Political activism with a flick of the joystick
(Correction: Because of a reporting error, the Game On column in Saturday's Living/Arts section misstated which computers can run the game ''A Force More Powerful." It runs on computers, including desktops and laptops, with
Your first instinct is to have Rahman leave the Sudanese refugee camp and search for water. He's tall, strong, and 30 years old. But for those very reasons, he'd never make it back alive. At 11 years of age, Rahman's son Mahdi is small and quick. He might have a better chance, but he can't carry much water. So you compromise and send out Elham, Rahman's 14-year-old daughter.
It's more than a mile to the nearest well, across a flat and barren landscape. Elham nearly made it. Then a Janjaweed militiaman in a pickup truck spotted her and swooped in. And that was that. Game over, for Elham anyway. But she's got plenty of brothers and sisters, so you can keep on trying. And perhaps, as you watch these digital characters suffer and die on your computer screen, you might feel a glimmer of sympathy for the millions of real Sudanese refugees who face this sort of horror every day. You might even try to do something about it.
Can a video game change the world? MTV hopes so. That's why the cable channel is backing ''Darfur Is Dying," a simple and depressing computer game created by students at the University of Southern California and playable for free at darfurisdying.com. The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict has made a much bigger bet on computer games as a change agent. The group invested $3 million and teamed up with commercial game developer Breakaway Ltd. to create ''A Force More Powerful." It's a complex and clever political simulator designed to teach activists how to get what they want, even from a repressive government, without firing a shot.
A burgeoning band of software developers and activists, the ''games for change" movement, reckons that a generation that grew up with joysticks in their hands is ripe for political education through gaming.
Alas, some very nasty people share this view. ''I had come across some really vile video games like 'Ethnic Cleansing' and 'Concentration Camp Rat Hunt,' " said Stephen Friedman, general manager of MTV's Internet service, mtvu.com. ''They're pretty vile and disgusting games that are used as recruiting tools by neo-Nazis." And there are more where those came from. The recent furor over illegal immigration has inspired an Internet game called ''Border Patrol," in which players are urged to gun down pregnant women as they try to enter the United States from Mexico.
The developers of these games surely never meant to help black refugees in Sudan. But their work gave Friedman the idea for ''Darfur Is Dying." Not sure how to proceed, he advertised a contest on MTV, urging viewers to design and submit homemade games highlighting the crisis, with the best one to be offered free on mtvu.com. Friedman got more than a dozen submissions, with the University of Southern California students winning out.
There's nothing fancy about ''Darfur Is Dying," which relies on relatively crude animation. Yet it succeeds in creating a relentless aura of helplessness and dread. ''We've heard from students that it gave them nightmares," Friedman said. It might even scare them enough to demand that governments worldwide step in and halt the slaughter.
Meanwhile, in Sudan the regime continues its brutal work. Surely there are Sudanese who'd like to end the violence but have no idea what they can do. Documentary film producer Steve York thinks that citizens in repressive countries can almost always find effective yet nonviolent ways to resist. York produced ''A Force More Powerful," a series of films about successful nonviolent movements in India, Poland, Chile, and the United States. When York learned that political activists worldwide were using his films as training aids, he figured they needed something better. ''The films tell you what happened. They don't tell you how and why," said York. ''We started thinking, what could we do that would be more helpful to these groups?"
They came up with an entertaining turn-based game that embodies a lot of valuable lessons in political organizing and strategy. The player has to organize a fund-raising drive to finance operations. Then he must identify the most influential individuals and groups in the society -- businessmen, soldiers, clergy, labor unions, mothers -- and figure out ways to bring them over to his side. Every individual or group is rated according to fear of the government and level of enthusiasm for change. The player must devise peaceful methods of protest, ranging from underground newspapers to public demonstrations. The goal is to increase public enthusiasm for reform. At the same time, successful actions can lower the citizens' fear factor by making the government seem weak, inept, even ridiculous.
''It's about growing your movement and diminishing your opponent," said Ivan Marovic, a Serbian political activist who helped lead a nonviolent movement that drove strongman Slobodan Milosevic from power in 2000. As a consultant on ''A Force More Powerful," Marovic incorporated the lessons of the Serbian uprising into the game.
''Nonviolent discipline is very important," said Marovic. ''If you are violent toward the police, they will fight you back, not because they were ordered to by the regime but in order to protect themselves." But smart, nonviolent strategies can win, in real life and in the game.
''A Force More Powerful" runs only on desktop computers with
But it might help knock off a dictator or two.
