EXP Podcast #575: A Conversation Only Somewhat About Games

This week on the EXP Podcast, we share a meandering conversation somewhat about games and somewhat about the ongoing racial injustices that are on everyone's mind. We encourage you to skip this episode if it's not what you need right now.

We also encourage you to stay educated, stay safe, and stay active via donations, direct action, or however you can.

We mention it in the episode, but we also want to shout out the Spawn On Me Podcast, especially the episode embedded below. Absolutely give this a watch.

 - Here's the show's stand-alone feed
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by clicking here, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format, or click play below.



 Show Notes:

- Runtime: 40 min 50 sec
- Music by Brad Sucks

EXP Podcast #467: Rated P for Podcast

Applies to most podcast episodes

In a time where in-game purchases, DLC, and loot boxes are everywhere, does warning consumers about gaming monetization provide much value? The ESRB thinks so! This week on the EXP Podcast, we discuss why the ESRB wants to make some labelling changes and what types of notifications we'd like to see on our games.

Give me a little heads up if there are huge spiders in your game, won't you?

- Here's the show's stand-alone feed
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by clicking here, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format, or click play below.

Show Notes:

- Runtime: 35 mins 26 sec
- Music by Brad Sucks

EXP Podcast #446: Players Behaving Badly

"Nerf Toxic D.Va Skin. Bliz Plz."

This week on the EXP Podcast, we wrestle with the dark underbelly of online gaming - its own players. With toxicity causing trouble in Overwatch, Steam's failure to address racist community groups, Campo Santo striking back against PewDiePie, the topic is on our mind. Even Bungie is reeling from a piece of armor that looks uncomfortably similar to a white supremacist logo. How should developers and publishers police their own communities? Should they?

This is a touchy subject this week folks. We're sending our positive thoughts your way. Keep up the good fight!

- Here's the show's stand-alone feed
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by clicking here, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format, or click play below.

Show Notes:

- Runtime: 29 mins
- "Why I Deleted My Steam Account," by Brendan Sinclair via gamesindustry.biz
- Music by Brad Sucks

The Politics of Pandemic: Legacy

Suprise, you're dead now! (Dead of Winter)

In my latest PopMatters piece, I make the whole world sick.

In other words, I find a way to connect a board game to Donald Trump's fear/hate fueled presidential campaign. No, really.

This past week, Pandemic: Legacy earned four Board Game Geek awards, including Game of the Year, Best Strategy Game, Best Thematic Game, Best Strategy Game, and Most Innovative. The game deserves all the accolades it receives, and for good reason. Pandemic: Legacy completely upsets common assumptions about what board games can be.  The oft-discussed element of permanence is what first grabs people attention. It's strange to take a sharpie to a board game for the first time. When you rip up your first card in entirely it feels blasphemous, which comes with its own feeling of illicit excitement.

It's thematic strength though isn't just found in leaving your mark on the game. Rather, I think its strength comes in the compartments that hide sudden changes in rules and context. A sense of surprise is something few board games create. Randomness can help if, say, a certain card is drawn only once in a hundred games. That one game can feel surprising.

Other board games like Betrayal at House on the Hill or Dead of Winter create surprise by including scenarios or rule changes when certain conditions are met. For example, an event card in Dead of Winter might only trigger if a specific character travels to a specific location, like the school or the gas station. These context-specific mechanics let designers create narrative moments bound to gameplay decisions. They're not always the most interesting or complex stories, but clearly surprises can be powerful.

Pandemic: Legacy is an extreme case, but I hope its design lessons spread far and wide, especially if they lead to more politically charged board games.

EXP Podcast #314: Fording the River of Tragedy

Getting raided in This War of Mine

From overturned wagons to the earthquakes, games have long been rife with disaster, but how well have they depicted tragedy? And what risks do we take when designing for tragedy in games? This week on the EXP Podcast, we are inspired by Paste's Maddy Myers when she asks "should disaster games be fun?" The answer, of course, is complicated.

As always, we encourage you to share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

- Here's the show's stand-alone feed
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format, or click play below.

Show Notes:

- Runtime: 32 mins 22 secs

- "Romanticizing Tragedy: Should Disaster Games Be Fun?" by Maddy Myers via Paste
- Music by Brad Sucks

The Mixed Messages of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

They do have some excellent MoCap though.

This week on PopMatters, I jump back into the politics of the Call of Duty franchise.

I actually did this once before when discussing Black Ops 2 and the ways it addresses specifically American fears. Every Call of Duty seems to me a push-pull battle between developers who genuinely care about addressing interesting and important themes in their games and developers who just want to make a hardcore bro-shooter. Apparently in the latest entry in the franchise, those who genuinely care have lost ground.

There are of course really interesting themes in the game, especially in regards to international corporations and their lack of accountability on the world stage. But Call of Duty pulls its punches. It fails to embrace the theme and actually hammer it home. Instead of a puppet-threat that actually represents some of the middle-class disenchantment that many Americans feel in particular towards the power of corporations in society, we have a vague indescribable Chechen terrorist organization. Instead of fully criticizing Atlas and their nefarious ways, we see a world genuinely better off than it was because of their wise use of capital.

How does Atlas get all their money? When the UN turns against them, are we meant to assume they are self-operating now? Do they collect taxes from their employees? Why do the majority of soldiers fighting for them do so? The game has no interest in exploring these themes because it relies on Kevin Spacey hamming it up in a caricature of greed-infused villainy.

At the end of the game, the bland soldiers walk away saying it's "only the beginning." Why? What is meant to happen next? Irons represents a singular corporate interest, one managed by an individual not stakeholders or a board of directors. Who is carrying on his lineage and what philosophical ideas drive the remaining employees? We have no answer because, surprisingly, the newest Call of Duty game is also the most conservative thematically.

Listen to our EXP Debrief here.

The Politics of Netrunner

This week in my latest PopMatters article, I equate the wonderful game of Android: Netrunner with political cartoons.

I know, it sounds strange, but hear me out. This game is steeped in political themes about corporations locking down their nefarious agendas from rebellious hackers. It's the stuff of science fiction, but it's also oh so real. As such, the CCG (or LCG) model provides numerous opportunities for timely little critiques and commentary on the political landscape of our time.

This was a hard piece to write, because I did not want to come off as overly gratifying of the political thought put into Netrunner. It is, first and foremost, a somewhat jovial experience. This is not Papers, Please by any means. Fantasy Flight wants to support a game with a strong theme, not alienate its own users.

Still, I also didn't want to underplay the importance of small opportunities for political commentary. Few games try to incorporate topical subjects at all, and few bother to do so with any tact or bravery. Every data pack released by Fantasy Flight has one tongue-in-cheek derision of the modern techno-political landscape in one way or another. These little manifestations of political commentary add up. Through play, we carry our an exercise in roleplaying and engage with an ongoing political discussion, even unawares. I would love to see more of this small-scale commentary included in more games, particularly those with regular updates and releases.

All that aside for a moment, I am still madly in love with the game of Netrunner itself. If you have know nothing about Netrunner at this point, feel free to move on:

Most recently, I have moved past my hatred of so-called "Fast Advance" decks in general and embraced an attempt at making the strategy work for Weyland. It's clearly not as successful as an NBN attempt, but the nigh-endless source of money Weyland can accrue, coupled with the constant threat of Scorched Earth, makes it far more thrilling than the current meta trends. I can't get enough of it.

Also, embracing Weyland's tendency towards bad publicity does so tickle my affection for political gaming experiences.

Systems and Activism in Papers, Please

Papers, Please poster via DeviantArt

My latest PopMatters article is now live: Systems and Activism in Papers, Please.

A couple weeks ago I peeked ahead at this article by comparing Papers, Please and Steve McQueen's (now Oscar nominated) 12 Years a Slave. In the game and film alike, I find fascinating looks at survival and complicity and the mixed feelings towards acting out one's agency within a system of oppression. It was my way of giving back some agency to the protagonist of Papers, Please, even as I undermine that same sense of agency in this week's PopMatters piece.

See, Papers, Please isn't just bleak in its theme, the systems it constructs are simply not built for lasting positivity. There is very little hope to be found in Arstotzka. No matter how much mastery over the game you achieve, it still creates a vicious cycle of success at a cost. To focus on the minute, Papers, Please argues, you must necessarily miss the whole. And therein lies its message about activism: enacting dramatic change requires great effort, especially when combating the very systems of oppression that make change so difficult. Political activism is, in some ways, a privilege.

This isn't to say those who find themselves within systems of exploitation or oppression cannot make political change, but that doing so, again, is costly. While not in the game's forefront, you could easily read a strong pro-union message in Papers, Please, as unions have historically offered a collective political voice to those seeking to change the very systems in which they find themselves in, diffusing the burden among the group and pooling knowledge. You could also use the game's systems to make compelling arguments for more civic engagement opportunities to the public at large, particularly in the educational system.

Again, none of this is explicit in Papers, Please. Even so, the game simply and elegantly expresses the extreme vulnerability and powerlessness of an individual alone, uninformed, and constrained.


Further Reading:
- "Experiencing the 'Banality of Evil' in Papers, Please," by Scott Juster via PopMatters
- "Papers, Please: A Game about Border, Stamps, and my Family," by Becky Chambers via The Mary Sue
- "The Art of Papers, Please," by Rob Parker via First Person Scholar 

Choice and Oppression in Papers, Please

PopMatters is still on vacation this week, so no big article from me quite yet. However, I want to give a little sneak peak of the article today anyway, mostly to cover an important issue I didn't have space for and to spend a little more time talking about film.

My next article is about Papers, Please, the much-adored indie game from Lucas Pope in which players control a border guard in the fictional autocracy of Arstotzka. Scott's already written a great article about The Banality of Evil in the game, I highly suggest you read. It captures expertly how the mundanity of the game reveals the poisonous system as its core. My article on the other hand discusses activism in the game and the terrible options the protagonist has as an individual within a massive and largely invisible system of oppression. The game makes some fascinating, albeit depressing, arguments.

My biggest concern after writing the piece is how we might interpret or judge the player character in Papers, Please. In particular, I wonder if we can judge the person within that position as someone lacking agency or whether instead we see him as someone refusing to throw himself upon the instruments of his own oppression. I know, I know, the border guard is just an excuse to play the game, but while doing so, I had to ask myself, why don't I just refuse? If I know I am complicit in serving this autocratic regime, why don't I just rebel? Indeed, in my future post, I argue Papers, Please makes a compelling argument that structure change demands a huge investment on the part of those rebelling against it.

I think the answer in Papers, Please, as in reality, is a lot more complicated. It sounds strange to say aloud, but there is a complicity in brutal survival, even while survival is itself a form of dissent. The protagonist of the game, for the most part, is barely surviving, and in that act of survival is a strange dichotomous existence.


A good comparison may actually be 12 Years a Slave, the latest and critically-praised film by Steve McQueen. The story follows Solomon Northrup, a free man who is captured and worked as a slave for the titular twelve years. Two scenes stand out as particularly significant. In the first, Solomon shares a sexual encounter with a fellow slave. It is not romantic or sexually charged. On the contrary, it is a short, desperate, and sorrowful embrace of human contact. The second scene is an extended take of Solomon in a group of gospel singers. He stands silently before joining in, lifting his voice to great heights while he wears a multifaceted look of both anger and solace.

Both of these scenes in 12 Years a Slave show Solomon's momentary acceptance of his place within an alien system. In some ways he does not identify as a slave, but in these moments he makes a decision, within a constrained environment, to both embrace and in doing so reject his position within the system of slavery. Survival comes at great cost, and at times can feel like complicity.

I mean no judgement here, good or bad, and I don't mean to equate the horrors of slavery with Cold War politics or the like. Still, the protagonist of the film, and the protagonist of Papers, Please, have meaningful albeit constrained decisions within their system of oppression. It is not impressive, it's incredibly important, that Papers, Please can evoke through the deeply mixed feelings the destitute and exploited feel towards decision making within the system that keeps them oppressed.

A Note on the AK-47

A golden AK-47 from Call of Duty 2

Mikhael Kalashnikov died on Monday at the age of ninety-four. For FPS fans, the name probably sounds familiar. Kashnikov invented the AL-47, the most widely used assault rifle of all time, and we would be remiss if his passing went unnoticed by the games industry.

You have seen this weapon in almost every shooter you've played. While its efficacy changes from game to game, some characteristics remain generally consistent. The AK-47 tends to unload a clip of 39mm rounds incredibly quickly. The AK-47's incredible stopping power still makes it a perfectly suitable primary weapon in even modern day shooters. While its accuracy leaves something to be desired, its power in short and mid-range often makes up for its faults.

The gun is so common in games precisely because it is so common on the world stage. The weapon achieved some renown because it cheap to make, easy to use, and surprisingly durable. The weapon didn't jam or overheat as often as its competitors either, which made is a remarkably reliable weapon as well.
Produced by the Soviet Union, the AK-47 traveled across the world, fueling Cold War conflicts and falling into the hands of some of the world's more seedy elements. The AK-47 outlived the Soviet Union and its popularity and accessibility remained as strong as ever. The weapon became much used among rebels and warlords alike.

In video games, it is often the weapon we first encounter when facing whatever villainous terrorist organization the creators invent or borrow, and rightly so. The AK-47, and subsequent models, are plentiful the world over. Shipment of the weapons, from various nations, find their way into the hands of hateful organizations, pirates, freedom fighters, and farmers. In some ways, the AK-47 is a "third-world weapon", it is no wonder it appears so frequently in the hands of our video game enemies.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kalashnikov became a sort of hero in his time. He climbed the ranks quickly because of his invention, and his imprint on Russian history in particular was strong enough for the creation of a museum in his name. naturally, he also knew the mixed feelings people might have towards the inventor of so destructive a weapon, even if it was just one of many. Kalashnikov called it "a weapon of defense" not a "weapon of offense," perhaps to undo the negative connotations associated with his invention. The difference, of course, is moot. All weapons are weapons of offense.

I don't know if I have a particular message here other than an oft repeated one that maybe we all know. In games we treat weapons as toys, but the real world footprint of these things are immense. The creator of the AK-47 died this week. It does us well to remember our in-game objects often have real world origins.

Labor Relations and League of Legends

My latest PopMatters article is now live: Labor Relations and League of Legends.

Troubling news from eSports recently after Riot Games announced they would prohibit their LCS players from streaming their competitors' games. Riot quickly changed their tune after community backlash, but the issue has already been set. eSports has matured enough to begin raising issues of exploitation and commodification of its players, which means we've basically arrived, right?

I spend a good deal of this piece comparing League of Legends to the NFL, partly because this is what the game's creators are measuring themselves against. Riot calls their players athletes, people who have started an eSports career. Yet what these terms mean is still ill defined, especially when a "career" can start and end in just a few years. If we are meant to take the idea of professional gaming seriously, then we must consider it a legitimate profession, which in turn should be understood with labor relations in mind. Contract transparency and a collective association of competitive eSports players would be a great way to start.

The push for an organized player body must, eventually, come from the players themselves. Sorry LCS Champions, but I don't foresee ESPN coming to your aid any time soon:

Shooter's Aren't Built for War

My latest PopMatters article is now live: Shooter's Aren't Built for War.

I basically use this week's article to undermine the Red Cross intent to incorporate international law in military shooters. I should make it clear again here immediately, their intent is admirable. While I don't believe shooter fanatics are more likely to commit genocide, I do believe misconceptions about the efficacy of international laws, treaties, and organization are more likely to remain if they seldom appear in pop culture. Even so, adding a punishment mechanism into a game is a poor solution to convey the importance of regulations on war.

As systems that favor physical repercussions, shooters in particular have few tools to address social repercussions. Yes, locking up a player character for killing civilians might get players to consider the real world implications of their digital violence, it's a poor solution to a larger problem. For the most part, the characters we play in games have no duties or obligations to larger wholes. Any limitations imposed upon us are tested and flexed and punishment itself is an unsatisfying feedback mechanic.

A better solution is to create more powerful roles and embed player into the larger systems that influence real world behavior, from those who wage war and those are are victims of it. Modeling these invisible repercussions is painfully difficult and, just not in the "shooter" wheel house. If the ICRC wants to have some persuasive influence on a wider gaming population, they should encourage a diversity not just of stories, but of the primary systems that shape them.

The Cost of Security in The Castle Doctrine and Papers, Please

Taht-al-hissar (Under Siege) cover via Foreign Policy

My latest PopMatters article is now live: The Cost of Security in The Castle Doctrine and Papers, Please.

My compatriot Scott suggested I play Papers, Please in a recent podcast episode. I gave it a try and, without a doubt, it piques all my interests. Not only is the game elegantly designed, but its game systems are deeply political, albeit not confrontation or didactic.

Scott has already written an excellent piece on the game, so I wanted to write about one particular aspect of Papers, Please in particular: the issue of security. As I thought about the subject, Rhorer's The Castle Doctrine kept creeping into my mind. The two games, although very different, procedurally address the subject of security intimately and intelligently. The two gaming experience naturally compliment each other.

The subject actually reminds me of several games that pertain to the Israel/Palestine conflict. The ongoing regional conflict remains one of the most controversial political issues of are time and is, hands down, the most talked about intractable conflict in the world. The quagmire has taken on a life of its own and many people from around the world genuinely believe the conflict has no end. It is the epitome of an endless war.

I disagree with that sentiment for a variety of reasons I don't bother discussing here, but I do respect the extreme emotions both "sides" convey when discussing the issue. The sense of security and safety is a dominant concern in all the conflict narratives and these are reflected in games about the issue. Afkar Media's  Under Ash and Under Siege features a playable and once peaceful protagonist that is compelled to violence  after suffering under an oppressive regime. Interestingly, the game has no clear win condition, the games always end with death or imprisonment, so while violence begets violence, and justifiably so, the cost of security is still on the forefront of the game's procedural rhetoric.

On the other side of the conflict, the 1989 game Intifada casts players in the role of an Israeli Defense Force soldier attempting to quell an uprising of stone-throwing protestors. Using excessive violence in the game drops the army's public opinion, which results in fewer weapons in later rounds. As the game progresses, extreme tactics become more permissible. The game creates an interesting narrative in which security is a managed and negotiated.

Other games based on the conflict, from Global Conflict: Palestine to PeaceMaker address the cost of security in one way or another, but all do so very explicitly. Papers, Please and The Castle Doctrine do so quietly, which makes them fascinating examples of deeply political games that may or may not have any intention of educating or persuading.

Endgame: Syria and Game Censorship

"How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?"

-  Faranheit 451

 A recent Kill Screen article brought to my attention a policy travesty that  raises serious concerns regarding accessibility to politically and socially relevant games. Following the completion of Endgame: Syria, a "news game" that seeks to simulate the stakes and strategies in the ongoing war in Syria, Apple rejected the title from the app store. According to App Store guidelines, the company forbids games that "solely target a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any other real entity."

This is, of course, the same sort of move that stirred up controversy when Apple rejected Molleindustria's Phone Story, which criticized systems of oppression behind smart phone supply chains - including, of course, the iPhone. However, the rejection (which came after first accepting the game) cited "excessively objectionable and crude content", making a moral judgement on behalf of the company's consumers. This is the same infringement, by the way, that was cited in Apple's rejection of Drones+, a sparse and non-sensational app that aggregates US drone strikes around the world from a public database.

In all three cases, Apple's relatively small number of quality control staffers act as moral policemen, safeguarding consumers' sensitive constitution. As a vehement proponent of the principle of free speech (and here I mean the value of open conversations, not just the legal right), I find the assertion that a third-party can  so assuredly patrol the border of offensive and non-offensive a ludicrous idea. It has never been easier to self-censor for ourselves. With the amount of sites that cater to all sorts of consumers, from conservative parents to religious communities, we all have more than enough ways to protect our own moral boundaries.

Of course there are plenty of other reasons for Apple to protect their consumers from potentially offensive games. Their policy against any "real world entities" could be a sure-fire way to protect themselves from criticism. Alternatively, the company could be concerned that users might associate offensive content with Apple's brand, thereby harming the "App Store" brand itself. Yet the term has already become so ubiquitous (despite Apple's legal effort to maintain brand hegemony), that there is hardly an alien concept that the app store functions more as a massive library than a finely pruned garden.

In fact, I think we should start thinking of app stores as libraries. With smart phones in nearly everyone's an ever-increasing amount of hands these days, mobile platforms are one of the easiest ways to access a huge player base, both those less knowledgeable about accessing and/or playing games from PCs and those such political games may seek to reach.  The decision to not carry Endgame: Syria is a huge blow not just to the game creators, but to those seeking to use games as educational and persuasive objects. Yes, Apple has every right to decide what products are available in their collection, just as many schools across the US maintain the right to manage their own collections. That being said, when a library or school bans a book, they are almost universally condemned. Apple's policy preventing political, social, or any other critical game with firm foundations in the real world is devastating and shameful.

Again, I am not suggesting Apple should lose their right to decide what can and cannot appear in their app store. Indeed, I am less concerned about Apple and more concerned about how we approach the distribution and accessibility of games as a whole. Yes, I think the policy reprehensible, but the company will not be the last to avoid scrutiny by suppressing controversial works. As games become an increasingly important medium for politically and socially relevant messaging, we should seriously consider what the future holds for our freedom to play.

In the meantime, we should also remember why banning books seldom works. When a library bans, say, Catcher in the Rye, demand remains, or even grows. Thanks to stalwart librarians, parents, students, and others, the works are made accessible through other means. To that end, and with no judgement on the quality of the work at all, Endgame: Syria is free to download for Android via Google Play and is playable online at GameTheNews.net.

A Reign of Missiles and Conflict Narratives

My latest PopMatters article is now live: A Reign of Missiles and Conflict Narratives.

I should really talk about the intersection of game design and international politics more often, this stuff is fascinating. I was lucky enough to get my MA at a University that embraced such unique combination of concepts and ideas and, frankly, I miss jumping wholeheartedly into the two fields simultaneously. The Reign of Missiles board game is hilariously perfect to pique my interest. A game about Israel and Palestine conflict? What's not to love?

The board game, designed by Paul Rohrbaugh, holds far more depth than my article could thoroughly explore, at least within any reasonable length. There are loads of various interesting systems that reflect particularly perceptions and narratives related to the ongoing conflict. Israel, for example, potentially has access to airborne Commandos that can attack up to two targets in the Gaza area.  These special units still have the same chance of inflicting civilian casualties when attacking. The chances of administering civilian casualties, 60% for both sides, is relatively high, particularly for a small band of ground troops. The frequency of such casualties depict a consistency in fatalities in both sides, regardless of motivation and engagement. Depending on your political perspective, this could be interpreted as a harsh reality or a gross over exaggeration.

A Reign of Missiles joins of many games about real-world conflict and a wider genre of war simulators. As such, there seems to be a clear pursuit of objectivity in the rules here. Of course such goals are impossible to achieve. That being said, A Reign of Missiles is complex enough to offer multiple perspectives on the conflict. As a piece of participatory folklore, the stories this game, and others like, can tell, is incredibly educational.

The Real World in 'Call of Duty: Black Ops II'

David Petraeus in Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Activision, 2012),

image from PopMatters.com

This week at PopMatters, I talk about Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's relationship with reality.

Maybe it's all in my head, but I always feel a little sheepish when playing and analyzing a Call of Duty game. As I noted in the article, Call of Duty is almost a punchline for a certain subsection of the game community. "What are you going to next," someone (like me) might ask, "explore the subtle themes of a Michael Bay movie?" I can't deny that there's some merit to this. Black Ops II has enough 'splosions and Hoo-rah for a couple of games.

Still, the games never fail to interest me. The Black Ops series particularly so, since it tackles actual historical events and people. If I told you that there was a video game that addressed CIA ties to terrorist organizations and put you face to face with Manuel Noriega, would you think that I was describing what will be one of the top selling video games of the year? It sounds more like something you'd find in the independent scene. Few other games acknowledge our reality in even the most general sense, let alone call out specific people and events.

The problem is that Black Ops II plays fast and loose with the real historical topics it leverages. In the marketing and in the game Oliver North is presented as some vague authority figure. There are always hints that the CIA is up to some shady business, but the game rarely takes a definitive stance on its actions. Jonas Savimbi is all soldier and no politician, and his ties to neo-conservative U.S. groups are ignored. China is a continual lurking threat, but the roots of the conflict are hard to follow as you frantically strafe through the levels.

Folks like Jorge and me routinely express our desires to see video games branch out to tackle more diverse topics. For every ten games about wizards, we're lucky to get one about politics. At best, I think Black Ops II goes halfway: it's not afraid to reference historical events and figures, but it doesn't offer much in-depth insight. Still, that's more than most games do.

A Class Act

When wandering the sci-fi corridors of Dead Space, its grey monotonous piping filling my field of vision, I often grow bored - at least until a necromorph with a bad case of eczema pops out of a ventilation shaft somewhere. “What am I doing here? These people keep telling me to do things for them. Am I even getting paid?” While I let my mind wander through empty corridors of both the Ishumura and Isaac’s vapid character, it dawned on me Dead Space might actually have a thing or two to say about class.

Seriously Spent

Any frequent readers of the site are aware of my interest in politics and the political aspects of games. I could babble on all day about human and turian antagonisms in Mass Effect 2. What I have not written about extensively on the site are my own academic interests, serious or social impact games. The genre, if we can call it that, is cluttered with a variety of different game types, from crowdsourced productive games to educational and persuasive games. The field even includes that oh so popular and deeply troubling word, “gamification.” My own studies center around global systems (I know, terribly vague) and game design, but I will save that topic for another day. For this post, I want to draw your attention to a game that recently caught my attention.

Fast Response Game Design

Did you notice that little thing going on in Egypt over the past few weeks? Apparently, there is some kind of world changing event happening. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have filled the streets of Cairo, with joint protests happening all over the country. Despite crackdowns on domestic and foreign media outlets, the world is attentive to the actions of a broad and largely united swath of Egyptian citizens. Right before our eyes, a thirty year old US backed dictatorship is being dismantled by a startling display of people power. This is fascinating history in the making. I think we should be asking ourselves how games can be involved.

Critical Eyes on Civilization

Last week, Ben Abraham posted an article calling for more persuasive games writing. In his post, Ben cited my recent article on Barbarians in Civilization V as an example of a piece that doesn’t quite achieve his desired goal. He states:

“Albor assembles the facts like a curios botanist might overturn a moss covered rock to see what grows underneath, and the facts are indeed worth assembling and investigating, however, Albor closes out the post before taking down any notes on what he finds under there. It finishes before reaching anything like its full potential.”

Looking back on my post, I could not agree more. While I both agree and disagree with Ben’s far more comprehensive article, I’ll be setting his many points aside (although for more, see David Carlton’s response and their brief conversation in his comments section.) Previously, I looked at one aspect of Civilization V’s procedural rhetoric and the game deserves much more. This post seeks to amend that error.

There are a few important aspects of Civilization V that are very important to recognize, but that I do not want to belabor entirely. Civilization V is dangerously simplistic of identity groups at best, if not flat-out racist. India’s unique trait, for example, is “Population Growth,” which doubles unhappiness from the number of cities and halves unhappiness from total population. This feature is most suitable for cultural victories. Firaxis mechanically constructed the Indian civilization, and cultural expansion in general, to conform to the notion of culture as a calculable attribute of groups of people, a notion that suggests the crowded streets and slums of Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata compose the necessary features of a cultural Mecca. Meanwhile, these densely packed cultural oddities, the game suggests, are relegated to fanciful dreams of utopia. India is just one example of vagrant stereotyping among many.
Diplomatic victories are equally shallow. In order to win such a victory, players must build the United Nations and win an election for world leader. The UN in Civilization V is a mockery of the actual international body. Players construct the UN independently. No general assembly exists, therefore there can be no international agreements, no peace settlements through UN channels, and certainly no human rights declaration. The UN functions as a narrative facade, obscuring one method to declare a single individual the winner. An election does take place in which city-states vote and play a deciding role. However, city-states can be bribed with gold or permanently influenced by liberating their city from other civilizations. A diplomatic victory announcement frames it as a competitive event, stating “you have triumphed over your foes” and your cunning has “divided and sown confusion among your enemies.” In Civilization V, enough riches can buy peace, and peace is just another form of selfish control.

Civilization V peddles modernist myths of linear and irreversible progress and characterizes political relations as neatly organized and legible. In fact, the hexagonal tiles of Civilization V mirror what Political Scientist James C. Scott calls the “imperialism of high modernist, planned social order.” Like the grid logic that allows states to impose order upon a people, and thus exert control, the tiles of Civilization V allow the player to quickly understand, order, and control their civilization. The games does more than depict a legible world, it calls on players to procedurally create such order. The barbarian encampments, the nomadic tribes, are eliminated only when the entire world is within line of sight of a civilization’s units. Illuminated by the presence of the state, the tiles are free of risk and can be purchased and exploited at will.

A civilization’s expanding borders are a visible depiction of control over an increasingly legible landscape. Scott’s discussion of rural settlements could easily be attributed to the creation of new digital civilizations when he states, “A new community is thus, also by definition, a community demobilized, and hence a community more amenable to control from above and outside.” Whereas Scott criticizes states with “an authoritarian disregard for the values, desires, and objections of their subjects,” Civilization V retains no such claim. The subjects of Civilization V have no values, desires, or objections to speak of. The game recreates the high-modernist discourse of ordered and legible civilizations as a digital playground.
Civilization V procedurally renders a vapid conception of social relations marked by blanket uniformity. Although players can unlock globalization as a technology, the game does not model a complex economic system of globalized production and consumption across borders. Civilizations are neatly confined and controlled. Poverty and inequality are not an issue, and class holds no explanatory relevance for historical processes or civilizational growth.

The game sure is fun though, isn’t it. To be fair, there is a lot of value in Civilization. For one thing, it can give unique insight into the process by which paradigms and practices shape the reality they seek to describe. Players can even challenge dominant narratives of history. However, all this demands a critical perspective. Games that depict real world processes and systems should not be played lightly, at least not at first. While Civilization V alone may not be all that persuasive, particularly for gamers who seem so damn good at ignoring a game’s fictions, it functions within a greater discourse about civilization and progress that does, in fact, sway popular perceptions and global policies. Designers and players should first and foremost navigate the intersection of digital systems and global systems critically, before we become enraptured by fun alone.