While it is clear that video game
players are problem-solving, collaborating, and building/envisioning new
worlds, the question remains whether or not these activities will impact their
geophysical behaviors and civic engagement. I would like to treat video games
like Dewey treats experiences-- not all are educative, and some have negative
effects. You cannot isolate the variable of video games to create a
uni-directional causal relationship in a complex decision-making process,
whether that decision is committing a violent act, electing a particular
government official, or becoming a social activist for a cause. Instead we need
to view video games as an interaction with our prior knowledge, predisposition,
and belief system. While no one can predict outcomes, "The educator's part in the enterprise
of education is to furnish the environment which stimulates responses and
directs the learner's course...all that the educator can do is modify stimuli
so that response will as surely as is possible result in the formation of
desirable intellectual and emotional dispositions." (Dewey MW 9:188).
Because the terminology "desirable intellectual and emotional
dispositions" could read as a type of indoctrination and begs the
question, desirable to whom?, I suggest we use the terms "pro-social
behavior" and personal empowerment and examine how certain video games can
act as a stimulus. Pro-social behavior is a behavior that has a benefit to
others and/or society, such as volunteering, promoting tolerance, or advocating
a cause.
Dartmouth and NYU have designed a
whole curriculum around the concept called Values at Play. Instead of reading
about oppressed populations, such as Darfur refugees, you can inhabit their
lives through game play. Through embodying these characters, players gain
experiential knowledge and develop empathy. Though
research on the effects of prosocial video games is relatively new, recent
studies have been positive. In a comparison study of players engaging in
different types of games, researchers from Notre Dame discovered: "Those
who played the helping game were more likely to describe the story characters
as having concern and empathy for others in the story. Prosocial video game
playing had at least short-term priming effects for prosocial thoughts,
feelings, and attributed behaviors." Many of the emerging "empathy
games" involve giving voice to those who have been marginalized or
silenced. For example, the Half the Sky Movement created a game designed to
illustrate to players the difficulties faced by women globally. It tackles the
issues of human trafficking, health care, education, economic opportunity, and
gender-based violence. Perhaps games like these could answer the
post-ideological call of scholars like Alcorn: "Complex human problems, formed by changing historical
conditions, are not solved by a simple application of a correct ideology or
belief structure. Instead, political issues have to respond constantly to
concrete conditions of human experience, particularly experiences of suffering
and enjoyment...we must practice a form of discourse that will allow
information about suffering and desire to circulate effectively within groups
of people with diverse beliefs and values." (4-5). Five months after they
launch in March 2013, the Half the Sky Movement game attracted over a million
players globally. 
To circulate "information about
suffering and desire" one must engage in what Micciche calls the
"rhetorics of emotion." As she explains, "Emotion as
performative emphasizes the does, making clear that, as teachers, we cannot
install empathy over indifference or political anger over contentment among our
students, for emotion does not belong to people but is produced among
them" (109). In Zen Buddhist guided meditations the rhetorics of emotion
are performed through visualizations. In her discussion of meditation as a
literate practice, Gorzelsky gives the example of a guided meditation designed
for a man dealing with the loss of a loved one. First he is asked to visualize
the circumstances of his loss to elicit the negative feelings he holds. Next he
is led to consider the larger circumstances of the event, considering the
nature of life and the whole lived experienced of the person he lost,
visualizations designed to help him adjust his perspective and neutralize
destructive emotions. Finally, he is led to a self-reflexive moment where he
can appreciate the time he had with his loved one.
If one characterizes apathy as a
destructive emotion, then empathy games are much like the guided visualizations
of Gorzelsky's example. They help players visualize and experience the lives of
others in an immersive state designed to stimulate emotional responses. An
often-cited example is Darfur is Dying,
a video game designed to shed light on the experiences of the Darfur refugees.
Game play is set in a refugee camp that is being threatened by Janjaweed
militias. Players inhabit the role of a refugee who must fetch water without
being seen by the armed militia, rebuild their village, and survive attacks.
Mary Flanagan explains, "While Darfur is Dying allows players to safely
experience the trauma of being a displaced Darfurian refugee, the game is so
closely tied to real people and events that it unsettles the player and
disturbs her sense of comfort" (Critical
Play 246). It's this disturbance that is critical to social change because,
as Manuel Castells explains, "At the individual level, social movements
are emotional movements" (Hope and
Outrage 14). It’s important we understand that video games are rhetorical
texts that have the ability to elicit emotions.
