The new instalment in the 'Life Is Strange' franchise seeks to change how we behave, both inside the game and out.
tells the story of Dot, a young Black woman living in Detroit who travels through time and witnesses the effects of racist housing policy on different generations of her family. The game is part of the Rise-Home Stories Project, where multimedia storytellers collaborate with grassroots organisations focusing on the intersections of land, housing and race in the US.
Much of what we understand about gaming and empathy is anecdotal, but the area is a popular topic for new academic research. “Already in the past, several studies have shown the potential of video games to increase empathy,” says Dr. Johanna Pirker of Graz University of Technology. Johanna’s research group underwent an initial pre-study earlier this year on the links between empathy and video games to identify the potential for further research.
Johanna believes we must do more research to help game developers harness the empathy-building potential of the medium through identifying “elements and mechanics that might strengthen their game design and understand better the behaviour of players.” She believes that “games can be an important tool to learn” and that emerging virtual reality’s immersive nature will only extend games’ role as “empathy-machines”.
Whilst there are certainly positives to the idea that games can help players to become more empathetic and understanding of the experiences of others, it begs the question of who gets to decide what is worthy of empathy. The gaming industry — with exceptions — is still a world largely dominated by a homogenous group of creators. It’s hard, then, to see games reaching their full potential in this area without more voices getting to share their experience of the world.
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