A "Quail Hunt" joke would just be too easy

There are some topics that I have consciously placed outside my purview because I just flat out do not understand them enough to comment on them quasi-intelligently, and have on some level made peace with the fact that, barring the sudden influx of infinite time and energy required to untangle and appreciate the breadth of their complexities, I likely never will.

Two of those–the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the culture of video gaming–are the subject of this rather interesting New York Times piece about how different entities are using video games to immerse ordinary people in all sides of tangible conflicts ranging from war to genocide to partisan politics.

Now, I don't doubt the epistemological value of interactive models. I remember during the 2004 presidential election when all us political geeks were positively mesmerized by the Los Angeles Times' interactive and maniacally addictive electoral college map. Not only did it serve the "bargaining" stage of the grieving process swimmingly by allowing users to test how just one click could have changed the entire outcome in multiple instances, but it underscores the mathematical quirkiness of the entire process. (It also serves as a handy prognostication aid in charting 2008 strategy. This business about the Democrats re-arranging the primary process is intriguing, but check out the impact of finding a candidate whom southerners can be unabashedly enamored of–just go click on all the 2004 red states that went to Clinton in 1996.)

In light of that, just imagine how much time could be gleefully yet hopelessly wasted on this one:

Douglas Thomas, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communications, is developing a redistricting game in which players try to gerrymander different states. "The election system is rigged to keep incumbents in, but nobody understands it," he said. His game is intended "to show them how easy it is to game the system. You'll be able to give it to a first-grade class and let them fix Texas. Then you can say, hey, a 6-year-old can do a more fair job."

But oh, even denser pixelated delight tinged with despair awaits:

In 2003 the Howard Dean campaign hired [Ian Bogost's] company, Persuasive Games, to make a game that showed volunteers how the Iowa primary work was organized. Then the Illinois Republicans paid him to devise four games illustrating their major election planks. In one, you have to ferry sick patients through city streets to hospitals until you discover that the hospitals have become overcrowded. The only way to free more money and space is, hilariously, to enact anti-malpractice-suit legislation. In essence the game takes a cherished bit of Republican ideology and renders it into gameplay.

Does this mean next up we'll get a game in which you get to rescue innocent little stem cell-bearing embryos from petri dishes caught in the clutches of the dastardly rogue that is Michael J. Fox (you have to snatch them at just the right moment when he loosens his grip mid-Parkinson's twitch) before he can get to a scientist to harvest them, then find some unwitting woman walking down the street to impregnate with your trusty Turkey Baster of "On-the-Offensive" Pro-Life Citizenship?

Or how about "Campaign Trail," a spinoff of the beloved "Oregon Trail?" You, the budding presidential candidate fulfilling your manifest destiny, get to stock up on endorsements and contributions before you head out on a cross-country journey fraught with perilous town-hall speeches, marauding bands of drifters tossing out attack ads, choleric babies with cholera to kiss and the most feared venomous reptiles in the land, cable news pundits. Just like the pioneering version, even if in the end you reach your destination, much of your party will have been left in shallow graves, with the survivors politically gangrenous or infiltrated by parasites.

I'd even settle for a Bush White House addition to "The Sims"–trying to keep Dubya on task would be much of the battle, as he would probably keep sneaking off to catch a plane to Crawford to clear brush, or ride his bike, make out with Condi in a supply closet or just watch cartoons. Karl Rove could even materialize out of a cloud of green ectoplasm at night and run around scaring staffers. And who wouldn't jump at the chance to redecorate Dick Cheney's undisclosed location?

Just imagine the possibilities for getting people interested in politics again via gaming–educating citizens on the finer points of confusing-by-design war on terrorism legalities with"Escape from Gitmo;" enjoying the First Amendment at work with "Evading the Press Corps with Tony Snow" and battling John McCain while stretching the definition of torture to its logical limit with "The Enemy Combatant Interrogation Experience." Hell, maybe the budget might even get balanced or the health care crisis resolved or disasters prepared for in virtual trial runs instead of real ones.

Call it crass if you will, for the question remains whether video games modeled on serious, reality-based scenarios "inherently trivialize" what they portray and allow players to manipulate.

But in the case of politics, it's all a giant game, anyway–it just has history and institutions giving it legitimacy, and most of its supposed players electing to remain sidelined–and war is just a violent variant of politics. All instantiating it in a video game does is reinforce the fact that the real events themselves are often just as arbitrary. There just aren't any do-overs.