Personal and cultural memory does not reside in a
photograph or film image so much as it is produced by it. Although Marita
Sturken wrote this in an essay regarding Oliver Stone’s films, it can be
applied to video games as well.
With games like “Call of Duty” and “Medal of Honor”
recreating historical events and weaving new patterns with our cultural
narrative thread, Jane McGonigal’s idea of using games to make new history is
not too far of a stretch.
However, the responsibility of securing the future
may be a bit too much to bear. After all, the primary appeal of video games is the
fact that they enable people to engage in adventure without encountering any actual
risk. Do gamers really want to play a game in which the health of the world is
actually at stake?
Making games “progressive” seems to dismiss their
inherently escapist nature. As a fellow classmate said, most people play games
in an effort to take refuge from reality. Therefore, basing the goals of games
on real-world issues neglects players’ desires.
Ultimately, if games can inspire youngsters to use
violence in real life — as many parents suspect — I suppose they can inspire
them to lend a hand to notable causes as well. But they need to do so in the
real world. We live in a world in which people are almost more active in
cyberspace than in physical reality. That’s just…not good, folks. Therefore,
the idea of using gaming to secure the future seems, well, lazy. The real
problems of the world exist outside the screens to which we are glued. That’s
where work needs to be done.
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