Video games were developed first and foremost as entertainment. It was only after their meteoric rise in popularity that experts began developing learning games disguised as fun pass times. Interactive games programmed and developed to teach a specific skill with clear right and wrong answers can be extremely beneficial for teaching concepts requiring memorization or to help develop hand-eye coordination. Using games to reinforce math facts, spelling, grammar or and the like can speed up the learning process and free up trained educators to work with other students who need more individualized attention.
Three dimensional video programs can effectively train airline pilots, truck drivers and medical professionals improve their skills before actually entering the real world.
Designing a video game to teach social issues is doomed to failure from the start. Too many intangible variables factor into social issues. A gamer play any video game brings intangible emotions to the playing field before they ever pick up the controller to “play.” No matter how skilled and trained a programmer is, they can not plan for each nuance and past personal experience individual gamers bring to the table.
Culture, upbringing, peer and parental influences, no matter how subtle, all play a role in an individual’s views on racism, sexism, religion and ethnic perceptions. This is true for both game programmers and players. With bias on both sides of the game issue, it is impossible to train people to be more tolerate of lifestyles different from their own.
Many factors contribute to an individual’s social precepts. Body language, tonal nuances, smell and vision, whether we are aware of these sensory influences or not, impact our world views and help us form opinions of other cultures and social settings.
Unless care is taken, game designers seeking to ease social tensions and increase cultural tolerances can have the opposite affect of reinforcing the stereotypes players bring with them to the games.
There are no clear cut right or wrong answers when dealing with social issues. Teaching ethics and moral values will have a greater effect on bringing about social tolerance than video games developed to teach people how to deal with complex social issues.
If programmers want to improve the world’s social climate, a better approach than addressing specific social issues would be to develop a game that purports the motto of the United Nations “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Often referred to as the Golden Rule,’ developing a game based on this concept is a better way to help people develop a deeper understanding of complicated social issues.