Xocrates wrote:We're talking about a company that made a game about nuclear warfare, where the goal was to kill as many millions as possible.
Why the fuck are prisons even an issue? It's not even like you're encouraged to make your prison as crappy a place as possible.
Thankyou, I was just thinking the same.
Prisons leave a bad taste in your mouth, but, seriously, and for fucks sake, the last thing they did simulated the horrific annihilation of millions of civilians...
There is, quite clearly, something to be said there about the impact of the disconnect they managed thorugh the interface. Which should engender exactly the kind of fear and suspiscion of the military's ability to exist in that level of disconnect.
This aside, however, there is something political, and importantly so, by taking something such as prison management and turning it into a game.
The most obvious parallel is Littleloud's sweat shop game:
http://www.playsweatshop.com/
Here you are supposed to baulk at the fact that you are trying to be as efficient as possible in your exploitation of workers. What it does is lay bare some of the underlying systems which lead to sweat shops as viable entities. It's not that you are not supposed to enjoy effectively managing a sweatshop, but that the guilt you may feel in enjoying the game is designed to trigger a deeper awareness and thoughtfulness about the situation than "sweatshops are bad mmkay".
I'm not suggesting IV have any kind of political goal at stake here, that they are trying to deconstruct the prison system. All it makes clear is that making a game out of something many of us find problematic is not a bad thing.
Making something 'fun' out of something which we might otherwise, because of distaste or repulsion, distance ourselves from brings us closer to that. Not in order to agree with it, not in order to sing the praises of efficient prison managers, but in order to think through something in a more nuanced fashion that we might otherwise just outright dismiss.
Making people
think in more detail about something they would otherwise ignore, whatever the result of that thought process, is a more powerful and important political role than any shouting or banner waving could ever be. Just like Defcon, Prison architect is dealing with something many of us find repulsive. By not hammering home an agenda, by not being overtly political with a certain aim, but by simply asking us to engage in something we might otherwise simply turn away from, these games are being quietly, humbly, but importantly, political.
Whoever you vote for, the government wins.