Can Game Designers Bring World Peace?
The Serious Games movement is looking for ways to develop games for serious purposes. News.com reports:
Serious games usually have a message promoting education, science, health care or even the military. They’re meant to educate people by simulating real-world events and are often created with the best of intentions.
Earlier this week there was even a Serious Games Summit, a subset of the Game Developers Conference.
Part of the larger conference was the question of whether game designers could win the Noble Peace Prize. Then they voted on ideas. Here was one as reported in this News.com story:
Empathy” concept was built around the idea that people could learn to better understand war by putting themselves in the position of the victims of military conflict.
Players would take on the role of the father of a family of five and become responsible for everyone’s well-being as war drums sound and a full-blown battle is joined.
To win, players must keep their families alive until war ends. If the family dies, then the players lose.
(Epic Games lead designer Cliff) Bleszinski said his fantasy was that the game would help world leaders avoid war through better understanding of the consequences of their political actions.
“There should be a U.N. resolution passed,” he said, “that those making the call to war must log time in this program.”
