Ian Bogost CEO of Persuasive Games… Associate professor at Georgia Tech

Ian is interested in games as a literary style.

Heather Chaplin, author of Smart Bomb

Heather got into games when her husband brought home a Playstation. Her background is as a business writer and is interested in the business of games.

Ian: How do we ask more interesting questions, other than “are games good or bad”?

A discussion about politics… Mostly liberals… Almost no conservatives… Some moderates, some Marxists.

Ian brings up, “Who’s social change matters?”

A fair amount of people identify themselves as game developers.

Again, the idea of games as an artistic medium comes up from a questioner.

The issue of the model of SimCity: Every time you raise taxes, you get riots.

What are the parameters behind a game? Whose agenda does it reflect?

Likewise, what is the model of “America’s Army”

What are the assumptions that are being communicated?

We always assume scientists have responsibility for what they create, but we don’t make that assumption about our entertainment.

Concern about ghetoization of the game industry. Who is making games? The entertainment industry and the military. Are we going to make the same mistake that we made with TV of it becoming primarily a commercial medium.

(Does this make some sort of statement about Community Access Gaming?) This is something we’ve talked a little bit about on the IRC backchannel in a slightly different tack. It also ties into the Citizen Filmmaking discussion. This sounds like a blog post that needs to be written.

Suxanne comments: We generally don’t assess art, but we do generally assess learning tools.

Doug Thomas: When I think of Games for Change, I have a clear agenda, leftist perspective, and subversion of the current power structure.

He goes on to talk about concern about the militarization of the game space.

Another speaker talks about the intersection between the political and social sciences and how it interacts with the arts and humanities.

Concern about games fostering a perception of right and wrong, of things that are measurable.

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