Creators Put Politics Into Video Games

[Ian David]

By GREG BLUESTEIN
Associated Press Writer

ATLANTA (AP) -- Ian Bogost takes some of the fun out of video games - and replaces it with opinion. The Georgia Institute of Technology professor creates games - or "playable editorial cartoons," as he calls them - that are packed with political messages.

One he created just after liquids were banned from carryon baggage pits players as a frustrated airport screener faced with an ever-changing set of rules. Another challenges gamers to double the price of crude oil by afflicting a fantasy land with a series of natural disasters.

Just as the documentary developed as a potent force within the film industry, Bogost is among a growing number of designers who develop video games that focus and comment on the world's social and political ills.

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The genre's financial potential is no joke, advocates say. The Serious Games Initiative, a group formed to encourage more substantive games, estimates players and developers spend more than $60 million on the games each year and that developers will be doling out at least $300 million to create and market the games within five years.

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