Games do feel like an oddity as political outreach, but the more I think about the idea the more I think it has capabilities (as Lancelot Brown might have put it). With legacy media like papers, books, art, film, recorded music and all, you are a passive consumer of the media. With video games as art, you are an active participant and your choices define your experience with the work. Games like Planescape: Torment, Tyranny, and Disco Elysium are great examples where you’re expected to engage with political or moral ideas as a participant. You aren’t being treated as a receiver of propaganda per se, but as someone who can develop understanding and agency in the context of certain ideas, which seems like an improvement over propaganda in legacy media, don’t you think?
Narrative-driven games give players the illusion of choice. To me this seems like it would lend itself to being even more effective than traditional propaganda because it’s capable of tricking the player into thinking they came to a conclusion on their own.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Disco Elysium, but it isvery effective communist propaganda. Propaganda has a negative connotation but is not inherently bad or dishonest, though it certainly can be.
Every carefully crafted game has a deliberately narrowed scope in service of a vision. The saving grace of such deliberate textual framing is that when it’s done well you might notice it, but it gives you a shared point of reference with others in conversation. Instead of e.g. discussing racism in abstract, we can talk about how Measurehead, despite being everything his worldview espouses, is still ultimately a tiresome pawn.
I totally cede the point about framing, but not the one about DE being effective propaganda. To me it reads more like the author had a lot of complex feelings about communism’s promise and its shortcomings.
Narrative-driven games give players the illusion of choice.
What do you mean by this? There’s a finite amount of possibilities coded into the game? You only get (number) of possible choices so choice is an illusion?
Games do feel like an oddity as political outreach, but the more I think about the idea the more I think it has capabilities (as Lancelot Brown might have put it). With legacy media like papers, books, art, film, recorded music and all, you are a passive consumer of the media. With video games as art, you are an active participant and your choices define your experience with the work. Games like Planescape: Torment, Tyranny, and Disco Elysium are great examples where you’re expected to engage with political or moral ideas as a participant. You aren’t being treated as a receiver of propaganda per se, but as someone who can develop understanding and agency in the context of certain ideas, which seems like an improvement over propaganda in legacy media, don’t you think?
Narrative-driven games give players the illusion of choice. To me this seems like it would lend itself to being even more effective than traditional propaganda because it’s capable of tricking the player into thinking they came to a conclusion on their own.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Disco Elysium, but it is very effective communist propaganda. Propaganda has a negative connotation but is not inherently bad or dishonest, though it certainly can be.
Every carefully crafted game has a deliberately narrowed scope in service of a vision. The saving grace of such deliberate textual framing is that when it’s done well you might notice it, but it gives you a shared point of reference with others in conversation. Instead of e.g. discussing racism in abstract, we can talk about how Measurehead, despite being everything his worldview espouses, is still ultimately a tiresome pawn.
I totally cede the point about framing, but not the one about DE being effective propaganda. To me it reads more like the author had a lot of complex feelings about communism’s promise and its shortcomings.
What do you mean by this? There’s a finite amount of possibilities coded into the game? You only get (number) of possible choices so choice is an illusion?