A new genre of “games for change” educates players about world conflicts by letting them experience those events virtually.

A few minutes after Hannah Weismann arrived at a checkpoint entry to Jerusalem, Fahtima, a young Palestinian woman waiting nearby, collapsed. She was pregnant—due to deliver her baby in a week—and needed to enter the city for medical help. Waiting for hours in the heat had weakened the young Palestinian.
As Weismann and one of the soldiers went to the woman’s aid, a Palestinian man began shooting. The Israeli soldiers, quick to react, shot and killed the man. After an ambulance arrived, a soldier named Roi stopped Weismann to make sure she was OK.
She was, since none of this actually happened. It was all experienced by a gamer thousands of miles away from any such danger—in this case, in the comfort of an office in New York City.
The scenario is a simulation in the video game “Global Conflicts: Palestine” as seen through the eyes of it’s main character, a freelance journalist working in Jerusalem. It is a creation of Denmark-based Serious Games Interactive and serves to teach players about the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. So far, over 100,000 people have played the demo version in more than 50 countries.
The game is one of several released in the past years with the goal of providing players with information about important global issues. From Palestine to Darfur to Guant·namo Bay, gamers are now able to experience virtually what it’s like to be on the ground in a conflict zone.
Listen to Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, the creator of “Global Conflicts,” as he discusses the reception of the possibly controversial video game.These so-called “games for change” have been around since the early 1980s, according to Celia Pearce, the director of the Experimental Game Lab at Georgia Tech. The earliest one she knows of is “Mike Builds a Shelter,” a game made in 1981 about building a nuclear bomb shelter. Though that particular title was not widely known, by the late 1980s, games like Chris Crawford’s “Balance of Power”—which focused on the Cold War and was played by more than 100,000 people—had signaled the emergence of this new genre.
In the past two years, interest in games with real world focuses has exploded. Games for Change, an organization founded in 2004 to promote games that encourage social change, lists about 25 titles on its website. But although their popularity is growing, activist games remain footnotes in the sales tables, which are topped by mega-successes like “Halo 3” and “Grand Theft Auto.”
“The kids that grew up with the ‘Super Mario Brothers’ are now adults,” wrote Henry Jenkins, the director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, in an email. “They see games as powerful ways of engaging with simulations of real world processes. They are recognizing that like other media, games can do a broad range of things beyond simply entertain.”
These games are effective because players identify with their avatars and absorb social messages as they play. “You empathize and feel a connection with a character because of the agency you have over that character’s movements and actions,” Pearce explained.
Serious Games is currently working on a follow-up to its Palestine game. The new title is about past conflicts in countries like Guatemala and Bolivia and is due out at the end of this year.
For example, in “Darfur is Dying,” a game about the continuing genocide in Sudan that was created by Susana Ruiz, a game maker with mtvU, players experience what it’s like to live in a refugee camp in a country where more than 200,000 people have been killed and over 2 million displaced since 2003.
In the game, players forage for water while eluding Janjaweed militia and help maintain the health of the refugee camp by caring for crops and securing medical supplies.
With “Gone Gitmo,” a platform in the virtual world Second Life, documentary filmmaker Nonny de la Pena and digital media artist Peggy Weil wanted visitors to experience what it’s like to be one of the hundreds of detainees currently held without trial at Guant·namo Bay.
The game takes control of the player’s avatar by placing it on a cargo plane and covering its eyes to create absolute darkness. But this immersive experience does not follow the real world script completely: “We’re not going to torture the avatar, because we don’t want to trivialize torture,” de la Pena said.
“Gone Gitmo” includes an added level of immersion by incorporating real-life footage from the notorious prison complex along with audio and video clips of former Guant·namo detainees. Through the game, they wanted to provide entry into a world that is inaccessible in reality. Online, de la Pena said, “it’s available to the world 24 hours a day.”
Experience the emerging genre of activists games like “Global Conflicts: Palestine” and “Darfur is Dying” by watching three videos taken inside the games.Many such activist games target a college-aged demographic that is already familiar with video games, but their creators hope to reach non-gamers as well. However, this broader ambition carries risk. “People think that a game trivializes the issue,” said Pearce. “They are afraid of having fun while they are doing something ‘bad.’”
Ruiz kept such possible negative reactions in mind while creating her game about Darfur. Ultimately, she decided to limit the amount of context provided at the start of the game to avoid overwhelming players: “It’s a very touchy subject, and I wanted to create an entryway into the issue.”
Since launching in April of 2006, “Darfur is Dying” has had more than 1.2 million players, which seems to validate Ruiz’s approach. The game also has been translated into Arabic, Chinese and Spanish to reach an even wider audience.
Learn more about other games for change that tackle issues ranging from recycling to peace in the Middle East by reading our second floor.