Simpson's Paradox

New post on IGM that’s half about a new initiative from indie studio RocketOwl, and half my rambling about social games for social change.

…The Ottawa indie game developers RocketOwl will be planting a real live tree for each new player of their environmentally-themed Facebook game Green Space who hits level 5. RocketOwl hopes to plant 250,000 trees — which obviously means 250,000 game installs — through a partnership with the reforestation nonprofit WeForest.

I was intrigued by RocketOwl’s environmental message and goals, and so I reviewed the beta of Green Space in August. Because Facebook sharing has the ability to bring a message to millions, there’s a lot of potential to harness that to use a social game to spread a social message. There’s also great potential for players to actually work together to encourage behavior changes, instead of pretending to share cows, as seen most effectively in Jane McGonagal’s wellness game SuperBetter. SuperBetter uses social powers of encouragement and accountability, and gameification of power-ups and levels, to encourage players to make a series of small behavior changes to meet their health goals. There’s potential for a good social game could use the same motivators to bring about better environmental behavior (a bonus for players who use cloth bags at the supermarket, or who take the bus one day instead of driving, for example) and to share stats to raise environmental awareness.

Via Real Trees From RocketOwl’s Green Space on The Indie Games Magazine

Looks like the Dead Island: Zombie Bait Collector’s Edition will feature a disturbing extra for zombie fans: A headless, armless bikini-clad girl’s torso. Ick. From the press release, because I could not make this up:

Paul Nicholls, Sales & Marketing Director, Deep Silver, said “Dead Island Riptide is one of the most anticipated releases of the year and is set to build on the original’s reputation for OTT action, dark humour and brutal zombie bashing. We wanted to provide a unique collector’s edition that was utterly ‘Dead Island’ and would make a striking conversation piece on any discerning zombie gamer’s mantel.”

There’s another line in the release that compares the armless statue to “Dead Island’s grotesque take on an iconic Roman marble torso sculpture”, and I won’t tell you the classicist rage that gave me. I’ll not include the picture here, but the Dead Island torso is two anti-gravity, perfectly round breasts, covered with a tiny bikini and lots of blood, forming a perfect cleavage V under a neck stump. It’s pretty disturbing, and I wouldn’t like to see it on a “discerning zombie gamer’s mantel”. Also, that is not what the Venus De Milo looks like. And, also, the Venus De Milo is not the only statue in the world without arms.

I’m sort of amazed that this ever seemed like a good idea to anyone. Doesn’t a headless bikini girl just seem like a parody of a bad promo item? I was once a designer on a game, and I was outranked by a promoter who thought the game could be best marketed to women by handing out pink bracelets at NYCC, so I’m pretty sure there are talented dev and design folks working on Dead Island who argued against this.  Without ranting at Deep Silver (while I was editing this, they’ve issued a half-apology for “any offence caused,” as if some players are being weirdly touchy over a perfectly normal headless bikini rack), I think this says embarrassing things about our industry.

I don’t believe that violent games cause violent behaviors, and I think that argument is flawed in pretty much every way that an argument can be faulty.  But I do think that tasteless, misogynist promos make our industry look like tasteless misogynists.

Added 4/24/13: That lame half-apology about not realizing people would be offended didn’t actually say the headless torsos would by pulled, and guess what? Collector’s Edition still totally includes them!