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Serious Games: Darfur is Dying

A game simulation designed to raise awareness of the plight of refugees in Darfur, Sudan.

Background: Persuasive games, otherwise known as serious games, raise awareness through the medium of an experience. By immersing players in a story or in an environment they let players absorb the desired message in an engaging way. Criticisms of such games range from the questionable appropriateness of reducing complicated and often tragic circumstances to the simple structures required by games, to not being compelling enough to play. However, over the past few years the quality of persuasive games has evolved as non-profits, activists and designers’ have taken more interest.

Hush (Courtesy of Jamie Antonisse)

Game types range the gamut from puzzles, to strategy challenges, to those that require skill. They educate by illustrating the subject (in such games as Hush), by simulating the issue (as in Peacemaker), or by highlighting the call to action (as in Free Rice). Researchers are also working on developing new criteria and metrics with which to measure the effectiveness of serious games in achieving their goals.

Peacemaker

After all, the point is not to make learning about human rights violations fun, but to send a strong message by making the process of receiving it compelling. Lastly, there are an increasing number of tools, funding bodies, support organizations and conferences available to help drive the creation of serious games. For activists, all this makes developing games a viable strategy for reaching target audiences as well as a potent way to instigate action.

Tools: Games, websites, social networking, email

How they’re being used: “Darfur is Dying” is a simulation game created by Susana Ruiz and a team of students from the University of Southern California as part of an mtvU initiative and was funded by the Reebok Human Rights Foundation. The game raises awareness of the genocide underway in the Darfur region of Sudan by providing insight into the experiences of people living in the refugee camps.

Darfur is Dying: Game Screen in the Camp

Players choose characters and follow them as they perform tasks such as getting water and harvesting crops. Players discover that the probability of success is tied to the character’s age and gender and not only the player’s ability to steer through the obstacles confronted. Significantly, the game embeds within the playing options opportunities to perform actions in the real world, such as send letters to the President or to petition Congress. (See regions highlighted in red in the image above and the red box in the image below). Taking such actions positively impacts the player’s ability to achieve a better outcome within the game context. It also encourages further activism off-line by making the point of such actions visual. Lastly, as a web-based game designed to go viral it enables players to send the link to it through social networks or email with a mouseclick.

Clicking on "Send to a Friend" facilitates the viral nature of the game and message.

Impact:

Darfur is Dying has inspired school children to create documentaries,  generated press both in print and television and won several awards. In terms of reach,  over a million people have played it nearly 2.5 million times. This in turn has led to over 25,000 notes being sent to then President Bush and letters to Congress asking for support for the refugees. The game (which was launched in 2006) is still available on-line, has been updated to reflect the election of Barack Obama to the United States Presidency, and continues to generate new action.

Its impact beyond this is more difficult to measure but can not be discounted. For example, as the impetus for the creation of further educational tools such as “Killing Ignorance” and “Save Darfur!“, documentary films created by high school students, it has inspired others to spread the message. The media attention the game has received has drawn focus not only to the game, but also to the cause. From the perspective of the game as a viral instrument, this suggests the game’s effectiveness as a tool for activism. Measuring the effect of such viral spin-offs would require research coordination with their individual creators and sponsors.

Analysis: For activists, the main barrier to using a game as a tool is the cost involved. Darfur is Dying cost fifty thousand dollars to produce, required a team of developers and the input and coordination of several organizations. As Susana Ruiz, creator of Darfur is Dying mentioned in an interview, the business model for the creation of a serious game is similar to that of a documentary. There may not be much financial return, but the projects do have great impact on society. For activists, they are another way to achieve social change and make a difference.

It should be noted that the development of a serious game is different than one that is just for fun. For starters, the emphasis is on the purpose. That enables serious game developers to take advantage of pre-existing tools while concentrating on the mission, story and graphics. Darfur is Dying, for example, was based on a game called Food Force, developed by Italian game company Deepend. And, while they eventually put the game together in Flash, they originally planned to use the Half Life 2 engine, Source,  and examined other engines, too.

For games such as Darfur is Dying, the educational process includes the means of pushing that change since real world actions are embedded into the game play. This does not trivialize the importance of genuine involvement, but makes it easier for users to make the connection to their actions and  situations far away. Giving people the opportunity to see and experience how their actions have cumulative positive effects upon the world is one way to inspire them to take further action on their own.

Noted organizations and companies in this space include Games for Change, which sponsors the annual Games for Change Festival, Impact Games (Peacemaker and Play the News), Persuasive Games, (Howard Dean for Iowa game), and Serious Games Interactive (Global Conflict: Latin America). These are however by no means the only ones. A follow-up article will review the current status of the industry and the tools available for activists who want to develop persuasive games.

Why LinkedOut Syrians are LinkedIn again

Although professional networking site LinkedIn remains blocked for Sudanese users, Syrian users recently got their access to the site back.  Let’s take a look at how that happened.

Background: In early April, Syrian users of LinkedIn found that their accounts had been blocked.  Initially,  it seems that LinkedIn simply blocked Syrian IP addresses, since Syrian users could still access their accounts through proxy servers like TOR.  However, a few days ago LinkedIn (I’m guessing here) figured out that Syrian users (no strangers to Internet censorship) had found a way around their basic block and started shutting down individual accounts.  Syrian blogger Anas received the following explanation for this denial of service on April 17th from LinkedIn Customer Service:

Per the terms of our User Agreement, use of LinkedIn services, including our software, is subject to export and re-export control laws and regulations. This includes the Export Administration Regulations maintained by the United States Department of Commerce and sanctions programs maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Under the User Agreement, LinkedIn Users warrant that they are not prohibited from receiving U.S. origin products, including services or software. As such, and as a matter of corporate policy, we do not allow member accounts or access to our site from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria.

Apparently, this reference to “sanctions” refers to a 2003 law which limited software exports to the above-mentioned countries.  Other online services, like Google, Amazon, and the domain site GoDaddy have totally or partially blocked Syrian access to their services in accordance with this these sanctions.  But why did LinkedIn act now, six years after the sanctions were passed?

Activist Response:  Not surprisingly, when the blockage first occurred, Syrian bloggers spoke out.  However, this did not result in a lift of the block, but in making the blockage more effective by cutting off user accounts.   Then, two actions began after this story broke on Global Voice Advocacy on April 18th. First, Jillian York, writer on Global Voices, started  a small Twitter meme using the hashtags #boycottlinkedin (22 tweets) and #linkedinfail (3 tweets).  This was an attempt to recreate the recent hype of the hashtag #amazonfail (over 1500 tweets), which occurred when gay-themed books were removed from Amazon’s rankings.

Second, Jillian  wrote a piece on the blockage in the prominent American political blog Huffington Post and Evgeny Morozov mentioned the case in a piece for Foreign Policy’s Net Effects blog.

LinkedIn’s Response: What’s surprising is that, small as it was, it seems that the Twitter campaign was what finally got a reaction from LinkedIn.  According to Jillian:

kluo (Kay Luo), Senior Director of Corporate Communications for LinkedIn (or as she refers to herself, LinkedIn employee #99) contacted me and others on Twitter to find out what was going on. After a few short back-and-forths, she announced that the deletion of Syrian user accounts was in fact an error and would be fixed.

And it was fixed. According to Jillian, LinkedIn is still honoring the sanctions in that they do not allow Syrians to download applications from their site, but they have scaled back their limitations, so Syrians once more have access to their LinkedIn accounts.

Why it Worked:  While Jillian credits the cumulative effect of Syiran bloggers + Huffington post + the 2 Twitter hashtags, I think what caused LinkedIn to capitulate  so quickly (and so obsequiously) was fear of another #amazonfail fiasco.  (Noted one popular blog, “The only thing anyone can agree on was Amazon.com PR’s complete mishandling of the situation.”)   Though Kay mentioned Jillian’s Huffington Post article in a tweet, it seems that Twitter was where LinkedIn’s attention was, since that’s how Kay contacted Jillian and that’s where she issued her mea culpa (left).

Though I credit LinkedIn with their decision to enforce their sanction obligation with a surgical blade rather than a battle ax, I question their decision not to address this in their response to Jillian.   LinkedIn Customer Service gave a very clear reason why Syrian users were blocked (the sanctions), which is quite different from “human error bug from a release last month” which Kay provided as an explanation.  (Ethan Zuckerman is more sympathetic to LinkedIn’s response to the sanctions.)

Implications:  Why am I being critical, since LinkedIn did, in Jillian’s words, “do the right thing”?  First off, because they are still blocking users in Sudan and, since the customer service response also mentioned Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, we can assume that they are still blocking users in those countries as well.  (Readers, please confirm if you have contacts.)

Unlike blocking Google Gears, blocking  a social network is particularly insidious because these platforms are extremely useful organizing tools for activists.  And, while DigiActive is the first to admit to the drawbacks of these tools, anyone in the US government interested in supporting open societies should seek to increase access to social networks in repressive countries, not block them with sanctions.  President Obama’s recent policy of granting access the of US telecom companies to Cuba makes LinkedIn’s actions towards Syria all the more perplexing.

Another sad lesson from this story is that this Syrian issue really only gained traction when it hit the US/English media.  Kay makes specific reference to Jillian’s Huffington Post article, so we can assume that this kind of high-profile attention was one of the warning signs for LinkedIn of this-might-turn-into-#amazonfail. Good news is that, thanks to blogs like Huffington Post and Global Voices Advocacy, which broke the story, raising the profile of a foreign injustice is more accessible than it was in the days when you needed to convince a newspaper reporter with a deadline that your story mattered.  These new media outlets, particularly Global Voices, are much more accessible to the world’s activists.

Lessons for Activists: I think this case has 4 lessons for digital activists.  Here they are:

1. Think like your target:  What was LinkedIn’s greatest fear?  Another #amazonfail.  Jillian’s Twitter campaign was a realization of that fear and LinkedIn reacted quickly.
2. Use media your target is using: It’s almost a cliche to say that you need to meet your supporters where they are, but this is also true for your target.  Twitter was only an effective means of pressuring LinkedIn because their PR person was keeping a close watch on her Twitter feed.  This is actually rather surprising.  (Clearly, LinkedIn is quite hip.)  A better bet was the article on Huffington Post.  If you publish in a place where influential people seek information, chances are your target will see it too.
3. Link your campaign to the news cycle:  Again, #linkedinfail built off the embarrassment of #amazonfail, which had been leading tech news only a few days before.
4. Go to where your target is: Blocked users live in Syria.  LinkedIn is an American company.  LinkedIn reacted when the news hit in America.  This is no coincidence.  Get into the media market where your opponent is.

LinkedIn has been very responsive about lifting the account block on Syria and I hope it will lift the blocks on Cuba, Sudan, Iran, and North Korea as well, or at least give an explanation of why it is choosing to lift some bans while leaving others in place.

Image credits: (from top) DigiActive, Jillian York, DigiActive

24 Hours for Darfur

Description: The humanitarian crisis continues in Darfur after eight years and slow response from the international community. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has sought the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, while the United States denies involvement with the ICC and China and Russia supplies arms to the Sudanese government. As the crisis steadily deteriorates, Res Publica has been using digital tools in a advocacy campaign on behalf of the people of Darfur.

Tools: webcams, camcorders, digital cameras, cell phones

How are these tools being used: Internet users from around the world are given the opportunity to participate by recording messages transmitted through their webcams, camcorders, digital cameras and cell phones and then submitting them to the website, 24 Hours for Darfur. Videos range from personal messages from the general public to celebrities including actors Brad Pitt and Mia Farrow and Sen. Barack Obama. The material on the website can then be used for the purpose of lobbying, whereby users can simply email the video to world leaders. The site provides easy email links to such as United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, U.S. President George Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The 24 Hours for Darfur campaign is also supported by a page on YouTube.