I came across today with a piece written about tackling social or political issues in video games and why most of the indie developers avoid it in contrast to indie films or music: "Does that have to do with developers being afraid to speak their mind or with the fact that they simply only care to make escapist games? Why aren't indie games more connected to everyday issues? Could they actually matter as a form of popular expression? Should they? How could they?"

Many indie developers answer these questions. You can read it here:

http://indiegames.com/2012/09/ask_indiegames_are_indie_devel.html#more

I also wonder why so few video games in general (not only indie games, but mainstream games) tackle social and political issues? Are games only meant to be an escape from reality? What is your opinion?

There is so much that can go wrong with a game, so many different things to get right. Writing, many aspects of gameplay, bugs, and so on. Trying to put a message in there, especially with the quality of writing I've often seen, would be just another flop factor. I've always figured this was a major barrier to the motivation to put good writing in in general, not just writing with a message.

Despite that there are still games that do this. Blades of Avernum and World of Goo are two examples I can think of offhand. Of course neither rams it into your skull, but that is why they are good and potentially effective. Heavily preachy is tasteless and can only milk from the masses that already think that way. You are not going to convince people by saying "Look, war is bad because people die mmkay? Here is a melodramatic scene to reinforce what I said..."

(hide yo kids and hide yo wife, 'cause I'm using points ;P)
1. Konstantinos Dimopoulos is a really smart guy. I agree with pretty much everything he said.
2. I like to imagine that gamemakers are aware of their own ignorance and don't wish to share it with the rest of the world.
3. I'd be pretty pissed if programmers started to think they can do my job as well or better than me. In other words - you need not only writers but THINKERS to achieve anything of value in this area.
4. It's not that (indie) games are somehow "neutral" just because they don't openly attempt to push values down your throat. They are built on certain (naive, primitive, etc.) preconceptions which, I'm fairly certain, people HATE seeing brought to light. Remember the "women depictions in games" project ?
Here's something relevant (try to pick up on the connection).

I think part of the issue is that a large portion of all indie games are just a matter of people wanting to make games from their "golden age" of gaming. They just want to make games they way they used to be, and while there is nothing wrong with this (and we have got plenty of great games due to this). But indies have largely grown just as complacent as the rest of the industry, with a very large portion of the "indie scene" just staying within the safe boundaries of the already established scene.

There's also the fact that games are largely created by nerds for nerds. Nerds don't care about social justice and political issues unless those things can somehow be related to robots and zombies and shit.

That said, The Republia Times is pretty much the best political game to come out in recent years.

Sadly I think todays games are being made by jerks for jocks.

I think a lot of nerds today actually are jerks and jocks.

Feel like I have to question some of the assumptions the article seems to make. Political and social issues aren't any more common in "Indie movies" than they are in mainstream ones. Just think of all the middle brow "issue movie" dross that traditionally gets honoured during the Oscars. And "Indie music" is mostly self-centered and personal. Finally, not defining what is meant by "Indie" in the context of games, movies and music strikes me as a serious journalistic blunder.

Edit: To clarify, the question should probably be "why no such issues in gaming as a whole?", since a willingness to tackle politics isn't exactly a characteristic of "Indie" in other media. And again, I'm kinda guessing at what is meant by "Indie" here, since the article doesn't make it clear. Just a vague notion of non-mainstream and small budget, I guess?

Anyway, I find the idea that the clowns that make video games can teach me anything about political and social issues borderline offensive.

You may very much like the work of Jane McGonigal, she has a book, but her TED talks are a good place to start.

Speaking as a movie lover, namedropping Citizen Kane didn't exactly earn him any points in my book. Obviously, the way gamers have appropriated the film isn't his fault, and neither are all the falsehoods that are being so readily spread about it. Nonetheless, I automatically cringe whenever a "gaming person" says those two words. They also chafe with his points b) and c).

Taken from a different angle, you could also ask why should games be solely about tackling social and political issues? I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a place for social, political, or moral discussions in games; so many, many games, from Deus Ex, to Geneforge, to Spec Ops: The Line have proven that to be false. But I think it's silly to suddenly assume that people should start putting heavy handed socio-political messages in their games for the sake of doing it.

Put another way, I think that there are design cases where actually having a strong social or political messages is appropriate for use in a game (Deus Ex, The Witcher, Mass Effect, etc.), and cases where it just isn't. I know that games like Super Meat Boy or World of Goo would be far less entertaining for me if they started beating me over the head with some grand moralizing message.

You don't need to have a didactic, "THIS IS MY MESSAGE" approach while tackling a social (political) issue in video games. You can have your own small, ironic, alegorical, whatever way you want that does not underline "your message". If you want to stand against, let's say, sexist, ultra-violent "wargasm" games, there are various ways you can do it in video games. You just need your imagination and skill to create it.

If you don't mind me asking, does your username have anything to do with Pasolini's movie "Accattone"?

Yes, it comes from that film! :) I'm a Pasolini fan!

Well, that made my day. Love the guy myself, and enjoyed the two movies I've seen by him, "Accattone" and especially "The Gospel According to Matthew". Great, great stuff.