Making Games for a Cause
Video game developers take on middle-east conflict and human rights
They say video games rot your brain, but what if game is about finding peace in the middle-east? Or taking a stand against human rights violations?
As the world watches the conflict in the middle-east escalate this week, one group is working on a way to let everyone see if they can solve it.
PeaceMaker, being developed by ImpactGames, is a strategy game that allows gamers to play as either the Palestinian leader or the Israeli leader and try to create peace.
Unlike most strategy games where the goal is building an army and conquering everyone, the objective in PeaceMaker is to find non-violent means to deal with situations in the game.
The player's dealings with diplomatic and military actions will either score them points and lose them. Gain enough points and you reach the rank of "Nobel Prize Winner." Make too many mistakes and your rank will drop to "War Criminal."
Although the game is still under development, it has been used in limited pilots in the U.S.
Once it's released, it downloadable from the official website for a small fee.
The PeaceMaker project is just one initiative to use video games to further human rights causes.
mtvU along with the Reebok Human Rights Foundation
held the Darfur Digital Activist Contest.
The goal was to combine student activism with technology to bring in more voices against the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
The result: Darfur is Dying, a free web-based game.
The player controls a Darfurian family who must complete tasks like foraging for water and rebuilding a settlement while avoiding being captured and killed by Janjaweed militias.
The game's threat-level can also be reduced by taking real-life action like sending a message to President Bush.
While this new breed of video games might not be changing the world right now, it's a creative use of an old medium that no one can accuse of corrupting young people's minds.
