In his post, Kole raises the question of “how useful are games that deal with political or social issues?”  Although he contends that the answer is “not very,” I disagree.

Yes, there seems to be a critical and alarming lack of interest in America’s youth (ages 12-18) when it comes to social and political issues.  (I cringe at the memory of asking my German classmates why they liked Obama so much during the election, to receive the response “I don’t know!”)  However, I disagree to say that overall, most “cultured, intelligent adults” do not play video games—growing up, many of the parents of my friends would play video games with their children; for example my Dad and I would play Age of Empires II against each other all the time, and I suspect he reads more nonfiction social/political and historical books than most current college students.  Often times, I forget video games existed before I was born.  Likewise, although I may not necessarily see adults playing or talking about video games, doesn’t mean they do not indulge themselves at least once and a while.

I think the real question isn’t “how useful” are these games, but rather “how well made” are these games.  Although the games we played in class dealing with social and political issues were interesting, they failed to reel me in like other games that I play on a day to day basis.  But what if these games were created differently?  Rather than being point-blank about the topic and facts surrounding it, what if the approach were changed?  I think of Neverwinter Nights I, a game which introduced me not only to D&D lore, but also a lot of SAT words.  The program didn’t actively tell me “this word means this,” but rather incorporated more complex words into the game, causing me to go out of my way to learn them.  So what if we design political/social issue games in a similar manner?  Rather than a blunt message, what if we only divulge enough contextual information to strike a person’s interest?  Perhaps the problem with these games is that they lack soft power (the ability to inspire) by delivering the message too directly.  Genuine curiosity (interest generated from within oneself) drives humans to uncover knowledge—if we just hand over the information (forced interest, may feel alien to one’s actual interests), where is the fun in uncovering it, piece by piece?