Playing Politics Workshop Response

1. September 12 made a very good point that in trying to target terrorists to kill, you would invariably blow up innocent civilians, as well as destroying the infrastructure and buildings of the town. It was then shown in graphic form that crying civilians would mourn the dead people, and then the mourners would themselves become terrorists. This message was clearly sent in a fun way. The same can be said of Kabul Kaboom, where the character has to dodge the bombs while catching the hamburgers.

As they are both fun and addictive, it is likely that during lunch breaks and even (shock horror) during working hours and in leisure time, people will play them. Most people will not read essays, long news reports or political blogs, but more people would be willing to play a game about it.

2. September 12 sends a very strong and obvious message about the ethics and justifications behind retaliation. Initially it begs the question of if it is fair to try to target terrorists by bombing towns and places they have known to be. This is exactly what Bush did after the September 11 attacks, and thus takes on an urgent political message. Innocent civilians will be killed when you bomb places and terrorists in the simulated game, which may draw attention to the fact that innocent civilians can and have been killed in the retaliation bombings.

The game also explores the real effects of retaliation and questions if it is indeed a valid philosophy. After retaliation some of the civilians in the game who witness the atrocious deaths, themselves become terrorists. In reality, this logic does work. Many people in the world do not benefit from Western (and especially American) consumerism and trade, and live in dire poverty while many people in the West do not, and thus they are already hostile towards them. When they see real tangible and direct American intervention killing their citizens, their dislike of America can only increase, and thus their willingness to engage in likewise extreme retaliations towards America is greatly increased.

Both of these messages are very obvious and are immediately recognizable while playing the game. At the beginning of the game it says “this is a simple model you can use to explore some aspects of the war on terror” thus making it clear that the simulation is directly inspired from actual events.

Kabul Kaboom also sends the very clear message about the odd logic of simultaneous American aid and bombs. The avatar can get American hamburgers, but has to dodge American bombs, which is a very clear attack that clarifies how nonsensical the American’s position is.

3. Probably the most popular topic on our collective minds right now is the recent Howard win. My game would try to highlight the atrocities committed under the Howard government so far in an effort to educate people about how dodgy and appauling he really is.

The game would have an evil looking caricature of Howard walking down a corridor with 4 or 5 doors. On each of the doors would be written something, such as ‘the Kyoto protocol,’ ‘equitable and affordable education,’ ‘Medicare,’ ‘queer rights’ and ‘old growth forests.’ The player could make Howard open any of the doors. Once a door is open, a new screen appears (i.e. the character has moved into the room), with various things and methods for Howard to destroy them.

An example would be, once the ‘Medicare’ door was opened, a screen with two or three old and sick people could appear, and Howard could choose the method he wished to kill them with (under funding, smothering with a pillow or jumping all over them). Once the “queer rights” door was opened Howard could fire bomb gay bars, send queer people out to an angry mob and say ‘I object’ during a queer wedding.