Politics of Playing- Political Simulation Games

1) When looking at September 12, New York Defender and Kabul Kaboom, the idea of communicating a political message through interactive games would seem to be an ‘effective’ way of drawing people into relating to the message being conveyed. Interactivity is far more appealing than long pages of political protest, and would appeal to a wider audience. That said however, ‘games’ do appeal and invite a certain user or audience. And for the game to be completely successful in imparting an effective response in the user, he/she must be familiar with the use of standard computer games or have grown up with an understanding of their enjoyment and value. To reach a wider audience maybe an interactive flash movie would have been more appropriate as more mature audiences eg, say 40 and above, or those not interested in games, would have found more enjoyment. That said, these political simulation games, unlike any short flash film, offer a larger amount of user empathy and connection, and draws the player into the plight, connecting them on a more emotional level in such a short time. Eg, in New York Defender, the player is implicitly connected to say the plight of providing defense for American civilians, (eg taking on the role of say the military, CIA etc) in having to quickly detect the threat of incoming airplanes, and responding fast enough to shoot them. This however is a hopeless plight as the game suggests as, as fast as the player shoots, the number of planes will increase. The affect of having a game player feel a sense of inadequacy as defending his/her goal, has a much stronger affect in a shorted time on a personal level, than simply watching a flash movie. And in September 12 and Kabul Kaboom, the user can identify with more abstract political ideas and can be placed in positions more foreign and difficult to connect respectively.
2) I think the political message in all three of the games mentioned was immediately easy to recognise as soon as you play the game or finish playing the game. I think the notion of ‘I lose, therefore I think’, is incredibly strong, as in a game where you cant possibly win you tend to think, why the hell did anyone make a game like this? Because, naturally people associate games with entertainment, and connect them with the idea that they are meant to generate a sense of achievement, part of playing and enjoying it is being able to say, “Hey finally I killed Andariel with ice bolts after dieing 50 times!!”. Or alternatively, thinking about even the basic level of gameplay, say “Snake” on any mobile phone, people always want to get the high score, or ask what your highest score is. However, people would be far less amused saying to each other, “Hey did you play that game where you can’t win? How badly did you lose?”. Basically, in all three of these political games there is a low if not non existent level of enjoyment with the gameplay. You play September 12 and enjoy watching the cute little people walking around their city, and then as soon as you shoot the terrorist you think, “bollocks, hang on, more of them have been created then I killed!!” plus it is impossible to kill the terrorist even when you think they have walked to the edge and there aren’t any “nice” people around them. Almost instantaneously with your first interaction with the game, you feel a sense of failure and futile effort in trying to actually attempt what the game has told you to do. The goal seems non existent and reward even less so. Any user or player of computer games would immediately recognise and question the idea of this game, and even anyone not familiar with game play would pick up the political message.
3) I have absolutely no idea of a political game, I don’t have that much imagination lol. However, from looking at examples of political simulation games I would say the most effective way of creating one would be: a) have your idea create an interesting environment in which to play, eg, like in September 12 it was very cute, similar to Theme Hospital, because you would want to generate the idea that this game is for fun, and entertainment (even though it isn’t!!). b) I would be inclined not to mention in the instructions that there is no way to win the game, just to make the sense of defeat and futileness kick a bit harder because people would think they could win, after all, people think they can win a war. c) game play should be testing some kind of skill of the user, eg speed, accuracy, however no matter how fast how quick etc, the inbuilt nature of the game should increase exponentially to make achievement impossible. d) user should either fail simply by not completing the desired interaction that should cause a win state, or should have their interaction lead to increase negative effect instead of positive, e) finally, if the game either times out, or the player loses, a negative message should be written or some remark that reflects the political statement being made, instead of a traditional “Bad luck try again, or Congratulations”. Then at the end of the game, you could have a message saying it is impossible to win in a game such as “insert political action here=eg War, Terrorism etc”

I do think however, that Political Simulation Games would achieve a stronger impact on viewers/users associated with traditional gameplay, and who are looking for the standard notions of achievement etc that a game normally embodies. For someone who has no expectation of being able to win, or seeing it as a test of skill, the effect would be far less, although it would still be present on some level. Obviously because the nature of these Political Simulation Games rely on the already existing expectations of gameplay in order to make their point.