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New generation of video games takes on serious subjects

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The year is 2027, and Roxxi is oddly sexy considering her size (microscopic) and the composition of her body (metal). Instead of a left forearm, she lugs around a "multi-purpose med blaster" that looks like a giant cannon. Her mission in life? Slip inside the bodies of cancer patients and combat disease and infection.

She's the main character in "Re-Mission," a 20-level, first-person shooter game designed to teach young cancer patients about their diseases. It's available free to children with cancer at www.re-mission.net, and it's one of a wave of new games that are challenging the old notion of video games.

No longer just entertainment, advanced technology is being used in games that do everything from teach children about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to help war veterans cope with post-traumatic stress syndrome. For lack of a better descriptor, they've been dubbed "serious games." Like "Re-Mission," they're designed to entertain players, but they're also meant to teach, train and inform them.

"(Video games) are a little bit like documentary films were in say the '60s or '70s," says Suzanne Seggerman, co-founder of Games for Change, a support organization in New York for makers of video games dealing with social issues. "Film had been a popular medium for a long, long time, (but) it took quite a while for it to mature enough to sustain real-world content. Games are at the same place now. They're being used for more serious purposes."

Controlled experiments with "Re-Mission" found higher levels of antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs in the blood of children who had played the game. The results suggest that it motivated players to follow their cancer therapy regimens more carefully than their peers who had been given a control game ("Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb").

It's proof, perhaps, that some games can have positive effects, and proponents say it's just the beginning.

Beyond your ABC's

Educational games like "Oregon Trail," "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" and "Reader Rabbit" teach traditional academic topics. They've been in schools for more than a decade. But the latest generation of serious games are different in their willingness to take on more complex, real-world subject matter.

The genre's poster child, "Food Force," teaches children how international aid works in the wake of disasters. Instead of reading a pamphlet on the U.N., players become virtual aid workers. They're the ones in the airplane's cargo bay pushing food out. They man the wheel in the truck winding through war-torn countrysides, and they fly helicopters over parched lands, counting the refugees in need of help.

Released by the United Nations' World Food Programme in April 2005, the free game is now approaching 5 million downloads in four languages (with eight more languages on the way).

"We were all taken aback by just how successful it was," says Silke Buhr, Food Force's project manager for the World Food Programme. "No humanitarian aid organization has built a game like this before, so we really couldn't have known."

Serious games advocate Bob March, helped find companies — Yahoo, AOL and Whyville.com — that would help distribute the game.

"(Children) are learning that kids all over the world are the same and that kids their own age go hungry," March says. "Millions of kids go hungry. If we can teach kids a little bit of social responsibility, they'll grow up and they'll incorporate it in the rest of their lives, not just in money, but in time and effort. . . . Some of them will go on to create games, and it'll create a snowball effect."

The game has turned the World Food Programme into something of a mentor for other humanitarian organizations looking to develop their own games. In the end, they did it for $400,000 — a small sum considering the game's reach.

"Awareness-raising amongst tomorrow's decision-makers — you can't put a price on it," Buhr says.

Speaking kids' language

As good as it is, "Food Force" wouldn't have been viable as a commercial release, says Ben Sawyer, co-director of the Serious Games Initiative in Washington. If the World Food Programme tried to box up its game and sell it in stores, it would "tank miserably," he says. "The reason it works is it's reasonably good, and it's free."

Thanks to its government-funded budget, "America's Army" is the one of the few serious games to approach the quality of a commercial release. Developed by the military as a recruiting tool, the game attempts to realistically depict life as a soldier from basic training to green beret.

More than 7 million players have registered on the game's Web site, www.thearmygame.com, making it the most successful serious game in terms of downloads, says Sawyer.

Another big-budget game, "A Force More Powerful," cost $3 million. Created by the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, it teaches players how to peacefully oust oppressive leaders.

Selling for $19.95, the game isn't trying to compete with "Grand Theft Auto" or "World of Warcraft." It's designed to engage players using a language they already understand.

We're at a point, Sawyer says, where people who grew up playing video games are becoming decision-makers. They're the ones who are willing to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars because they know from their own experience that video games are the way to reach children.

Michael Hillinger, a senior research scientist at the Learning Technologies Research Institute at Norwich University in Northfield, Vt.., led the team that developed "CO2FX," a prototype global warming game that challenges players to avert crisis by making shrewd policy choices.

"One has to kind of catch education where you can," Hillinger says. "Kids spend an inordinate amount of time playing games, and if we can siphon some of that time, even a percentage of that time, into more serious games . . . I think that's a good thing."

Controversy, and Columbine

"Food Force" is one among dozens of games dealing with social issues like poverty, relief work and conflict resolution. "Earthquake in Zipland" teaches children about divorce, "Darfur is Dying" turns players into villagers hunting for water in the midst of civil war and "LegSim," for high school and college students, simulates a working legislature.

No conflict or historical event seems exempt, and that's led some critics to charge that serious games trivialize serious matters.

An upcoming commercial release, "PeaceMaker," will let players take on the role of Israeli prime minister or Palestinian president. As political leaders, players will negotiate outcomes and respond to military attacks (perhaps with attacks and suicide bombings of their own) in an attempt to reach a stable resolution.

"Super Columbine Massacre RPG," a role-playing game, puts players in the shoes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the shooters in the Columbine High School massacre.

"Thus far, video games have been relegated to escapist entertainment — an industry known best for little blue hedgehogs and plucky mustached plumbers bouncing about in fantasy worlds," says the game's creator, Danny Ledonne, in his "Artist's Statement" on the game's Web site. "There is little in the realm of socially conscious gaming — software that does more than merely amuse for a few idle hours. Yet while some low-selling games offer pedagogical education (in geography, math, etc.), games that genuinely challenge social taboos or confront real cultural issues are nearly nonexistent. I wanted to make something that mattered."

In Uruguay, a small Web site has coined the term "newsgaming" to describe its video games based on news events. The site, www.newsgaming.com, offers two titles: "Madrid" and "September 12," both of which act more like interactive simulations than games. There is no beginning or end to the games.

"The rules are deadly simple," the opening screen shot in "September 12" reads. "You can shoot. Or not. This is a simple model you can use to explore some aspects of the war on terror."

In your cross hairs, villagers dressed in Middle Eastern garb hustle through a busy city center. Civilians are dressed in blue; terrorists in gray with rifles across their chests. It doesn't take players long to learn the game's lesson: When they try to blow up terrorists, their bombs kill terrorists and bystanders. Mourners crowd the bodies, cry in despair and some transform into more terrorists. Violence merely makes things worse.

"In film and television, you might feel the action, but you can't experience the action firsthand and you can't change the outcome," says Suzanne Seggerman of Games for Change. "You can watch film or TV, but games let you participate. . . . In other media, people are simply watching, making them merely consumers."

Fred Marion writes for the Palm Beach Post.