A force more powerful

My introduction to video games started when I played PACMAN on a green screen that run on DOS. Those of us who managed the computer lab at the Humanities Dept. of IIT Bombay were divided on the usefulness of this game. There were those who said that computer games were a waste of resources, machine and human. There were others who thought it was a good way to get people to actually sit down in front of the computer screen and start using the thing. I remember the day I opened the EXE file and changed the name of the characters to people I knew!!

Why did I play the game? Because it was a good way to get your mind off work. Because after your brain had grappled with the discourse of thesis writing and the ontology of one's own existence, it was nice to play something that didnt require thinking. Thats the reason why I still play computer games.

The reason why I don't play computer games any more is because I have watched my children play games like Postal, Doom, etc. The glee and happiness of seeing a man machine gunned and then crawling, crying out in pain. Even those were easy, but when STRATEGY games came along, where you build cities or run business simulations... I decided enough is enough. Thinking is what i do for WORK when I am relaxing I don't want to think.

Now here is a computer game about Gandhi's NON VIOLENCE!! Breakaway Games are interesting guys who are trying to use Computer Games for social change. I read about A Force More Powerful first on Wired.com, a favourite haunt of mine. Time for me to consider Computer Games all over again!

The Wired article talks about how Ivan Marovic, a member of the Serbian non-violent resistence partnered with Breakaway Games to create a tool to train people in non-violent civil resistance. Now thats an eye-opener for anyone who thinks that non-violence died a peaceful death with Gandhi! Read what Mother Jones has to say about it here.