In an interesting article pointed out by Slashdot, Kevin Parker writes about the politics of video games. Or, pehaps more accurately, the politics we assign to video games. Parker goes through many examples of games with elaborate politico-story lines but misses out on "Deus Ex: Invisible War" as a prime example. Also, Parker misses the most obvious political game: The US Army's "America's Army". Not only are certain politics implicit in this game but this is the only game to breach in-game politics and bring it into the real world.
Comments (2)
1. Kevin Parker says... | May 2, 2004 11:42 PM
Good points Jeremy. I did want to look into and discuss both Deus Ex games, but ran out of time. I did actually discuss America's Army in the original manuscript, but that was part of a section that got cut by the editors to keep the length "reasonable." I certainly agree that this is a great example of a game designed for political (broadly defined) purposes.
2. Jeremy says... | May 4, 2004 2:27 PM
Hi ya, Kevin,
I'm honored that the author himself has commented!
Deus Ex: Invisible War was more overtly political than the original. It'd be worth looking at when you get the spare time. There are various politcal factions (Illuminati, WTO, etc.) all vying for power in a New World...after the collapse of some modern technology and a plague.
Did you know that Ubisoft will be handling America's Army from now on? http://www.lunabean.com/news/000209.php
Anyway, it was a very good article. I enjoy when authors escalate the video game dialogue beyond "it's ruining our youth," and, "video game violence causes crime."
I believe that video games are an art genre just like movies and they need not be excluded from educated dialogue.
Anyway, hope to read more articles soon...