Games For Change Holds 5th Annual Festival

Eleanor writes "Games for Change, the non-profit organization that promotes games which foster social awareness and/or activism, will host their fifth annual festival of the same name on June 2-4 in New York City. The festival, which will be hosted by Parsons The New School, features opening keynote speakers Henry Jenkins (MIT) and James Gee (Arizona State University), and the closing keynote is the Honorable Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is working on a project on the court system in conjunction with Dr. Gee."

Re:Er...

[7Prime]

That's a total copout response. As a enjoyer of both classic and contemporary film, alike, I think it's pretty spineless and uninformed to generalize contemporary films the way you are doing so. That's the sort of knee-jerk reaction that practically everyone has had about every genre of anything in the history of mankind. "X is dead, it's become too high-tech and lost track of its roots." Ya know that people were saying the same thing about Fritz Lang, Orsen Wells, and Alfred Hitchcock?

The bottom line is that at any one time period there are movies that over-use the current technology of the day, that sacrifice good storytelling for cheap tricks, eye and ear candy. Older films are somewhat pre-filtered, as the good ones stand the test of the time, and the bad ones get left behind. With contemporary films, you have to be your own judge... go out and read reviews, make your own call about what films to watch. Yes, it's harder to find a good contemporary movie because they haven't been pre-viewed for your liking.

That said, some time periods haven't been all that great for films... at least certain genres of film. The 80s and early-90s were not very kind to the silver screen. However, the late 90s to present has arguably seen more creativity within cinema than any time since the 1920s. I can't be sure until we look back on it, but compared to the early 90s, it feels like we're currently living in a golden age... but I could be wrong.

Re:why is activism a good thing?

[Sigma 7]

i guess i don't get it, and i certainly don't understand what any of it has to with video games.

Activism is a method of trying to promote coverage of a certain issue as well as an attempt to get people to support said issue. The simplest form of activism involves making a forum posting on Slashdot to advertise Ron Paul (a.k.a. preaching to the choir), or dropping leaflets on a bus or in a park (a.k.a. buckshotting), and can be as complex as creating a significant grassroots campaign (such as to remove the game "Primal Rage" from Target or other retail stores.)

In this case, video games are being created as part of activism. When you play Airport Security [shockwave.com], the nature of the game causes you to wonder about what's going on at those airports. When you later read an article where a person dies when tasered at the airport, you'll get a slightly larger emotional impact because of your previous experience with said security (in this case, a politically charged representation.)

There's also the McDonald's video game as well.