[WSIS CS-Plenary] Not-so-serious-news: "Video Game World Gives Peace a Chance"

[Rik Panganiban]

Ok, so it doesn't relate to Tunis directly, but still an interesting  
project to try and develop computer games that teach cooperation and  
peaceful resolution of conflict.  I personally loved playing the  
"Food Force" game put out by the World Food Programme last year.

The hard part of course is making the games fun.

Rik Panganiban

===================================

washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/15/ 
AR2005101500218_pf.html

Video Game World Gives Peace a Chance
By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 16, 2005; F01



Parents who worry that video games are teaching kids to settle  
conflicts with blasters and bloodshed can take heart: A new  
generation of video games wants to save the world through peace and  
democracy.

A team at Carnegie Mellon University is working on an educational  
computer game that explores the Mideast conflict -- you win by  
negotiating peace between Israelis and Palestinians. This spring, the  
United Nations' World Food Programme released an online game in which  
players must figure out how to feed thousands of people on a  
fictitious island.

This weekend, the University of Southern California is kicking off a  
competition to develop a game that promotes international goodwill  
toward the United States, a kind of Voice of America for the gamer set.

And lest anyone think only professors and policy wonks are involved,  
a unit of MTV this week announced a contest to come up with a video  
game that fights genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

Internet-based computer games, in which players create characters in  
a virtual world and interact to solve problems or win battles, are  
branching out from fantasy into serious social issues. Academics  
recognize their power as a new form of mass entertainment, and  
activists hope to tap into their enormous worldwide popularity to  
reach a new generation used to interacting through computers.

"It's been kind of a surprise for us. It just took off," said  
Jennifer Parmelee, a spokeswoman for the U.N.'s food program.

So popular was the U.N.'s game, titled Food Force, Yahoo had to step  
in as a Web host for the game when swarms of Internet users converged  
on http://www.food-force.com/ and accidentally knocked it off-line.  
The game, which Parmelee said was initially regarded with skepticism  
within the U.N., has been downloaded 2 million times since its launch.

Stephen Friedman, general manager of an MTV channel shown on college  
campuses, said he thinks his network's contest could help spread  
awareness of Darfur to young people who are interested in games but  
who don't follow world events.

"Activism needs to be rethought and reinvented with each generation,"  
he said. "This is a generation that lives online -- what better way  
to have an effect?" The network is promising a $50,000 prize to the  
student or team of students that comes up with the best idea.

Carnegie Mellon's project, called PeaceMaker, is led by an Israeli  
citizen named Asi Burak, who has sought input from both sides of the  
conflict for the game his team is building. In it, players take a  
role as an Israeli or Palestinian leader charged with bringing peace  
to the region. Use too much military force and the region falls into  
violence -- but give too many concessions quickly and a leader risks  
assassination.

"We want to prove that video games can be serious and deal with  
meaningful issues," said Burak, who will be lecturing about it at the  
Serious Games conference in Washington next month, a get-together  
dedicated to introducing game makers to potential clients interested  
in educational games.

Edward Castronova, a professor at the University of Indiana who has  
written a book about the dynamics of virtual worlds, said he wishes  
the State Department would invest in an immersive online game that  
would appeal to teenagers across the globe -- a game in which players  
could participate in an online world governed by democratic principles.

"It would just have one feature," he said, " live democracy. See what  
it's like when issues get resolved through peaceful voting and  
transition of power.

"Games give you the opportunity to live a culture and I think that is  
dramatically more powerful and persuasive than a million leaflets or  
60,000 Peace Corps volunteers."

A State Department official said the agency doesn't have plans to  
make such an investment.

"We are not generally a source of funding for experimental  
technology," said Jeremy Curtin, senior adviser to the undersecretary  
of state for public diplomacy. "But we are very interested in what  
the private sector is doing in terms of creative use of technologies."

USC professors Joshua Fouts and Douglas Thomas, the organizers of  
that school's contest, have discussed the project with State  
Department officials and hope to get a policymaker on their judging  
panel. The contest winner will be announced on the eve of a video  
game industry conference in Los Angeles next year.

The two said their contest was inspired by playing and exploring the  
virtual world of an online game called Star Wars Galaxies, which lets  
players around the world log on and participate in the universe of  
the "Star Wars" movies. They found that many players from other  
countries had a negative view of Americans, an impression that  
sometimes became more positive as they played cooperatively with  
players based in the United States.

"It's a virtual exchange program," said Fouts, who worked at Voice of  
America for six years before becoming the director of USC's Center on  
Public Diplomacy.

The biggest challenge for programmers entering the contest might be  
one that policymakers and activists have never had to think about:  
The game will have to be fun. After all, the loftiest and most  
educational game in the world won't have much positive result if  
nobody plays it.

David Tucker, a computer science major at the University of Maryland  
who hopes to land a job in game design, said he didn't know whether  
he'd want to play such a game or not. "I guess it would depend on the  
quality of the game," he said. "I know I have played games that don't  
have violence but are enjoyable." After a short pause, he added, "I  
can't think of any at the moment."

"If you write a boring book and people stop on page two, it has no  
impact," said Jesse H. Ausubel, a director at the Richard Lounsbery  
Foundation, which provided $125,000 in funds to sponsor USC's contest.

Is democracy "fun"? Castronova thinks aspiring game designers should  
have more than enough to work with for such a project. "You could  
look at the U.S. Constitution as a big game," he said. "We've been  
playing it for 200 years. And we love it."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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