Try and name two commercial titles that deal directly and intelligently with each of the following: Hurricane Katrina, AIDS, suicide, living standards, working conditions, mental illness, physical health, corruption, education, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, digital rights management, intellectual property, date rape, fundamentalism, any pending legislation, being black, being white or cancer. If you come up with one for each I'll buy you a beer next time you're in New Zealand.
Where are the titles whose message, rather than content, gets attention? Why are videogames not sparking revolution, social debate or real controversy? The demographics still skew toward young people, historically the agents of new thinking and change, and some places, like Italy's Molleindustria or small-scale webgames in odd corners, reflect this. But the squelching of Super Columbine Massacre RPG, - while the film Elephant was screened at festivals round the world - demonstrates the real feeling: Not for us, thanks. There's an invisible target in the industry's sights, a spot where it can hang onto its childhood innocence even as its core audience marches into their 30s and beyond. People and ideas that might interfere with the bottom line are, well, pigfuckers.
Videogames clearly are a form of escapism headed for hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues and near-ubiquity. Few people want "issues" shoved in their faces when they're trying to relax with a controller in their hands. But escapism doesn't have to mean irrelevance. Good science fiction has shown us that for over a century. There's something disappointing about aiming for little effect on your audience beyond visceral amusement. This is not about left or right wings or any of the other imaginary political spectra; it's about making the move from kids' toys to a medium that - at least sometimes, and without abandoning fun - accepts the responsibility of having a genuine impact on the world.
As with the Obama campaign, people with money and power are now taking videogames seriously, if only as a channel to a hard-to-reach audience. Some part of me is glad it took this long, because there's a loss of innocence coming that'll make Gears of War 2 look like Bambi. But it'd be a real shame for videogames to skip straight from scapegoat to PR tool without making a few genuine waves along the way. Or are we all just waiting for the next downloadable album of protest songs from Rock Band?
Colin Rowsell has survived the 2008 New Zealand general election. Talk to him at giantmonkeyvirus@gmail.com.
