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The Fairy Tale of the Apolitical Games

by Paige Folingsby

apolitical-game

According to some users and game companies, politics does not exist in video games. For example, Ubisoft reiterates that the game has no political message at all. But anyone who has played Ubisoft’s new “Watch Dogs” on Brexit surveillance knows that’s not the case.

But perhaps non-political games can also be political. At the latest when politicians start playing on their own.

Non-political games also become political

The best example of this is the surprise hit “Among Us”. This is an online multiplayer game. Up to 10 characters roam the space station, at least one of whom is a traitor and gradually kills his teammates.

Innocent people must find out who the traitor is and blame each other until the traitor is found.

One of the players of American democratic politician Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. She played “Unter Uns” live in front of more than 400,000 spectators and called for votes.

However, it only took a few days for the backlash from Republican supporters to begin. Hackers and trolls flooded online games, harassed players with spam, and called for elections: Trump2020! So far, 1.5 million games have been affected, according to the

Innersloth development team. Helpless Reaction: Players should not play in public for the time being, but should limit themselves to private rounds with acquaintances and friends.

Game developers are overwhelmed by political publicity and are not alone. The main PC gaming platform,

Steam has 90 million monthly active users. Includes right-wing extremists who spread the nasty message and its ideology on the Steam forums. Racist games may also appear on Steam. Not only playing online multiplayer on the internet but also playing an NFT game such as CSGO that you can purchase at the best site to sell csgo skins.

Steam has too few moderators

Hate speech is officially banned on Steam. But Steam can’t fight back. According to the company, there are 26 moderators around the world, half of whom are voluntary. At the time of writing this article, Steam had four moderators online.

It’s this helplessness to worry about: Apparently, the gaming industry doesn’t know how to react to such political publicity. The structure is needed, preparation is needed, hackers need to be systematically expelled, and hate speech needs to be given. The next propaganda storm will surely come.

Computer Games Are Becoming Political

by Stella Tryon

Whether fantasy worlds, every imaginable sport or even an agricultural simulator: computer and video games are extremely diverse in their subjects. The industry has so far largely ignored just one topic: politics. But that is gradually changing.

Politics in Games – All Media is Political – Extra Credits

Jock Cranley is the cartoon of a reactionary tea party republican, and as such, he doesn’t like them all: immigrants, unionists, the disabled, police officers – and older women. The former stuntman wants to be governor of San Andreas, the fictional state in the action game Grand Theft Auto V, which is released for the PC. GTA V hardly evades a political topic, and computer games – unlike books, films or even pop music – have long been a non-political pastime. But the content of the games is changing and that has to do with the players, says cultural scientist Christian Huberts. He teaches as a freelance lecturer at the Games Academy in Berlin.

“In recent years it has become very clear that there has been a development towards political issues in games, political debate in games. This is due, for example, to the fact that the average age of the players is now between 31 and 34, depending on who you ask. And now you have a completely different target group that is interested in other topics and also in political issues. “

Immerse yourself in the lives of precarious workers

But it is above all the small, independent productions that tackle these “other issues”. Games like “Papers, Please!”, Where you slip into the role of a passport controller and have to deal with the topic of migration. Games like “I’m Positive”, which focuses on HIV, or “Card Life”, which takes a look at the lives of precarious workers.

Or games like “This war of mine”, which shows the war – from the perspective of the victims. “This War of Mine” even won a nomination for best international game at this year’s German Computer Game Award. Will games soon shake society up like the TV series “Holocaust”, the film “Philadelphia” or the book “The Lost Honor of Katarina Blum”? Christian Huberts:

“In the long term, one can definitely assume that computer games will have social relevance at some point in order to initiate political discourses, to comment on them and to play a central role in shaping them. But this is actually not yet the case. “

So it will take some time before computer games break the big socio-political debate. But they are already sharpening political awareness. On a side note, want a game that’s not so political? Click here.

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