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Games are so different from other forms of media

that we're used to using.

In traditional media, magazines and television,

we're given a story.

We're told someone's take on something.

So with game, we turn that on its head

and instead of starting with the individual experience,

we look at the system and how it

kinda produces those experiences.

Games are good for persuading people

to see the world in a different way.

So my question for you is,

how can video games become the next persuasive medium

for addressing complex social issues.

I use the name Persuasive Game to describe a video game

that's used to present them with a situation

or an idea that they haven't considered.

If you take freight piracy as an example,

it just seems like a kinda strange example,

but it's been in the news.

Somali piracy has generally been characterized

as this kind of anarchistic disruption of global commerce,

and we hear those stories in the news.

And those are interesting perspectives,

but they're our perspectives, and if you ask,

well what are the pirates really experiencing,

or what are they trying to do,

is it the same as what we think they are?

So Wired Magazine did this feature online as a game

about the economics of piracy,

and they tried to recast the subject,

not as one about politics,

not as one about the personalities of conflict,

but about the business of piracy itself.

The player learns quickly that they must

immediately identify the potential value of a vessel,

and then they must work methodically

to produce a modest ransom.

Piracy becomes more like a business than like politics.

Seeing the subject of piracy from the pirate's perspective,

but then also from the perspective of the balance sheet,

rather than the perspective of the capteur

or global trade.

Gives us a new perspective on the issue,

it helps us see something about it

that we wouldn't necessarily see from a news story,

by experiencing it ourselves.

The vast majority of big challenges that we face

in the world are systemic challenges:

the global economy, climate change, energy.

Games are most useful as persuasive tools

when they tackle these kind of big problems,

that are interdependent and complicated.

This is what I'm after in my games.

I'm after discourse,

more sophisticated, complex conversation about issues,

persuading ourselves to being willing to see them

as systems of behavior rather than stories

about individual people.

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