The best authors of fiction (both books and movies) must’ve had the knowledge that their story would be taken as a form of distraction as much as anything else. Think of Shakespeare – his plays were being seen by the common man, and surely they were there to forget about their shitty lives more than to be entertained, and they might go see the same play over and over again. Of course, it could easily be argued that you’d learn something new each time through… so maybe I’m proving your point more than anything. Just take heart in remembering that all the crap will fall by the wayside.

Yeah, I agree that a game can change its topic from sci-fi or fantasy to taking place in the real world and dealing with issues we face everyday. That’s not hard technically. The hard part is convincing people that game mechanics based on real life can be interesting.

Your other question, how do game designers transition people from winning in the game to winning in real life? No right way, but I look to documentaries for ideas. The recently released Food, Inc. actually presents text on screen at the end saying, “You can vote 3 times a day, but choosing to eat healthy food.” A game could do the same, but that moment has to be at the height when players feel most inspired, emotionally lit up and empowered to do something. It helps if the game can be seen as a simulation/practice for improving a similar situation in their life.

Another option is to engage the fan community of such a game to host “play & discuss” groups nationally. It will take a grassroots effort to organize such a thing but I think they can encourage people to host parties where people play the games together, discuss the issues explored and at the same time discuss how to improve things in their life.

This comment is long, I should have made it another blog post. Might do that later.

I am really inspired by your post, by the way. I’m having trouble thinking of things to say other than “Yes!” and “Wow!” and such, let’s see…

I liked the point about replayability being a waste of time unless it offers an opportunity to learn something new. Simple, but I hadn’t thought of it that way before.

Games can liberate people from their real life prisons instead of trapping them in artificial ones! Yes, this is a powerful message, thank you!

But how do we do this? I believe it but I don’t see the answer just yet.

To me it seems like the place to start is awareness. Show people where they are trapped by making a game about it. How do you go beyond that, though?

I agree with you, it is “the driver for that replayability” that I have an issue with. I have no problem with replayability if it offers someone a different perspective to learn something new. Or even to practice what they already know, i.e. approaches to communicating effectively with politicians or bigots for example.

Can you explain more what you mean by “real design success (not competitive, but “celebrity broadcast” techniques).”?

I largely agree, although I think there’s a place for these kinds of games, in moderation. But we are not hitting a large portion of this market well, because of a few issues. I think (1) money, (2) real design success (not competitive, but “celebrity broadcast” techniques). Those are the next steps, for this goal.

http://dankline.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/game-design-helping-people-fight-back/

A small quibble – I’m not sure the replayability is the problem. I’m pretty convinced the replayability is inherent, even desirable in the medium. There’s a difference between replayability (from beginning to end) and replayability (gameplay feedback loop), but it’s really just as much nuance as it sounds, and I think, narrative excepted, you can’t have one without the other.

It’s the driver for that replayability that’s the issue, optimizing for the perfect Skinner’s Box. We could just be optimizing it for a host of other things.