Weekly Discussion- Week 7 or 8... I am not sure....

In the midst of the buzz of preparing for my review tomorrow for my Architecture studio, I decided to take a break from my model to read for RCID. I found the chapter, Digital Democracy, very interesting, in part because of my own experience in the election process. Growing up, my dad was a politician, so I have spent lots of time around both him during his election cycle as well as in more recent years helping with different campaigns. I was especially interested in Howard Dean's game.

In the middle of the section about the game, I stopped reading and started playing the game. Before getting to the section about the tactics of grassroots campaigning, I had already thought about how this was a way for people to see that they can easily help with any campaign. It does not matter whether it is a presidential campaign or a local mayor race, the tactics of getting flyers/pamphlets out, knocking on people's doors, and waving signs are used across the board. Very interesting that the game designer opted to express these activities in the virtual world of the game.

I also found several of the other games intriguing but also a bit strange such as the World Trade Center attack game and the JFK Reloaded. I was kind of disturbed that the games existed and that someone would want to design such games, but they were somewhat interesting. I especially thought it was interesting when Bogost began discussing JFK Reloaded and how no one to date had been able to recreate the assassination as it happened according to the report.

I don't really have any other intellectual thoughts at the moment... but I might add some more a little later.....