Water Cooler Games - Molleindustria's Operation: Pedopriest

Molleindustria's Operation: Pedopriest
June 25, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Operation: Pedopriest Molleindustria, one of the only outfits that has devoted their entire artistic practice to videogames with an agenda, has released a new game, and this one's a doozy, bound to be either hated or mildly appreciated, but maybe never loved -- and that's by design. Operation: Pedopriest is a game about child sex abuse in the Catholic church.

Paolo tells us that the game is based loosely on the BBC documentary Sex Crimes and the Vatican, which you can watch on YouTube if you want the backgrounder. The documentary is about a secret procedure for dealing with child sex abuse.

Of course, the idea of a "secret procedure" is perfect fodder for a videogame. The game itself doesn't so much operationalize the reported Vatican strategy as render it absurd and psychotic. The player musters eunuchs to intercept parents, priests, and police to disrupt the priest's progress. There is a rhetoric of failure at work here, of course, because infinite attention would be required to succeed at preventing all abuse.

You can play the game online at Molleindustria's site. Don't let the characteristic cartoonishness fool you though, this is a game -- perhaps the only game -- with an explicit representation of child sex abuse.

Comments (4) | Post a Comment | TrackBack (0)

Comment from andrewstern on June 26, 2007

Wow... a frightening game. Turned my stomach.

"infinite attention would be required to succeed at preventing all abuse"

Can't you win by preventing priests from being captured? And therefore, as the player, you enable abuse? If so, it's a particularly difficult role to play, playing as assistants to the villains.

Comment from Ian Bogost on June 26, 2007

Right, I guess what I mean is that there's no way to play and succeed at protecting the children. It's certainly the message the documentary tried to send.

Comment from Patrick Dugan on June 26, 2007

Andrew, you may not have enjoyed playing the role of accomplice to evil, but you didn't enact the evil yourself. The one degree of separation made it possible for you to even try the game, a game about being a priestly pederast would probably repel so much you wouldn't even bother.

Its an interesting technique, removing the role from the subject matter just a bit, affecting it indirectly. Its almost like tongs to be used when handling volatile materials.

Ian, I should have a trackback registering with you, don't know what it ain't.

Comment from Ian Bogost on June 26, 2007

Patrick -- didn't get the TB.

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