best selling games

http://www.vgchartz.com/yearly/2011/Global/

This is a look at Video game sales, and I looked at how call of duty has been a top selling game for the least 6 years. This demonstrates that some of the best selling games are set in real world wars and events instead of fictional events.

First proposal

How games adapt political themes and agenda from the past and present to create game play that players can relate to and perform actions that coincide with their real world beliefs.

I will be looking at how games use political themes that have existed in the real world to enhance the game play experience by creating circumstances that the player may have strong feelings towards or have an outstanding opinion on.

I’ll research specific games that showcase these trends and how a game may be enhanced or affected negatively by these trends. I’ll talk about how player’s choices in game are affected by their real world agendas and beliefs. For example, in a city simulation game, a player may be inclined to create a green environmentally friendly city over a lucrative city plagued by pollution based upon their social conditioning on political matter. I will also look at how creating a scenario/story based on existing ones helps the player become involved in the games world and may help them to understand the consequences of their actions.

Secondly I’ll research how and why games create “what if” scenarios regarding political matters, and how the players understanding of the matters help create a meaningful story along with game play. An example of this is in Fallout where the world has been involved in atomic war during the 1950s, this of course was a very possible thing during the 50s, and at the end of the game you can end the ‘war’ the same way the Americans did with the atom bomb on japan. It depends on the player’s choices and decisions to which ending they get. Also with Wolfenstien, the game world is based within a Nazi ruled dictatorship, where the Nazi’s won WWII. The player goes into the game with a pre conceived dislike to Nazis, so the games goal of… killing Nazis becomes somewhat meaningful. 

a look at Procedural Rhetoric

http://bogost.com/books/persuasive_games/

I looked into Procedural Rhetoric on Ian's blog. I've looked into some games that use the art of persuasion through game play to create the narrative and establish characters/factions.

“Through the processes of interactivity, the player is forced to ACT OUT the systems that the game wishes to expose”

HALF LIFE 2: Picking up litter for combine, show that they are exploitative and have authority. They are lining up civilians for a firing squad. general negativity from civilians.

GTA5: The torture scene forces you to act out tasks in order to get the information to continue the mission.