Week #9 – New Media Collectives | Interdisciplinary Teams – Lauren Marie Paterson

“It’s just stuff – until you don’t have it.”

These were the first words on screen in the game “Spent” – aimed at challenging the gamer to survive the month after losing their house and job. The game gives an enticing opening as it invites to gamer to a challenge – to survive for one month with only $1,000 to start. I immediately clicked on find a job, and out of the options, chose a temp agency. Should be easy, right? They can staff me somewhere for a short time. Soon after I was asked to take a typing test, and the anxiety I felt while trying to reach the goal of 50 words per minute (which I think creatively simulates the stress someone might feel in an interview) caused me to slow down, mess up, and ultimately fail the test. I had to sift through other work opportunities, and with every decision came information about the job that showed the good and the bad; the warehouse job would be physically demanding, the supervisor laughed at me when I tried to file for a worker’s comp due to injury – all realistic work situations that people can relate to, especially since many of us have probably had these experiences. As the month wore on, more life incidences kept piling on, from something in the car breaking to the pet being sick, and as the gamer we are forced to make decisions as to what to spend the last of our money on.

After making the heart-breaking decision to put my virtual cat to sleep, (I couldn’t afford to save you, Fluffy!!) I had to decide whether to take a $50 offer to help my virtual neighbor move and miss my virtual kid’s play, or go see the play. I had to skip out on the play and was moved yet again by the words on the screen:

“You’ll miss the play, but that $50 will make a difference. Which is a big reason parents with lower incomes tend to be less involved with their children’s schooling and their extracurricular activities.”

Yikes. A tough situation that I’m sure many parents have had to face, and the economic situation isn’t exactly letting up. I was actually able to survive the month with $60 to spare, (although rent was due the next day) but only because I didn’t register my car, and did a hit and run after accidentally causing $550 worth of virtual damage to someone’s virtual car. How virtually rude of me!

Games for change seems to be a very creative and 21st century way to engage an audience in a variety of global issues. Spent really showed just how hard it is to be down on your luck in a tough economy with life and all of its expenses carrying on as usual, and games such as Climate Defense and Neocolonialism both explore relevant and pertinent problems in today’s world – but is that enough to engage an audience? More specifically, and audience who NEEDS to hear this message to change their thinking. I can’t exactly see the Koch brothers or any member of Congress logging on to play these games to enhance their empathy and relativity to suffering citizens, so how do we reach an audience who thinks they already have all the answers figured out?  While many people care about these issues, do these games have to compete in the same pool as Call of Duty? I can see how creative visual projects such as Still Water, Media Storm, and Games for Change might be utilized to better engage a school audience in lieu of reading more textbook chapters, but if these games and projects want to reach a mass audience and change the thought patterns surrounding these social problems, what are they really going to have to do in terms of stepping up to get that engagement, or as they say in Spreadable Media, getting it to stick or spread before it’s dead?