It might not necessarily be advertising-related (yet), but it's certainly interesting: students at Carnegie Mellon University are hoping their video game based on the Middle East conflict will help
players find a diplomatic solution to a decades-old problem. The object of "Peace Maker," their game, is to react as a suicide bomber blows up a bus in an Israeli city, deciding whether to counter
with a missile strike or an assassination plot. Wow, talk about a role-playing game. But who would anyone want to play something like this? The Associated Press calls them "serious games," an emerging
genre of interactive gaming that takes on real-world problems. There's not much of a precedent for anything like this in the escapist world of video games, so investors don't know whether gamers will
embrace the opportunity to tackle such grave issues or be absolutely offended. Not to mention how the countries involved would feel about their struggle being the subject of a video game. Other
so-called "serious games" have been much less serious, like a Wal-Mart inventory management game used for employee training. The new round of serious games is a different story: another title, called
"Incident Commander," which was commissioned by the government, according to the Associated Press report, prompts users to react to terrorist attacks, school hostage crises, foreign dictators, and
natural disasters.
Read the whole story at Associated Press via CNN »
