Yesterday I was a speaker at the Serious Games conference in Washington, D.C. The Washington Post even had a front page story about the conference on Monday but thanks to the Post's impossible registration requirements I can't track it down. I'd recommend the Serious Games Initiative for more info.
But games have been an on-going fascination for the company. It goes beyond my own personal video game obsession (thanks to recent console game re-releases, Rally-X remains an constant and near-fatal distraction). In early September, the EchoDitto team went to Charlottesville, Virginia for a day-long brainstorming session with a group of UVA law school students. We were hosted by David Cohen, and we spend the day discussing virtual worlds and massive multi-player online games. Prior to the trip Michael Silberman posted recommend reading for online gaming and virtual worlds . Coming out of it we all had some interesting ideas and perspectives but a clear direction didn't emerge.
Yesterday's conference, though, clarified some things for me. The panel was hosted by the amazing Ian Bogost, whom I worked with on the Dean for Iowa game. Ian also introduced me some time ago to this interesting blog about games with an agenda. Also with on the panel was Chris Chambers from the Army Game Project, also known as America's Army. Excellent summary of the Army Game Project here. Some of the statistics he cited amazed me; 4 million unique players. At any given time 8,000 to 10,000 simultaneous players. The purpose of the game is basically soft-sell recruiting - providing a game experience that simulates what being in the Army is like. Listening to him talk, I realized that the game is really a brilliant form of advertising or marketing. They're using the game as mass media - like their own TV show.
Without delving into some of the political and sociological questions around the Army Game Project, I did begin to realize that there is something very serious to be considered here for the progressive political movement. I'm still not sure what the shape of it is, but in a meta-sense I do understand it. People have been talking about blogs as the left's alternative to the right's talk-radio. That analogy has never entirely worked for me - blogging and the blogsophere is a different beast than mass media. In critical ways it spells the end of mass media by providing such a low barrier to publishing that anyone and everyone can participate - Dan Gillmor's We the Media really lays out this vision. Games are not traditional mass media - they are interactive, iterative, and a different beast entirely. But they're also a different beast than blogs - they're not really grassroots, either. Games offer a chance a central authority (be it a corporation, a candidate, or an individual) to design a world and a series of problems and then invite people to engage in that virtual world, to solve the problems there. The opportunities for messaging and communicating and collaboration are enormous - and offer a more ready parallel to traditional mass media than blogging.
What if - to pursue a bit of imagination - the progressive movement put some money into video games? They might become the vehicle for messaging, consciousness-shaping, and organizing the way talk-radio has become that for the conservative movement in this country. There's no doubt that blogs are already doing this to some extent - but virtual worlds and video games are too big of a phenomenan to ignore. It's become as large an industry as Hollywood.
It's not that I'm suggesting that games are more important than blogging. I just think they might be of equal importance. Ian said to me yesterday that he imagines that in four or eight years there will be a presidential candidate who raises money through next generation Playstations. Cheryl Bernard from the RAND corporation who was also on my panel cited an unbelievable statistic about the number of Playstations being shipped to the Middle East this year. (I can't find the exact stat right now but will post it later.) When we talk about citizen diplomacy, video games might be a critical part of the future.
It's clear to me that games - video games, massive multi-player games - are a critical part of online strategies. Besides being vehicles for viral communications campaigns, games can help build online community in vital and engaging ways. Moreover, some of the opportunities of games haven't even begun to be explored - as ways of raising money, generating community action, and assessing people's attitudes. What the Army has done with their video game is pure genius. They reach their target demographic in a strong and compelling way, and guide them through a narrative over time that reinforces the Army's core recruiting messages. It is undoubtedly one of the most powerful PR tools the Army has at its disposal, and most of America probably doesn't know it yet.
