this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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Games do feel like an oddity as political outreach, but the more I think about the idea the more I think it has capabilities (as Lancelot Brown might have put it). With legacy media like papers, books, art, film, recorded music and all, you are a passive consumer of the media. With video games as art, you are an active participant and your choices define your experience with the work. Games like Planescape: Torment, Tyranny, and Disco Elysium are great examples where you're expected to engage with political or moral ideas as a participant. You aren't being treated as a receiver of propaganda per se, but as someone who can develop understanding and agency in the context of certain ideas, which seems like an improvement over propaganda in legacy media, don't you think?
Narrative-driven games give players the illusion of choice. To me this seems like it would lend itself to being even more effective than traditional propaganda because it's capable of tricking the player into thinking they came to a conclusion on their own.
Don't get me wrong, I love Disco Elysium, but it is very effective communist propaganda. Propaganda has a negative connotation but is not inherently bad or dishonest, though it certainly can be.