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The starting character in all Scratch games, who I've unofficially dubbed Scratchy.
I ask a lot of questions, which can make me tiresome company at times, especially since I have a particular fondness for questions without a ready answer. So I’m a bit disappointed in myself that when an opportunely-timed question about games for change dropped into my lap, I failed to fully chase the answer.
Before I left for India, a reporter asked me for some background information on mobile games for change in developing countries. Did they work? If so, how? Were there many of them, and could you call it a trend? The first and only example that jumped to mind were the Half the Sky games that Games for Change is working on.
Clearly there were some gaps in my knowledge, but when I say I failed to answer the questions while in India, I did manage to learn a bit about the accessibility of, and attitude towards, video games during my time volunteering at a New Delhi nonprofit that worked with street children.
The first step for the volunteers was to take a tour of the neighborhood abutting the New Delhi railway station, where many of the children make their first landing in the megalopolis with three times the population of New York City. From our guide, who had spent time living on the street himself, we learned that because many street children can get free meals at nearby Sikh temples, most of the money they earn picking rags or picking pockets goes to entertainment.
It was no surprise that Bollywood blockbusters were at the top of the entertainment agenda for the young and unsupervised, though it was a sadder revelation that much of their disposable income goes into cheap chemical highs that aim to numb the pain of persistent traumas.
Clik here to view.
A game arcade in Mumbai, similar to one I was shown in New Delhi.
But when we stopped by the rag buyer’s stall, I was surprised when our guide informed us that the shuttered establishment to our right was a video game arcade that was also a popular haunt for the children. I should have tried to return to it when it was open, but some Google searching turned up a similar looking venue in Mumbai.
Meanwhile, I had game-related plans of my own to focus on. I was working with the children teaching a class that touched on a wide range of basic computer skills, but I was particularly interested in teaching them how to make games and animated stories in Scratch.
When I responded to the reporter, I’d said that I believed mobile games for change in developing countries to be a still-nascent niche in the gaming world (I know there are more examples that I’m going to kick myself for not thinking of, but that’s what the comment section is for, people.) Upon researching some of the challenges that surround producing a game for this market, I learned that linguistic barriers, literacy and game literacy, and a lack purchasing power were some of the major obstacles that faced producers of these types of games, and I experienced/ learned more about some of these barriers firsthand while working with the children.
Scratch has a terrific feature where all of the blocks/commands that you assign to objects in the game space can be translated into a number of languages by clicking a single button. Fortunately, I thought, when I remembered this feature a week into the class, Hindi was among them. The boys I was working with had various levels of English proficiency and I thought this would be a great way to ease the introduction of some of the unfamiliar concepts and rules I was trying to convey.
I soon discovered that many of the children, especially those with gaps in their schooling, were just as flummoxed by written Hindi as by written English, if not more so. Also, though Hindi is something of a lingua franca in much of India, it is one of the most linguistically diverse countries on Earth, and it was quite possible that it wasn’t even the first language for a few of them.
When it came to game literacy they were in better shape, having had sporadic access to the computer lab before this class, as well as the street arcades. Much like in America, shooting and racing games seemed to be the most popular genres (the younger boys were quite vocal in their desire to play as the notorious, overalled Italian plumber) but they would also play the educational games I downloaded and brought in for them with almost equal voracity. One or two of the boys also had web-enabled mobile phones on which they could play games featuring Spiderman or the Loony Tunes.
The best part of the class though was when I got to witness the kids experience moments of fiero while making their games. A book review of Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken on the L.A. Times website explains fiero saying, “A well-designed game creates the euphoria of flow, the kind of positive stress that invigorates like the exhilaration of performance in Rock Band. It gives us what game designers call ‘fiero,’ from the Italian for ‘proud’: the urge to thrust a triumphant fist in the air and yell.”
Some of the kids acted on that urge, throwing their hands up like they had just scored six runs in cricket. It might not have been a well-researched, academic answer to the question of what future games for change have in the developing world, but I know I wouldn’t exchange it for that.