Games for Change Report by Sande Chen
Hi! I’m Sande Chen, the co-author of Serious Games, Games That Educate, Train, and Inform, and I’m taking over Joe Indie’s blog for just a little bit to report on the Games for Change Conference on June 27-28, 2006 in New York City. My blog Dame Dev, which will be updated shortly, has to do with women’s issues in the game industry. Some of the coverage will be appearing on CMP’s Serious Games Source.
Here are the links to the articles that have been posted:
Games for Change printed out the bios of all the registrants and this was so that the audience could participate and offer their own viewpoints beyond normal Q&A. Sometimes, it felt like half the time was spent on the audience. During the first day, there was that “What exactly is an indie developer?” debate happening during an audience segment. The audience also seemed to repeat questions about hate games.
Media Evolution: Building Alternative Spaces in Popular Media
The general gist of this session was to draw parallels between the development of independent film and video and the development of an independent games culture. That was too much of a stretch, I think, because it appears that the organizations and events that developed in independent film and video culture happened because they just happened. For instance, Marc Weiss, founder of public TV’s first website POV Interactive, said that he sent off a threatening letter (without any bite) to a film festival because they hadn’t included any independent films and mentioned his burgeoning organization, the Association of Independent Filmmakers (AIF). The director of the film festival, who happened to be coming to New York City soon, apologized profusely and asked to see the independent films from the AIF in a private screening. So, Weiss had to scramble to put together a program. Independent films were then included in that film festival. Word caught on and other film festivals wanted independent films too.
So, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, there were independent film and video makers but they didn’t really know about each other. They held a conference where about 100 people showed up and decided to form an organization, which became the AIF. They used the AIF for advocacy, to share knowledge, to set up gatherings, and to give support. They were activists and they made films about their causes. In the mid-1980’s, there really wasn’t a place to show independent work. So they established communications with the critics to review their work.
Sandra Schulberg, founder of the Independent Features Project (IFP), felt that these activist films would not be taken seriously unless they were in movie theaters or shown on TV. IFP wanted to be visible and felt that if they could prove that their films would do well in the movie theater, money to make more films would naturally follow.
It was pointed out that the game industry follows an old studio model where a publisher, like an old movie studio, finances game production and distribution. Over the years, film financing has developed many different options for production and distribution. The panelists believed there needed to be a more fertile game economy in order to compete with large game publishers.
Here is where the debate about indie games erupted. Do indie games have to be connected to social change? By default, are indie games about social change? Indie film is posited to be critical of the dominant and to serve as an alternative to the mainstream. It was about social change.
Ian Bogost, Assistant Professor of Literature Communication and Culture at Georgia Institute of Technology, stood up to talk about SlamDance. He said he felt there were some indies that were minor leaguers in that they want to get into the major leagues i.e. get a publisher, but there were others that were definitely the countercultural bunch expected at a film festival like SlamDance. Another audience member felt that it was better to have an alliance with a commercial game developer or publisher because there would be more reach and therefore, more impact.
David Rejeski
David Rejeski wrote an editorial calling for a Corporation for Public Gaming modeled after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). This editorial was commented on extensively by bloggers. He pointed out to parallels from before the CPB was created. Rejeski invited people to substitute the word “television” for “games.” There was a public debate in the 1950’s about the value of television. If you’ve done TV lit, then you know about Newton Minnow’s “Vast Wasteland” speech in 1961. Here is an excerpt:
When television is good, nothing–not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers–nothing is better.
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you–and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.
So how were children affected? Back when there were only 2 TV channels, children watched TV on average 2-3 hours/day. People worried about TV addiction, but they thought, “Hey, it keeps them off the streets.” The government conducted research into the matter with studies like “Television and Social Learning” and “Television and Adolescent Aggressiveness.” Eventually, the Johnson administration invested 9 million dollars to create the CPB.
Keynote
Stephen Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good for You, was the keynote speaker. He pointed out that “Gilligan’s Island” has the same premise as “Lost.” However, our society is much more complex than when “Gilligan’s Island” was on the air and “Lost” reflects this complexity. On the Web, he discovered an obsessive fan of “Lost” who had made a map of The Hatch. It was 30 pages long. It included screen grabs and the locations of items inside The Hatch. He called it a walkthrough for a TV show and said that the fans were behaving very similarly to gamers relating to a complicated game.
Framing the Dialogue: A Conversation Between Ian and Heather
The aforementioned Ian Bogost, who also runs Persuasive Games, got to chat openly with Heather Chaplin, author of Smart Bomb. The first question they pondered was: Are games ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Here, this went into total semantics, like What is the definition of ‘good’ etc? In any case, Chaplin decided emphatically that this is the wrong question to ask, or more exactly, that it’s a completely pointless question.
Next question: What is social change? Chaplin pointed out that the right wing wants social change and so do neo-Nazi groups so why does the audience hiss? An audience member stood up to say that very clearly, we know what we mean by social change and it’s from this 1960’s ideal and it’s leftwing and liberal. It was concluded that a social movement is not built around a medium such as games. Different groups understand that games are a powerful medium that can be used to further agendas.
Since previously there had been a comment about games not necessarily being persuasive, Bogost felt he had to answer whether games are persuasive. Games have systems and within those systems, Bogost said, are underlying assumptions. For instance, in Sim City, raising taxes leads to riots. Here, Chaplin interjected, pointing out the danger of human fallacy in establishing these assumptions or systems, especially since the game industry is commercial and about entertainment. The question was posed: What does America’s Army tell us about its world view? Commercial games, Bogost said, make statements about the world. In America’s Army, there is the Army and then there is the vague, non-descript “enemy.” Both sides see themselves as the Army. From this, one can start to make claims and counterclaims. Chaplin pointed out that what’s interesting about America’s Army is that it’s a game that is supposed to teach players about life in the Army, yet never delves into the ethics of killing a human being.
Chaplin expressed her opinion that the video game industry was nonpolitical. She had talked to people in the industry who had no moral qualms about consulting for the FBI or the military. Bogost compared to the culture to that of Silicon Valley. Perhaps video game developers aren’t artists, concluded Chaplin, but technologists. Like Moliere, rather than auteurs.
Some Photos
David Rejeski (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)
A slide from presentation of Stephen Johnson (author of Everything Bad is Good for You), Keynote speaker
Stephen Johnson
Peace Games & International Efforts panel
left to rt: Hardy Merriman (International Center on Nonviolent Conflict), Douglas Thomas
(USC Center on Public Diplomacy), and Stephen Friedman (MTVu)
Big Media’s Interests in Social Change Games
left to rt: Kate Connally (AddictingGames) Tessie Topol (thinkMTV)
Framing the Dialogue: A Conversation Between Ian and Heather
left to rt: Ian Bogost (Persuasive Games) Heather Chaplin (author of Smart Bomb)
Funding Perspectives: New Initiatives
left to rt: moderator Suzanne Seggerman (Games for Change), Brad Lewis (Learn and Serve America) Franklin Madison (ITAC), Chinwe Onyekere (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) Connie Yowell (MacArthur Foundation)
Educating to Mobilize the Masses
left to rt: David Williamson Shaffer (University of Wisconsin at Madison), Doug Nelson (Kinnection) Nelson Layag (CompassPoint Nonprofit Services)
Currently, we’re working on a “playable demo” that we intend to show off at the Indie Games Con in October. More news as it happens.
-David
Happy 4th of July! 
