Collaborative Assignment

By Brad Bouwers

I am of the opinion that video games are a field that require more in-depth research than our society provides. Video games should be understood as a medium that has ideological impacts on its players, similar to a novel or film.

A game that I've recently been playing is Spore, which has evolutionary concepts at the core of its gameplay. The goal of Spore is to "create your own universe" by creating a species and leading it to galactic conquest. To do this, players must evolve their species to adapt to the environment. Thus, Spore allows players to become (dare I say it) immersed in the evolutionary process.

It is also interesting to see how religion is involved in the gameplay. Conquest can be achieved through either military or religious means. Both methods require the player to use vehicles to load up their vehicles (with either guns or 'regilious instruments') and attack enemy cities (with either gunfire or giant holy warriors). I'm not sure if I agree with this close comparison between religion and warfare, although I do think that religion can escalate human conflict.

I think that studying the thematic values behind such ideologically-packed games is important. Otherwise, they creep into our mindset and we assume them as truth.