Why So Oppressed?

In Gonzalo Frasca's text entitled "Videogames of the Oppressed", Frasca poses the question of whether videogames could be used as social and political agents, encouraging critical thinking towards these subjects. In it, he cites drama theorist Augusto Boal and his work with the "Theater of the Oppressed," drawing parallels for use in videogames, hence the name of the text. The idea deserves merit, but an underlying problem may lie in the medium chosen for this endeavour.

In Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, the two authors analyze games not through a rigid definition, but rather through three different schemas: rules, play, and culture. Through these broad schemas, any game could be analyzed in a organized way. Of interest for this particular example is the schema of play within the Videogame of the Opressed, particularly in the example with The Sims. When playing The Sims, there are no set in-game goals, and the gameplay lends itself more to a sandbox than the traditional definition of a game. However, the player creates their own goals, objectives, and scenarios that they desire and then work towards it. In the translation to the forum style, however, the end is lost within the means. Boal says that "it is more important to achieve a good debate than a good solution." This "game" no longer exhibits the quality of play that interest me as a Sims player.

In taking the Theater of the Oppressed and moving it to the videogame medium, what is there really to be gained? Why not stick with theater, the "Holodeck that actually works." The resultant Sims-style forum theater would be nothing more than a glorified chatroom and simulation space. An open-source Google Lively that you could mod. That brings up another point about Frasca's example: it already exists. Large and still active communities exist such as The Sims Resource, with over 500,000 files ranging from clothing and accessories to entire Sims and even new 3D models. Quite literally everything is moddable, whether through the in-game tools or through 3rd-party programs. Players will make "Alcoholic Mother v0.9" if they want to without the need of a community to coax them to do so.