BE John Kerry: Kuma War gets political
Latest twist in the serious game department: Kuma War is about to launch an episode based on John Kerry’s much-discussed Vietnam heroics.
News.com has a writeup here.
What does a game mean? I wonder if games are persuasive when they represent historical events. After all, the game is likely to have several possible outcomes, and the outcome you want for the John Kerry game probably depends on what outcome would fit your pre-existing convictions?
I don’t exactly have a background in empirical research, but I think it would be really interesting with some studies to see if a game can change people’s minds!
September 26th, 2004 at 08:53
It has already happened:
This may not be how you remember D-Day but for a worrying number of Britain's children this is the confused scenario they associate with the events of June 6, 1944...
There were some exceptions to the general ignorance. One teacher at Great Addington Church of England Primary school in Northamptonshire was amazed to find that one of his pupils had scored 100 per cent in the test.
He said: "I asked him how he knew material which we had not covered in school. He told me he had picked it up from a D-Day game he played on his computer.">
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=OCP2Z2YM22UTZQFIQMFCM5WAVCBQYJVC?xml=/news/2004/05/30/ndday30.xml
September 26th, 2004 at 08:57
sorry for the formatting, game software that tries to do what you request is linked below
http://www.muzzylane.com/home/home.htm
http://www.edweek.org/ew/newstory.cfm?slug=44Games.h23 (review)
September 26th, 2004 at 10:29
OK, thanks. What I wondered about was also research into people _changing their minds_. Do games work well for that or don’t they?