Protest + Game = ?

At base, protest and play are in opposition. Play is the interaction with rules. There are rules, people break them and form emergent properties that become the new rules and game. Play is working with rules. In opposition, a protest works directly against the rules. A protest means to destroy rules or the system, not to adapt them (despite the possibility that this is all that might eventually happen). Protest and game run against each other but are they combinable?

State of Emergency is about rampaging. It’s about things related to protests, but while it has tie ins with the Seattle WTO protests it really isn’t related. There are also various Sim/Civ-esque games based around revolution, but again these are not exactly about protest, but the reinstitution of order.

Would it be possible to create a game that systematically broke the idea of rules by causing the constant creation of new rules through their breaking? It would maintain entertainment/pleasure by giving out points, awards, or achievements for disruption and for changing the system itself? Instead of giving people the ban hammer for cracking the code, breaking the rules, or finding interesting use of mechanics, it would reward the players. I suppose this is really called “life” and “hacking,” but what if, what if…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *