticated variation of the stupid notion that love can save the world and we all just need to get along; something routinely conveyed in popular music. It's feel-good nonsense that provides no real solutions.
I'll grant you, the world does need these kind of idealists. This world would be a worse place without them. That said, all these problems have already been solved. Religion at it's core teaches humanity almost everything it needs know to solve these problems. Countless researchers and scientists have also devised innumerable practical solutions.
The problem, when it comes down to it, is human nature. These problems haven't been resolved and will never be resolved because of human nature. It doesn't matter what system of government or any other social system you impose on the people. People will find a way to exploit it. And far too often one group ends up being oppressed, financially, politically or socially, for the sake of another. Everything inevitably gets corrupted, including the aforementioned religion.
If people were totally selfless and honest we wouldn't even need a sociopolitical because all problems would solve themselves. But people aren't like that, so the most effective system is the one that accounts for human nature but is able to channel that energy in altruistic ways. Easier said than done. And of course this does nothing for disease which is something we'll be dealing with no matter how good people are to each other. It isn't a matter of saying fix it and it's done.