"Spilnørder" in Politiken: About the word "nerd"

A couple of days ago I sat at home with some friends over. At some point one of them looks at his smartphone and laughs (or scoffs?) at a peculiar phrasing in a Danish newspaper - "Spilnørder er de nye folkehelte." The article is from Politiken.dk, and even though it's nice that a mainstream newspaper tries to draw attention to e-sports as a growing platform, and gaming as more than a shady oddity, it's still peculiar.

Because who is the journalist addressing when she (note) uses the word "spilnørder" (videogame nerds)? And why is this news?

The Author, Mathilde Ive, tries very describingly to explain what e-sports is and why its relevant. For instance, she interviews a Danish e-sports star who has many good points on the topic, and he's actually allowed to express them freely. Hat's off. And the vice-chair of eSport Denmark, Niels Thornbjerg, is interviewed to explain the business side of League of Legends, which is described in the article as South Korea's "national sport," in some ways. There are some factual flaws with the text, but apart from this it's content-wise a good attempt at portraying a basically weird phenomenon objectively.

From Politiken's Facebook wall:

Andreas Palm Knudsen Hvor er det dog fedt at se en artikel der ikke er farvet af "hvor slemt det er bruge sin tid på computerspil". Fedt at i vælger at dække det med en så fed vinkel - Støtter jeres sædvanlige kvalitet, og håber i fortsætter med at dække dette område, selvom kundesegmentet nok ikke er så stort!

Synes godt om · Svar · 6 · 20. oktober kl. 16:56 · Redigeret

Some find the title odd, as in here:
Frederik Byskov I skal være velkomne til at skrive til GAMING.dk en anden gang ang. factscheck. I øvrigt ærgerligt termet 'spilnørder' pryder overskriften, men det kan vi nu godt se igennem fingre med, når artiklen sætter fokus på, at det altså ikke er så slemt at være gamer længere.

• Synes godt om · Svar · 4 · 20. oktober kl. 17:34
• 

  Silas Hven Ja, det er super ærgerligt at en ellers possitiv artikel er så fyldt med fejl.

  Synes godt om · I går kl. 07:34
• 
  

But what is the title signaling when it indicates that videogame nerds' success is newsworthy?

Is it lovingly/teasingly meant? Or just a sensational neon-sign, designed to provoke gamers and capture Mr and Mrs Denmark with the allure of the foreign?

Most of those who've taken the time to comment on the article online are already very familiar with the subject, and they have varying opinions about it. Despite the fact that the text is made to be introductory, probably as part of the newspaper's new cultural editor's scheme to highlight gaming as a growing economic factor, if not a cultural one.

But "video game nerds." It feels a bit like backtracking. Not because the term is hurtful, or annoying, as such. i sat laughing it off with friends a few weeks back. When a mainstream newspaper simultaneously tries to portray gaming as a socio-cultural factor and "plays" on the stereotype of the videogame winner/social looser, it comes off as wanting to please two audiences on the expense of each other. "Look at how popular they've become" Haha."

But maybe we're over the word "nerd" as a way of branding social outcasts negatively. In my book it stands for someone who's especially "into" whatever they're doing, bordering on being an actual expert. Which means that you can be a sports nerd, a lit nerd, a motor nerd or whatever. (Fashion nerds are called "fashionistas," one should note, but that's beside the point). So I guess it depends on what the word means to you on a personal level.

________________________________________________________________________________
Danish version below (since it's discussing Danish words)

For et par dage siden sad jeg derhjemme og havde en gæst på besøg. På et tidspunkt kigger han på sin smartphone og griner (eller fnyser?) af en lidt sjov formulering - "Spilnørder er de nye folkehelte." Artiklen er lagt op på Politiken.dk, og selvom det da er herligt, at man forsøger at gøre opmærksom på, hvor stort e-sport efterhånden er blevet, eller at gaming ikke er en lyssky deviant mærkelighed, så er den stadig pudsig.

For hvem taler journalisten til, når hun (vel at mærke) bruger ordet "spilnørder"? Og hvad er det præcist, der gør det nyhedsværdigt?

Mathilde Ive, forfatteren, prøver meget beskrivende at forklare, hvad e-sport er, og hvorfor det er relevant. Blandt andet ved at interviewe en dansk e-sportstjerne, som har meget at fortælle om, og rent faktisk for lov til at gøre det. Ros for det. Også næstformand i eSport Danmark, Niels Thornbjerg, er interviewet for at forklare forretningsdelen af League of Legends, beskrevet i artiklen som noget nær Sydkoreas "nationalsport." Der er et par faktuelle fejl i teksten, men udover det er den indholdsmæssigt et rimeligt forsøg på at skildre noget lidt aparte objektivt.

Fra Politikens Facebookside:

Andreas Palm Knudsen Hvor er det dog fedt at se en artikel der ikke er farvet af "hvor slemt det er bruge sin tid på computerspil". Fedt at i vælger at dække det med en så fed vinkel - Støtter jeres sædvanlige kvalitet, og håber i fortsætter med at dække dette område, selvom kundesegmentet nok ikke er så stort!

Synes godt om · Svar · 6 · 20. oktober kl. 16:56 · Redigeret

Nogle studser dog over titlen, som her:
Frederik Byskov I skal være velkomne til at skrive til GAMING.dk en anden gang ang. factscheck. I øvrigt ærgerligt termet 'spilnørder' pryder overskriften, men det kan vi nu godt se igennem fingre med, når artiklen sætter fokus på, at det altså ikke er så slemt at være gamer længere.

• Synes godt om · Svar · 4 · 20. oktober kl. 17:34
• 

  Silas Hven Ja, det er super ærgerligt at en ellers possitiv artikel er så fyldt med fejl.

  Synes godt om · I går kl. 07:34

Men hvad signalerer det egentlig, når titlen indikerer, at det handler om at "spilnørder" får success?

Er det kærligt/drillende ment? Eller sensationelt blikfang, skruet sammen til at provokere gamere og lure Hr. og Fru. Danmark ind i et ukendt emne?

Langt størstedelen af dem, der har taget sig tid til at kommentere artiklen, er allerede inde i emnet og har forskellige meninger om det. På trods af at teksten tydeligt er struktureret med en introducerende intention, sandsynligvis som led i Politikkens nye kulturredaktør, der tidligere har udtalt at han gerne vil gøre mere opmærksom på spilindustriens økonomiske betydning, hvis da ikke den kulturelle af slagsen.

Men "spilnørder." Det føles lidt som et tilbageskridt. Ikke fordi det er sårende eller irriterende. Som sagt, eftersom jeg sad med venner og smågrinede over formuleringen i sidste uge, så virker det hele lidt fjollet. For når Politikken samtidigt prøver at tale om gaming som en socio-økonomisk faktor og prøver at lege med ideen om den social-stereotypiske taber som ironisk vinder, så føles det lidt som at puste med mel i munden. "Se hvor populære de er blevet! Haha."

Men måske er vi kommet ud over ordet "nørd" som normbrydende stempel med negativ værdiladning. I min ordbog står det for en person, som går helt vildt op i noget, hvilket vil sige man kan være både sportsnørd, litteraturnørd, spilnørd, bilnørd osv. (Modenørder kaldes typisk "fashionista"'er, men det er underordnet.) Så det kommer vel an på, hvad man lægger i et ord, sådan personligt.

My naïve, rosy world of games

Doing research for a paper I stumbled across a book, but not just any book. It was a game design book that focused on monetizing strategies in social and mobile games. I was disgusted. Disgusted that it had come to there being an actual book that taught game designers and developers how they could make the most money off their players and users for the least amount of work done. This is not what games is about, at least not in my world. Games is about entertainment. It is about trying to give others the amazing feeling you get when you play a game that suits you perfectly; the characters, the visual and auditive art, the story, the gameplay, the mechanics. It all comes together in such perfect harmony, that you become completely immersed and suddenly an entire day has gone by, you missed out on the real world, but in your mind the world missed out. I'd like to believe that the above is true for all who have an extra special affinity for games, especially game designers. Because I think all game designers are gamers by heart. I'd like to think that no game designer began doing what they do with the thought of 'I'm gonna make me some money and tons of it'.
   But then I took off my rose-tinted glasses and returned to the real world where I actually live. Making games is a business and is often being reported as one of the largest, if not the largest, industries in the world, so clearly there is money being made. My thought is simply: where do we draw the line? At what point does it become alright for developers to think 'We need to make money. Let's make a game that shrouds the robbery that it is enough for our players to not notice' rather than 'We need to make a game. Let's create an experience that is so good that people will pay to try it'? Money is probably the driving factor for creating a majority of games though, even though I'm not fond of believing that. I'm probably too romantic and do what I do because I actually want to bring people the joy of playing games, just as I had when I was growing up: playing Heroes of Might and Magic 3 for days with my friends huddled around an old pc(a game that I still play today. My god that is an awesome game), playing the first installment of Diablo on LAN with my brother, Magic: the Gathering, Pokémon, arcademachines when I was on holiday with my family, the list never ends. As you can see I'm too romantic about it and the tint in my glasses are rosier than most. That said I still think the book that I found crossed an ethical line somewhere, a line where the money becomes such a high priority that people become blinded and missing the point that they could actually 'simply' apply themselves and create something that players are willing to pay money for.

Social (Video Game) Spaces

In his book "Video Game Spaces" Michael Nitsche (2008) describes five layers of spaces referring to video games:

1. The layer of hardware on which the program runs and all processes are executed
2. The mediated virtual environment as it appears to us on the screen and we can interact with it with our avatar (or however)
3. The imaginary layer, which represents what each one of us interprets into the mediated layer
4. The real space in which we sit and play the game
5. The social space which is created when playing a game (with others or without).

The last layer might also include the social and cultural space created through video games. As they long passed the state of being a nerdy, quite unusual leisure time activity and reached living rooms all over the world, even of people who would not be considered nerds or even gamers at all. (Triple A) Video games nowadays are comparable with a shitty reality TV show such as Masterchef or Dating Naked which "no one likes" but still everyone is talking about. They became a topic for a short break at school or university or a coffee at work: "Have you played...", "I can't wait for the next..." etc.

But I don't want to drift into a discussion about shitty video games and shittier television shows. The more interesting part here is the question of the social space, Nitsche mentions in his book and Torill Mortensen's thoughts about deviant strategies in video games (Mortensen, 2008). She raises the question what strategies in World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004) are normal and which deviant (Mortensen, 2008).

   Her thoughts raise the question if what Nitsche described as social space is sufficient for describing everything social connected to video games. What about things that happen inside of the game, as for example (unspoken) agreements about what is normal and what is deviant?

Another example is a "funeral raid" as happened in World of Warcraft many years ago:

In short a player of one faction died (in real life) and his guild and (ingame) friends organized a funeral in Winterspring. Apparently players of the other faction got to know about it and disturbed the funeral, attacking and eventually killing everyon participating in it. This act of hostility towards players who wanted to show their condolence towards the loss of other players raised a huge discussion wether or not it is ethical. Of course this is an extreme case but the question to ask is if this kind of social (the funeral) and antisocial (the raid) behaviours can just be generalized under the term social space of Nitsche.

   I say we need at least one more space, the social ingame space. The aggregation of both phenomena under the same term seems insufficient as such social phenomena inside of games might be different from real life actions. An example could be Mildenberger's (2009) discussion about "evil" behaviour in virtual worlds.

   Even though Mildenberger's concern is an ethical one, his example in EVE Online (CCP Games, 2003) shows in how far behaviour in virtual worlds can differ from what people do in real life. His subject of discussion is the act of "suicide ganking" in EVE Online. Again shortly described, a suicide gank is the act of destroying the space ship of another player in an area which is actually protected by police forces. The act of destroying the other ship will unevitable result in the destruction of the attacking ship by the police forces. What players do now is, they team up and destroy a ship just to get destroyed afterwards themselves. A third party (player) is asked to be at the spot of the kill to collect all goods resulting of the destruction of the ship and the attacking ships and the third party share their gains afterwards. As Mildenberger points out the act of sucuide ganking almost never leads to a positive outcome (economically) for any of the parties (considered the attacker and the third party are belonging to one team; of course the third party could just get away with the loot and therefore would have an absolute win situation). Therefore Mildenberger considers the act of suicide ganking as purely evil.

   The reason we can use this as an example, even though it is a discussion of ethics in games and not social gatherings is that it shows how different people act in video games than in real life. In real life such an act of pure evil (no gain for anyone) is nearly unthinkable and the best examples we could find would probably be in television. In video games on the other hand, players tend to act like this more often. Because of this I suggested the sixth layer of ingame social space, as a space in which social behaviour might significantly differ from the "real life social space".

Bibiliography

Mildenberger, C. D (2009). Evil in virtual worlds. At The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, Oslo. Online at: http://gamephilosophy2013.b.uib.no/files/2013/09/Mildenberger_Evil-in-virtual-worlds.pdf

Mortensen, T. E. (2008). Humans Playing World ofWarcraft: or Deviant Strategies?. Digital culture, play, and identity: A world of warcraft reader, 203.

Nitsche, M. (2008). Video game spaces: image, play, and structure in 3D game worlds. MIT Press.

Ludography

EVE Online. CCP Games (2003).

World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment (2004).

How Smart Phones, Tablets and Social Media made Gamers out of John and Jane Doe

How Smart Phones, Tablets and Social Media made Gamers out of John and Jane Doe – How the Common Perception stays the Same

Computer Gaming and its perception changed and at the same time did not since its first 

 steps when gaming was both scientific experimentation and only available to few people.
Today gaming is everywhere. In 2013 76% of all households in Europe had internet access, in Denmark even 87%[1]. Social media pages such as Facebook are not only used by adolescents and young adults, which traditionally are more likely to take part in gaming activities, but also increasingly by older generations.

[2]

The same goes for mobile devices such as smartphones. They do not only reach all age groups but also through all social ‘classes’, relatively independent of income.[3]
As a reaction to market growth, game developers and companies seized the chance and developed games especially suited for those platforms. The development started as did the platforms – as good ideas on a small scale and rapidly exploding.  Farmville (Zynga, 2009), Angry Bird (Rovio Entertainment, 2009) and Candy Crush Saga (King, 2012) are the most played and well known examples of games developed especially for mobile devices and implemented on social media. They did not, in fact, revolutionize or change the world of Computer Games, however, they changed the way gaming is perceived.
Being on the computer for hours and playing games used to be an eccentric and sometimes frowned upon hobby for an exclusive group of people often stereotypically portrayed as teenagers or young adults with socializing problems. While this stereotype still exists in some degrees, especially for specific games and activities such as expert competitive online gaming or LAN parties, it is broken down at the same time. The perception of the gamer is changing. The portrayal in the media goes beyond the cellar dweller playing shooter games, instead every now and then a successful grown up can talk about what she learned through gaming. It enters the cultural and educational sector as a possibility for an alternative way to educate children and young adults who now grow up in the ‘digital era’ or as a way to approach social conflicts through simulations. It seems gaming and computer games come out of their niche, however, the games the majority of people indulge in, especially on those platforms are simplistic, non-demanding and everything but sophisticated.
Still the problem exists that meaningful or serious gaming is to a large degree exclusive to on the one hand more sophisticated gaming devices and on the other to the more experienced gamer.
It is true that mobile devices opened up gaming to a broader audience and therefore changed the acceptance and understanding of and for gamers, however, it did not change the common misconception that computer gaming is only a leisure activity and games are not artefacts of cultural significance as these headlines proof:

“Violent video games 'make teenagers more aggressive towards other people' (and girls are affected as much as boys)” (Daily Mail, 2013)

‘Violent video games leave teens 'morally immature' (BBC, 2014)


‘Video games are as bad as heroin, according to UK newspaper’ (TechTimes, 2014)[4]


Most mainstream coverage is concerned with the negative aspects games allegedly have without illuminating the full range of games available or any positive aspects the respective games could have, let alone the numerous players not affected by those negative aspects being productive parts of our society.
Even though John plays Candy Crush Saga whenever he is commuting to and from work and Jane sits in front of her farm for at least an hour every night, they would neither call themselves gamers nor think for one minute that they would be in the same category with their neighbor who spends his Sundays playing Counter Strike Online (Valve, 2012) and of course they would not buy GTA V (Rockstar North, 2013) for their daughter – way too offensive, so the newspapers said.



Please keep in mind that this entry refers especially to European and US American markets, users, newspapers and cultural backgrounds and understandings.



References

Coughlan, S. (2014, February 6). Violent video games leave teens 'morally immature'. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/education-26049333

‘Daily Mail Reporter’ (2012, October 7). Violent video games 'make teenagers more aggressive towards other people' (and girls are affected as much as boys). The Daily Mail. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2214346/Violent-video-games-make-teens-aggressive-girls-affected-boys.htm
 

Koch, Cameron (2014, July 13). Video games are as bad as heroin, according to UK newspaper. TechTimes. Retrieved from http://www.techtimes.com/articles/10002/20140713/video-games-are-as-bad-as-heroin-according-to-uk-newspaper.htm



Ludology


King (2012). Candy Crush Saga. London, UK. King. 

Rockstar North (2013). Grand Theft Auto V. New York, Rockstar Games.

Rovio Entertainment (2009). Angry Birds. Espoo, Finland. Rovio.

Valve (2012). Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Kirkland, Washington,US. Valve Corporation

Zynga (2009). FarmVille. San Fransisco, California, US. Zynga.

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[1] http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tin00073

[2] http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/

[3] Data for US Available at:  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/nielsen-smartphone-ownership-rates-clash-over-age-income/69697

[4] Original article: The Sun, not available anymore

Games and Othering: Why we can't really play the terrorist

Basically, we don't like people or groups who differ too much from us (or our central viewpoints), and we don't want to acknowledge them as people by getting to know them.

In video games with narratives, designers often draw on the archetypical "hero-ogre" story, which in its essence puts the narrator, viewer and listener in the role (or adjacent to the role) of the hero, the "good" and the self. Conversely, the ogre is the typified "Other", something half-human but strange and frightening enough to hinder comprehension and identification. In Ian Jobling's "The Psychological Foundations of the Hero-Ogre Story: A Cross-Cultural Study," it is argued that this proto-story actually depicts the general conflict between social in-groups and out-groups, the "us" and the "them". In this cross-cultural narrative, the ogre, the other, typically commits crimes against the in-group, either by not complying with social norms or through outright violence, and the hero, the self, provides justice by slaying or banishing the ogre. The result is enhancement of cultural (and even biologically grounded), adaptive biases in person and group perception (Jobling, 248), also known as ethnocentrism or demonization of "others", which is a universal human phenomenon (Jobling, 252).

Irony. 

This conflict is recognizable in the antagonization of opposing sports teams and fans, in the plots on epic novels and folktales, in popular cinema and naturally also in different genres of video games, all of which typically feature archetypical "bad guys" and "good guys".

Take for instance some of the most popular genres; the first person shooter. America's Army, Counter Strike, Modern Warfare 2 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter all center around the fundamental conflict between the western, often white, male, hero-self and the demonized enemy-other terrorist. Playing against these others serves to elevate the perception of self (makes you feel good), while playing a side-mission, chapter or multiplayer feature as the enemy terrorist provides the illusion of emotional/narrative depth and tension in the game. It's like playing cops and robbers; sometimes it's more interesting playing as the robbers, even though you "know" the cops are in the right from a moral standpoint.

According to Marcus Schulzke, these games have the potential to give players insights into the complexities of war, particularly the "War on Terror," but they mostly fail spectacularly to provide any real change of perspective. The popular games listed above therefore confirm the discourse of othering by demonizing an enemy as an oversimplified representation of real-world organizations and groups:

     "(…) [these games] deliver experiences of terrorist subjectivities that have virtually no content and that leave terrorists almost indistinguishable from the games' heroes. The terrorists whose viewpoints are shown are portrayed as people who engage in senseless acts of violence that are disconnected from motives or grievances. This leads the games to confirm the overarching War on Terror narrative that terrorists are irrational and evil enemies who are unworthy of respect," (Schulzke, 207).

In this sense, terrorists make perfect video game enemies, since they can be easily characterized as intrinsically evil and threatening targets of justified violence (Schulzke, 207-208).

First person shooters are all about perspective.
But does it ever change?

So how come many shooters featuring terrorists as the enemy provide the opportunity to play from the terrorist's perspective?

After all, portraying an inherently evil "other" as "self" would humanize the enemy, which would be a radical gesture. And true enough, when Modern Warfare 2 was published, critics and mainstream media were in uproar over one mission called "No Russian" which takes place in a (civilian) airport, where the player, disguised as the terrorist enemy, is drawn into a massacre of friendly NPC's. During this part, players can choose to take part in the massacre or not, but if they somehow try to stop it from happening the mission will always conclude with a fail-state; a game over.

This simulation of terrorism was doubtlessly conceived as an attempt to provide an alternate perspective, resulting in more tension and a better play experience (we can play as the robbers!), yet the mission is always played out from the perspective of the western soldier infiltrating terrorists, and no attempt is ever made to explain why they carry out a massacre, beyond the simple explanation that they are evil and cannot be understood or reasoned with. The mission is therefore an ethical failure, since players are never encouraged to reflect on the actions of the enemy, or, indeed, their label as others. However, critics argued that the terrorist side was portrayed "too vividly" (Schulzke, 215), which goes to show that game designers are right to tread carefully when they incorporate perspectives bordering on the normative.

Shooting down people in a shooter. Suddenly it's a bad thing.

On a side-note, the graphic violence and despair depicted in the massacre of innocent civilians could be compared to the second part of the mission, which features a more typical battle with an opposing group of soldiers (Russians). Here, far less blood, screams and pointless violence is displayed, even though actual battle between trained armies entails just as much grotesque violence and screaming as regular murder, this fundamental difference only shows how the game narrative refrains from engaging the player in how easily blurred the line between soldier, freedom fighter and terrorist actually is, and instead the game simply reflects a "deep uncertainty" about what distinguishes the terrorist's branch of violence with any other violence, and what kind of people actually engage in terrorism.

This is not to say that games should not be games, and that oversimplification is necessarily horrible in videogame narratives. The point made here is simply that these games have potential to inform and evolve the discourse of violence and war, yet in failing to provide the perspective of the demonized "other", they cannot do so.

Similarly, in Medal of Honor: Warfighter, the player goes through a mission (Through the Eyes of Evil) as a western soldier who is a covert operative  sent to infiltrate a terrorist cell (even though it is suggested that he has defected). Here, you have to save a hostage (unarmed civilian) and kill armed enemy offensives, which is the exact same thing you do in the main part of the game as the "good guy". So the game suggests that the soldiers and the terrorists are actually quite similar, only fighting for different causes, and the game rewards the player for completing the mission with the achievement "Know Your Enemy," but the player never learns why the terrorists fight or who they are. So this would either be ironic or bad narrative structure. And since the experience lacks structural difference, the "terrorists perspective" offered by the game remains hollow (Schulzke, 218).

Again, in America's Army, which is actually commissioned by the American military, a perceptual trick resting on false-consciousness is deployed to provide the illusion of depth. The player's team is always displayed in the game as the American army, while the opposing team is displayed as terrorists. The designers therefore assume (possibly quite rightly) that players will ignore the fact that they are perceived as terrorists by the other players. Thus, the status of terrorist is actually meaningless in the game; neither team engages in "terrorist associated activities" (Schulzke, 214). The difference is purely perspective, or thematic framing. And even though the game is constructed as an overt pro-army message, it simulates the cliché that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, which, of course, is unintentional and contrary to the main discourse of the "War against Terror".

Play as an abled white guy killing the poor, brown people
 and other oppressors of freedom.

Videogame terrorists here are inherently homo sacer, meaning beyond the limits of conventional morality, a legitimate target, a monster. And as monsters, there is no need to understand their motives, because they have none aside from mindless destruction and evil. And the only real perspective shown in any of these games is the perspective of the western soldier, which, of course, is problematic as an endorsement kill-first-ask-question-later policies, which consequently enhance prevalent power structures, hide the real sources of conflict and prevents legitimate investigation into the dynamics of terrorism.

These games are not bad as such, but their narrative structures and oversimplification of real-world issues support the discourse of othering, and in failing to challenge said discourse, they keep the myth of western supremacy alive, along with the myth of a black and white world where good is easily distinguishable from evil. Such narratives can only be sustained when based on ignorance of what terrorists are really like (Schulzke, 212).

So are ALL games featuring terrorists doing this? Well, no.

Super Columbine Massacre RPG has received massive criticism for its offensive nature and supposedly light take on the events that led to a school shooting at Columbine High, USA,  in the 90's. However, the designer of the game, which is quite crudely programmed, actually created it to discuss the motives of the two young men who shot down their classmates and teachers. The game features flashbacks of being bullied, of groups in the society they lived in rejecting them, and the game is arguably a quite lever attempt to bring out the perspective of those we struggle to understand. It boldly poses the possibility that the murderers were perhaps not inherently evil and unfathomable (as we would like to think), but actually people, who were struggling with life and provoked by the peers and elders that made the struggle harder. This is an ethical game in every respect, as the (mature) player cannot go through it without pausing to reflect on the complexity it portrays.

Gun control, bullying, and de-humanization are just some
of the important themes dealt with in this game. 

Sadly, the game has gone down in gaming history, not as an attempt to challenge perceptions, but as an appalling abomination of a game, turning a miserable and unfortunate happening into light entertainment.

Most people will never know the game beyond its name.

Just like the social outcasts it depicts.

We can't really play as terrorists before we're ready to see their point, or at least the context leading to it. But should we?

____________________________________________________________________________
References:

Jobling, Ian (2001): "The Psychological Foundations of the Hero-Ogre Story: A Cross-Cultural Study"

in Human Nature, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 247-272.

Schulzke, Marcus (2013): "Being a terrorist: Video game simulations of the other side of the War on Terror"

Media, War and Conflict, 6(3), 2013, pp. 207-220.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Note: I later used this text for a series of articles on Playception.com, a Danish videogame news site that is almost functional - Link here: http://www.playception.com/da/articles/view/19-artikelserie-med-onde-jne-1 
Just a disclaimer, in case anyone thinks I plagiarized it.