Around the Horn: Games Raising a Ruckus
- Not at all related to ruckus raising, but the New York Times has an interesting article today. Coaxing Out Stories From Relics of the Past is a profile piece for PBS’ History Detectives, but it speaks nicely to a project I’m developing which involves historic location-based appropriative games. The quote of the article comes from Wes Cowan, one of the show’s hosts:
“I call history with a big H the history we get in school, with wars and dates,” he said. “It makes people’s eyes glaze over. But there’s another history, with a little h, that gets people really excited. People want to know whether their grandfather fought in the Civil War or World War II, they have a box of letters or a uniform connected to some important event. I don’t care who you are, every family has a story that connects them to history with a big H.”
The popular reaction to Manhunt 2 getting the big”AO” rating has been interesting to follow. The most entertaining take I’ve read on it came from the MediaPost Publication’s blog Gaming Insider. Blogger Shankar Gupta argues that the AO rating should just be abolished essentially because it causes the game industry to lose revenue and the ESRB has allowed from some subjective ambiguity between what gets a M rating and what gets an AO rating. My comments are all over the post. Honestly, I was hoping that Mr. Gupta was willing to defend his claim a little more.
Molleindustria has published a new game, and this one is sure to cause a ruckus. OPERATION: PEDOPRIEST is described on their site as:
Once again the Church is in the midst of controversies for the sexual abuses committed by the priests. The Vatican created a task force to prevent sinners from being captured and put on trial according to the secular states’ laws. You have to control the operations: establish a code of silence and hide the scandal until the media attention moves elsewhere!
Ian @ Water Cooler Games has already said everything that I might say (but better), so here’s a quip of his analysis:
Paolo tells us that the game is based loosely on the BBC documentary Sex Crimes and the Vatican, which you can watch on YouTube if you want the backgrounder. The documentary is about a secret procedure for dealing with child sex abuse.
Of course, the idea of a “secret procedure” is perfect fodder for a videogame. The game itself doesn’t so much operationalize the reported Vatican strategy as render it absurd and psychotic. The player musters eunuchs to intercept parents, priests, and police to disrupt the priest’s progress. There is a rhetoric of failure at work here, of course, because infinite attention would be required to succeed at preventing all abuse.
You can play the game online at Molleindustria’s site. Don’t let the characteristic cartoonishness fool you though, this is a game — perhaps the only game — with an explicit representation of child sex abuse.