Persuasive Gaming

I never really play shoot-em-up violent video games, so it was hard for me to really picture what the creators of Velvet Strike were trying to do based on the salon.com article “The Velvet Strike Underground.” From what I can get, it seems like players can download anti-war “sprays” and spray them on the wall while playing Counter Strike. At first I didn’t get what the point of this would be – clearly if a person has gone to the lengths of downloading and spraying these anti-war messages, then they are already anti-war, so who cares if their version of the game has graffiti everywhere. Then I remembered how my brother would always keep me off the computer because he was playing online with other people (and so he couldn’t ditch out on them, he said) – I realized that it was a protest because the other gamers online would see their sprays. Duh! Sometimes even I, a supposedly tech savvy young person, forget that people do everything online now, even kill people (virtually, that is).

That confusion over with, I don’t know if I think Velvet Strike is a super effective idea. I don’t think graffiti is ever really effective in convincing people to change their minds on something – it usually just seems like a form of expression for the person who is actually spraying. But maybe this isn’t meant to make people change their minds – maybe it’s just meant to force them to be aware. Having protesters spraying peace slogans (and hopscotch boards) on the walls forces gamers to be aware at least that they are viewing political content in games.

One gamer is quoted in the article as saying: “I don't know why you feel the need to tie my beloved video game into this, but it's pretty low. It makes me sad to think that there may not be one thing in this world that someone hasn't already tied their political bullshit to.” What he doesn’t realize is that he is already seeing “political bullshit” when he goes around murdering Arabs in video games like Counter-Strike. General effects of violent video games aside, he is already being made to see Arabs as targets and “the bad guys.” So, in that sense, whether or not the sprays will change anyone’s mind, at least it is making them aware. They are being fed politics through the act of just playing shoot em up games with Arabs as targets, whether they are resentful of being made aware of it or not.