games that sound good to designers
September 12th is a game where you try to shoot terrorists, but each time you do, collateral damage is unavoidable. This creates resentment, mourning, and inevitably - more terrorists.
The game is always brought up as an example of how games can illustrate complex points, namely that bringing the hammer down on terrorism is counterproductive. My question is, has the game actually been effective in that goal? Like, has anyone naive about the war on terror played the game and had their mind changed?
I don’t mean to discount the brilliant design of September 12th. I just feel like, if we game scientists are going to tout the amazing ability of games and their procedural rhetoric, we have to actually point to games that have broken outside game circles.
Of course, measuring the impact of these is games is difficult.
