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a forum for the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment
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World of Borecraft June 26, 2007 - by Ian Bogost
Sneerish half-compliments aside, I do want to respond to Peters' main gripe. Essentially it boils down to this: most educational or "serious" games don't take advantage of the full power of the videogame medium. In his words, Civilization is goal-driven, instructional without being unctuous, and fun without being mindless. It's a considerable accomplishment, and one that the socially conscious game developers would do well to emulate.
I won't say that Peters is wrong here, but the problem is assuming that all games of this kind should be of the type and complexity of Civ, or that they should require the engagement of it. Admittedly, I do have a reputation for being interested in boredom and monotony as a theme in games. Many of our games have queues, for example. But Peters complains about Food Import Folly partly because he was perhaps ill-tuned to the kind of gaming experience we are trying to create with a game like that. To be sure, it's not a perfect game, but it also represents the polar opposite of Civ in terms of player experience. I tried to make an argument for this kind of expansion of the medium in an article on boring games, and I'd apply the same thinking to the issues Peters raises. In short, the idea of making games more alluring to people who don't love games is actually something of a noble goal, in my mind, especially as those who do love games become ever more narrow-minded about what a game experience needs to be. POST A COMMENT
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