Can Politics in Games Really Work?

I don't feel as though politics in games have too much of an influence on people. Many simulations have been made as political statements and to support the viewpoints of people, but they don't ever tend to really show what is going on. If anything, I would say that these games trivialize these events for those who play these games. Bogost talks about 'Darfur is Dying', where the player plays as a person from Darfur. The game seems to have a decent hold on what is really going on in Darfur with mass genocide, but it is too cartoony to take seriously. It is an enjoyable game, but the events in Darfur should not really be seen as an enjoyable thing, but more of a problem. When a person plays a game, they tend to play it for fun and not as a learning experience. For this reason, when a game designer adds in a political point to a game, the person takes it for less than it is really worth. I can see where games like America's Army can have some sort of an influence on recruiting people, but when playing the game, you don't get physically exhausted or harmed during training or real-time combat. You don't feel the fear of bullets flying past you. It's really just not the same thing. Games like these simply don't seem to have the same effect as a news report, movie, or real-life interaction with the issues at hand. So, while these sorts of games may have some sort of use, I can not bring myself to say they are influential or help people really understand these issues. It's hard to say much more about this when this is the view I have on it. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of extensive research and study on the topic, so it is a hard one to reference.