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Game Designers Aim for Nobel Peace Prize - Sort Of |
Listed in: Wii, PS3, PSP, MMORPG, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360 Tags:
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Could a game concept truly win the coveted Nobel Peace Prize, something generally awarded to Human Rights Campaigners, World Leaders and Civil Rights Leaders. It may seem a rather large stretch of the imagination, but that's just what the Annual Game Design Challenge at the GDC (Game Developers Conference) has used as the topic at this years challenge. Creator of the quirky Katamari Damacy Keita Takahashi, Epic Games lead designer Cliff Bleszinski and Lead designer of Deus Ex Harvey Smith all presented game concepts that they all believed could win it. The Annual Game Design Challenge has previously been won by Will Wright (Creator of The Sims). Last years challenge was to base a game design concept on 'love', based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Well this certainly makes a nice change to all the FPS (First Person Shooter) titles and War titles presently flooding the marketplace, but is something like this actually able to take on the might of a peace reformer or world reknowned activist.
It seems it may be more down to making developers and designers think outside of the box, than an actual statement of fact. It also goes some way to highlighting those games that are of the more serious kind, as opposed to mindless entertainment value. One of the concepts discussed included 'Peace Bomb', in which players form social networks and need to work together and exchange resources virtually to make it to their goals.Sounds good in theory, but is the teenage demographic of gaming truly going to want some peace with their 'hot coffee', probably not. Though titles such as Katamari Damacy feature fairly peaceful gameplay (ok if rolling up people and everything in sight can be deemed peaceful), they, sadly, tend to sell in lesser quantities than the big guns. Gaming is certainly maturing, in many ways along the same lines as Hollywood evolved. As with that medium, we are bound to get our deep feel good titles that emotionally involve us and make us think, but it's doubtful it will ever be enough to truly glean a Peace Prize.
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Seriously, do you actually know any teenagers?
- http://teens4peace.net/wst_page5.html
"It seems it may be more down to making developers and designers think outside of the box, than an actual statement of fact."
Agreed, but encouraging innovation is a good thing...some might call it *disruptively* good. Personally, I'd like to see a game like 'Peace Bomb' made. And I could see it going over well in some communities, say Portland, OR.
- http://www.kgw.com/livecams/popup_pioneersquare.html
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Even still, I'm sure there are a lot of teenagers who would welcome anything innovative, even if it didn't include guns.
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Lay off the shift+F7
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think about how many million gamers there are
and you come up with 29 pacifists >.>
ooh yay you
i for one like to blow stuff up each and a while
but its quite fun to have a addicting game which
doesnt involve violence each time
but the most anti violence games dont have what the other violence games do have
Gameplay....
make a game with good gameplay and make it addicting
and anyone will play it
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are final fantasy games violent?
either way, some of the greatest games made have been violent. in one sense i can see the point in games being something else, i for one own 3 copies of various harvest moon games, i also enjoy animal crossing. so non violent games have a place...
i just don't think pandering to the activists out there, who believe violence in videogames is a bad thing, is such a good idea. we shouldn't be teaching that videogames should change, as i don't believe that's the case, those people who are affected by violence within a game are either playing something above their age rating or are mentally unstable. people should be held accountable for their actions, not the games they play.
also, i know quite a few teenagers and while they may sign stupid peace petitions etc they play mostly violent videogames...
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are these things written by teenagers or something?
i for one think that having the topic be the nobel peace prize is pretty damn innovate and i would totally like to see what ideas each designer pulls out.
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If the submitter had done his research, he would know that the top-grossing video games are consistently not games that are rated M. There might be one or two "big guns" or M rated games in the top 10 games for any given year; the rest are always family games.
Point: It's like saying "Everyone hates Mario!"
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It can be done, it will, and I'll be looking foward to it.
--BM03
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Should a question should end with a question mark, even if grammatical. [/sarcasm]
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