Wilson is typically far-sighted in seeing video games as pointing the way to better education. While he imagines this future teaching centered on virtual reality, I continue to believe the greatest hope for learning will be in teaching systems-thinking, something that Wright has excelled at doing.

For Wilson, the greatest unanswered question in biology is “the origin of altruistic social behavior.” I suspect this question is what drew me to my interest in ants as a child: how these animals work together as a social organism to accomplish incredible tasks. And again this is the kind of concept that’s best conveyed via a video game – complex interactions among many small parts, as well as the ability to switch perspectives to take the point of view of one of those parts. I’d love to see Wright take on this grand task that Wilson has laid out: can altruism be the basis of a fun, exciting, blockbuster game?

Read/listen to the story: Ant Lovers Unite! Will Wright and E.O. Wilson on Life and Games.

Hanging underneath the cantilevered body of the museum is the “Mediatheque,” a digital cockpit reminiscent of a WWII bomber ball turret. It currently houses some 16 Macs through which patrons can access digital exhibits and a refreshingly current social-tagging and discussion feature. But as the picture below of a girl multi-tasking on her mobile phone illustrates, culture is racing ahead faster than installations.

In some ways a gallery of video games would face similar challenges as a museum of film – truly appreciating a game may take hours. Aggressively curating the selection to highlight particular aspects of the game – art, sound, and most of all gameplay – can help solve this, but the curator then runs into serious software issues. Taking an “excerpt” out of a game is nothing at all like doing the same for film – how might the exhibit highlight only one of the later levels in Super Mario Bros., for example? Then there are the hardware challenges, especially for more recent games that cannot be played or emulated on the PC.

Assuming that the technical issues can be resolved, how might a good curator assemble the collection? Some of the easier organizing logics would be historical, perhaps starting as early as the “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device.” One important segment might attempt to define “video game,” perhaps highlighting board games, sport, and film for comparison. Another angle might focus on video game assets such as art or audio; yet another would be to highlight major genres.

But most important of all, a proper video game exhibit must get to the heart of a game’s interactivity. The full art of video games surfaces when the act of engaging them reveals something about the human condition – whether it’s about yourself or your relationship to the world. Many of these might have to be small indie games, with an emphasis on “small.” Putting Super Mario Bros. next to Braid might demonstrate some of the conventions that the latter challenged, but won’t really help the player experience obsession (one of the major themes of Braid), at least not within an acceptable time frame. So a significant amount of “telling” will, I’m afraid, have to be done.

The picture of the girl on her mobile reminds us that any exhibit would do well to think beyond the four corners of the screen. As with the ICA’s innovative tagging system, it might even be possible to create an interactive exhibit that integrates the rest of the museum. (Museum as ARG, anyone?)

I would love to hear other ideas for how one might go about exhibiting video games qua video games. Thoughts?

(btw, Rochester’s Strong Museum of Play will soon be opening one of the largest video game exhibits in the world. I’m curious how they’re tackling the challenge.)

But just as soon as the game begins, the protagonist contracts malaria. The player must then choose whether to work with one faction or the other, or with the local church, to get the medication he needs. Conditions in the country continue to deteriorate over the course of the game. The sniper rifle is still the most fun part of playing, and the moral questions of right and wrong are not exactly central, but they’re there.

The piece then skips on to the marquis Game for Change, Peacemaker, which is a shame because there’s a lot more that could have been said about the diversification of first-person shooters into areas of moral complexity.

Scola also mentions the Obama-Biden tax calculator, which presents an interesting contrast. It, too, is a calculator — raw numbers stacked up — but it has the distinct engagement advantage of being about your money. Its designers don’t need to provide context or background; presumably, you know exactly what another $1,000 in your pocket would mean.

Such lame attempts at public education (or, as Scola argues, “pretend participation”) ignores the basic problem that for most taxpayers, issues of government taxes and spending are emotional, not rational, and not because we are innumerate but because such systems are too big and too remote for most of us to comprehend. This is a point that Prof. Henry Jenkins makes in his essay, “Complete Freedom of Movement,” which contrasts the play spaces of boys and girls. Whereas a game like Sim City allows players to mold physical territory, in girls’ games and stories like Harriet the Spy “the mapping of the space was only the first step in preparing the ground for a rich saga of life and death, joy and sorrow – the very elements that are totally lacking in most simulation games.”

Stated differently: cutting $10M from the state’s Department of Mental Health means something real for real human beings. The essence of a true public policy debate is to capture human reality in the discussion, not abstract it into numbers. (To those who argue that this would merely lead to an exploding debt, it’s up to deficit hawks to describe the issue as compelling drama, not formal logic).

A different contrast can be made with the Massachusetts Budget Calculator Game, Question 1 edition. As in the original version of this spreadsheet game, each top-level line item is explained with ample text — which requires players to be both numerate and literate. This “game” is no better than Patterson’s effort — except that the point isn’t really to balance the budget. The point is to show just how absurd repealing the budget is. It turns out that it’s pretty much impossible to eliminate the income tax without destroying practically all of the Massachusetts government, which an overwhelming majority of voters ultimately agreed was reckless. Rhetorically, then, the Globe’s budget game was less a simulation and more an exercise in futility, much like the message embedded in Ian Bogost’s “editorial games” for the New York Times.

But what about a game that actually helps the player understand a budget and make difficult tradeoffs? Possibly the best example out there is Budget Hero from American Public Media. (Read Ben Medler’s review). Among its stronger features is the ability to choose particular values that your budget should maximize (e.g. “national security” or “energy independence”). As your budget fulfills those values, the corresponding “badge” fills up. It’s a relatively elegant way to convey the idea that budgets aren’t just abstract numbers but expressions of our collective social values — moral and meaningful choices writ large. It also doesn’t hurt that the design is colorful, noisy, and generally attractive.

Most intriguingly, Budget Hero also compares your results with peers (assuming, as Medler points out, that the players are truthful). It’s a step in the right direction towards an engaged and informed public dialog.

when

Friday, May 16
3:15-4:45 (This session will extend into coffee hour)

where

Langdell South

what you’ll do

After project leads from WGBH present the basic goals of the show, we will be breaking up into small teams to brainstorm game designs that will advance the presented goals. We’ll reconvene to hear these ideas and give each other feedback. We’ll then break up a second time to hash out the ideas further, and present our final suggestions.

who will be there

Our team of “valuable gamers” from MIT and Harvard will be facilitating the discussions, but more importantly, we’re looking forward to YOU joining in!

find out more

Latest information posted to our wiki.

…In light of something as moving and personal as Persepolis, the idea of playing a game that dealt with repression and revolution like Just Cause did made me recoil. My initial revulsion at the game’s shallowness came surging back even more intense than before. Disgusted, I asked myself why it seemed impossible to make a game that dealt with social upheaval the way Persepolis did…

Read more on the GAMBIT blog

– Matthew Weise