Let's Play Genocide

February 3, 2006 10:39 AM

Let's Play Genocide MTV's Darfur Digital Activist online game contest has posted the four finalist teams' prototypes for voting. In Fetching Water, "you are a Darfurian trying to to make it the well to get water without becoming a victim of the Janjaweed." When do social impact games cross the line from raising awareness into trivializing?
posted by Cassford (15 comments total)

I thought MTV was rock 'n roll, not genocide
posted by InfidelZombie at 10:52 AM on February 3, 2006

It allready is trivial for most people. Perhaps the game is meant to be satire.
posted by stbalbach at 10:52 AM on February 3, 2006

I think it is a trick game, you can never make it to the water.
posted by Mr_Zero at 10:53 AM on February 3, 2006

Damn i got raped by the militia again yo! Fuck this game
posted by gagglezoomer at 10:55 AM on February 3, 2006

so, you're suggesting perhaps d&g or tic tac toe as a better learning experience?
no, perhaps not.
It's easy to become tacky and insensitive when providing this type af awareness outreach. But just offhand I can't think of a better way to reach an age group which is less interested in world events in general, and the suffering elsewhere in the world then the younger gamers community.
posted by garficher at 10:56 AM on February 3, 2006

Now I'm a victim too.
posted by mullacc at 11:16 AM on February 3, 2006

Damn i got raped by the militia again yo! Fuck this game
posted by gagglezoomer at 10:55 AM PST on February 3 [!]

Holy cow, that was funny.
posted by onegreeneye at 11:17 AM on February 3, 2006

Greetings, Professor Falken. Would you like to play a game?
posted by JekPorkins at 11:24 AM on February 3, 2006

pepsi blue
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:27 AM on February 3, 2006

pepsi blue

...but is anybody really buying genocide?
posted by iamck at 12:02 PM on February 3, 2006

Sponsored by the Reebok^&copy Human Rights Foundation. I never know they cared.
posted by youarenothere at 12:09 PM on February 3, 2006

...but is anybody really buying genocide?

Looking at the mess in Bosnia, Rwanda, Belgian Congo, etc. and ad nauseam, it seems to me to be a sellers market.
"Yah," says Dr. Strangelove, "You only have to queue up for the ride once..."
posted by Zack_Replica at 12:17 PM on February 3, 2006

Sponsored by the Reebok&copy Human Rights Foundation. I never know they cared.

There's a lot of bare feet over there...
posted by iamck at 12:36 PM on February 3, 2006

Pepsi Blue
FYI, I am in no way associated with MTV, this contest, or Reebok. I work in the field of preventing collective violence and genocide through education. So I follow this sort of thing. I found all of these game prototypes a little disconcerting. I know it is a contest for college kids who may or may not have a grasp of the subject matter. But jeesh. The water game turned a kid getting the basic necessities of life into a game of Frogger.

I know folks posted here in the past about the World Food Program's Food Force. I found that one odd, but at least, as Nickdouglas pointed out, the WFP feeds people when they aren't making games. MTV, feeds people...music videos.

Anything raising awareness is good, I suppose. But something about these rubbed me wrong.
posted by Cassford at 1:08 PM on February 3, 2006

Great. and I thought MTV had scraped the bottom of my esteem barrel long ago.
posted by Busithoth at 1:47 PM on February 3, 2006