Log out and Wake Up!
So now you know there are about a million web sites for 'smart games'. I really think they are the ultimate oxymoron. You want to change the environment? You want to impact the death march of corporate greed, misinformation, sloth and evangelical ignorance? Don't play a game and hope for the world to change.
I might as well play Grand Theft Auto and plan on driving a Lamborghini to class.
Turn OFF your computer!
And strap on a solar bra! The Japanese claim it will generate enough energy to run your ipod! 
TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER! Stop playing Energyville or http://www.electrocity.co.nz/.Grab a friend and go down to
Join the Surfrider Foundation http://www.surfrider.org/and re stencil all the storm drains in SF warning us NOT to dump motor oil into the ocean...Too low tech?
Fine! Join Greenpeace and put your ass on the line in arctic oil fields. 
Too eXtreme? Still want to play a game? Fine...http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/multimedia/multimedia-archive/fungames/animations/la-hague-block-that-pipe/
Al Gore manged to parlay humiliation, highway robbery and the parental control stickers from Tipper into a slide show with the usual palaver on a paid lecture circuit that awaits politicians, authors and degree laden experts. Al Gore could just be the most under rated American since Jimmy Carter started banging nails at Habitat for Peace.
Al Gore with a little help, manged to turn your well made industrial PowerPoint presentation into a film that put a stake into the vampire like resilience of republican, evangelical & corporate misdirection. And yes the EPA has a game too...http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/fids/games/index.html. Even better,NASA
has a real doozie of a game http://www.globalwarminginteractive.com/
Is all of this just too serious and tragically hip? Eat a veg burger & poke fun at McDonald's at http://mcvideogame.com/game-eng.html. But please, enough of the Ben & Jerry's game. Dairy herds are such an efficient use of land and resources...NOT. And that's the problem, we love Ice Cream, & real Cheeseburgers that are not contaminated with ecoli-bacteria. I keep asking, 'is any smart game enough to actually alter cultural behavior AND opinions?' Have 40 years of world hunger and a cheating scandel slowed the popularity of McDonald's fries & their Monopoly game pieces...no purchase necessary to win?
Not serious enough?
Play with food http://www.wfp.org/how-to-help/individuals/food-force
while the WFP is actually FEEDING PEOPLE NOT SIMS oh yea this is really NEW & cutting edge.
(Maybe this is the same Sim George W and FEMA were playing while the dead and bloated bodies floating in the flood waters of New Orleans were eaten by crocodiles or alligators or caymans or sharks; just the 'Nature of the Beast'...but let's save that little thought for next week.)
Media is a noun not a verb. PEOPLE are galvanized; not an electronic sync pulse, or solar flare susceptible satellite relay.
This weeks question "Can 'New Media' Change the world?"
This weeks answer; PEOPLE change the world.
And even though Becky up in North Dakota and Evangelical creationists might disagree, we can be such a bunch of cheeky little monkeys.
Fantastic post!! Great links, great energy, great from-your-seat-to-the-street attitude. I think more game designers should echo this kind of voicing to incite participation. Don't many "serious" game designers take themselves a little too seriously sometimes? Your brazen approach is funny and challenging, makes me want to click on every single link.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I didn't think anyone would actually read it...hence the tacky title.
ReplyDeletehahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
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