There is a lot of discussion in the United States about how to help people come together to solve the complex problems facing the nation and the world.
As a scholar of games, I see opportunities for that popular medium to contribute to this effort.
Games and the gaming community, especially online, are not always models of civility or civic life. Harassment and toxicity, not to mention the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories, are problems in some games, and in how some people play them.
But in addition to the cruelty in some games, there is compassion, too, just as in other kinds of communities, whether school classrooms, town hall meetings or Facebook groups. For instance, a 2020 study by the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-hate organization, surveyed people who play online multiplayer games and found that 81 percent of players experienced harassment, but 95 percent of those surveyed also had positive experiences, like finding friends and mentors and feeling like part of a community.
In fact, many people of all ages may be participating in civic life without even realizing it—through play. Gamers engage in debates and political discussions, take on others’ perspectives, and even protest issues about both physical and virtual worlds.
As I explain in my book We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics, games can help players practice important skills related to civics and public life, like communication, empathy and compassion, critical thinking and problem-solving. Here are some examples.
Minecraft
Minecraft players can find and break apart bricks that yield materials they can use to craft items like tools, buildings and food.
There are different modes of play, like survival mode, where players need to maintain their health by finding resources, or creative mode, where players can modify the game to develop new items or activities within the game. For instance, players in Minecraft may need to think about where to build or which materials to use to create a home or building, just like planners and builders in a real-world community.
In addition, players have used the game to engage in civic-related stories. Last year, thousands of YouTube and Twitch viewers watched Minecraft livestreamers on one particular shared virtual world. While they played Minecraft, they performed a dramatic narrative related to a fictional election for the president of a world they created, called L’Manberg. In this election, four imaginary political parties competed. The finale in January 2021 brought in over 650,000 viewers across YouTube and Twitch and dealt with such issues as voter fraud.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, players create their own island, visit others’ islands and collect bugs, fish and other digital critters.
Players can design and clothe their own digital avatars, give items to other players and purchase upgrades for their homes. They need to express their identity in the game; my daughter’s in-game house has an aquatic-themed living room, while mine looks like a library. Giving gifts that fit the desires of other players requires learning their interests and perspectives.
Learning to express themselves and understand the needs of neighbors helps players feel part of the wider conversation about how society improves the world.
Plague Inc.: The Cure
Some games even help players more directly solve civic problems. In the Plague, Inc. series, gamers play as a virus, bacteria or other germ and try to spread it as much as possible. They can evolve the pathogen to spread through insects or to cause symptoms like coughing.
But a recent version, Plague Inc.: The Cure, puts players in the role of fighting the outbreak, much as the world has been working to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. Players try to develop a vaccine or make policies around masking or social distancing and observe the economic and social fallout.
Playing games like these helps people understand complex systems and how the intersection of dynamic factors can play out in a society.
Learning skills for group problem-solving, understanding world crises, observing elected officials—those all sound like civic engagement, social action and activism, even when they’re happening in a digital game.
Games may even be useful ways to explore potential changes in social, political and economic systems. Letting millions of people experiment in a digital world could provide insights identifying productive—and destructive—policies that might be adopted in the physical world. For instance, through the game EterRNA, players are already helping to design new mRNA vaccines that can defend against variants of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Games may reveal flaws, opportunities and even solutions to troubling problems.
Digital games provide opportunities to learn, grow, explore and change—not just individually, but in terms of humanity and society as well. The Conversation
Image courtesy of Ndemic Creations Som