Inspiring a new generation of justice-centered video game designers
Inspiring a new generation of justice-centered video game designers
Inspiring a new generation of justice-centered video game designers
October 12, 2022
By Alana Chandler
Summary
Although many people criticize video games associated with violence, founder of the Games for Justice youth summer program Husain Rizvi '22 thinks that this is not where we should be focusing our attention.
"I think many people consume a lot of violent content on a daily basis, but it takes a specific set of situations to make a person act upon violent things." Instead, Rizvi underscores the dark underbelly of the gaming industry: "A lot of game studios are essentially like frats on steroids where it's really male-centric. They think they're catering to a cis straight white male gamer, and so to reflect that, the studios themselves almost become that. It becomes dangerous for people of color and women and nonbinary folks, with lots of sexual harassment cases happening in game industry, like at [Riot Games]." Rizvi believes that the products created reflect this toxic work culture.
"A lot of games have prejudiced portrayals of folks. You don't really see Black or Brown video game characters, and when you do, they're often essentially mobsters - think Grand Theft Auto." Additionally, Rizvi points out that many games promote colonialism, since they "Rely on conquering a new place with many resources." This frustration with the corrupt and unsafe game studio environment motivated Rizvi to create Games for Justice.
"We did a quick game jam to see what we could make in six hours and got the youth to do the voice acting for it. There are a bunch of different profiles on the game dating app, where a user can see how each profile is reacted to differently. When you play as a white cisgender man, nothing really happens to you, but playing as a Brown trans woman or a Black nonbinary femme person, your experiences are so different." As the founder of the program, Rizvi co-wrote the entire curriculum alongside fellow MIT student Greg Peterson '22, all while managing a full course load. Later, it was up to Rizvi to find both funding and staff.
"A tutorial might be where we're learning a piece of software, like Unity. The games and social justice piece could be the intersection of games and racism; we learned about how different games might perpetuate this and how we can make a game that actually works to dismantle racism." " is a lot more than just showing an image of a person having to make choices in their life and pointing out how hard their life is, because that is just upholding one image of what it means to be a Black or Brown person rather than allowing for more representation or power.
" While Rizvi did not grow up playing video games often, nor did they have any notion that they would end up founding a summer program during their time at MIT, they centered their campus pursuits on social justice from the get-go.
"After sophomore year, I was like, you know what? I don't really want to do stuff at MIT. I'm going to do stuff with my community and use MIT's resources and try to redistribute them." And that's exactly what Rizvi has done through Games for Justice.
Reference
Chandler, A. (2022, October 12). Inspiring a new generation of justice-centered video game designers. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://thetech.com/2022/10/12/husain-rizvi-interview