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April 19, 2004
Video game promotes viewpoint on terrorism
Last week I was away from Stanford, evaluating research proposals for the National Science Foundation, so my teaching assistant led my captology class. The topic: persuasive games. We had asked student to find and demonstrate a computer game designed to influence players. After the week was over, my TA reported back. He said our “Persuasive Game Expo” was a success, but he was concerned about the overt political content of a few games. Yesterday I played one game that concerned my TA: September 12th. In this game players try to kill terrorists. But as you shoot the terrorists, both terrorists and civilians die. The nearby civilians grieve at their losses and then turn into terrorists, like a plague that spreads out of control. You soon realize there’s no way to win. After playing the game I sat down to read the Sunday New York Times. The top story in “Week in Review” described the spread of terrorism. I noted the coincidence between playing the game and this article’s conclusion: “. . . even the most optimistic counterterrorism officials predict the war on terrorism will last for generations.”Posted by ptlab at April 19, 2004 02:47 PM
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