“Does comedy on television lead to comedy on the streets?” – Dick Cavert.

First speaker: Doug Thomas USC, Center on Public Diplomacy.

When you talk with people on European servers, he asked what people think of Americans. The response was, “They’re not that bad once you play with them.”

He found that people online would identify themselves first as gamers, and secondarily in terms of nationality. It seems like this is a great place for

How do you get people doing public diplomacy in virtual games?

Talks a little bit different games. Some of it is already happening in Second Life. They have created an island on Second Life. Note to self: Find the public diplomacy island on Second Life

Stephen Friedman – MTVu

“Activism has expanded beyond college sit-ins”. So, the goal is to help people find new digital tools for activism. He talks about Darfur is Dying.

MTVu, partnering with Cicso to college students creating the next generation of broadband. One game, is Squeezed, a multi-player online game, where people compete to gather food. It provides a good way of looking at food production, immigration, etc. It will debut later at MTVu.

Hate groups are using video games and we need to counter that.

In August, MTV International Staying Alive foundation, looking for a project to work on preventing the spread of Aids internationally. MTVu will give $250,000 in grants for people to create breathtaking consciousness raising games.

Hardy Merriman, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
Recently released a game called, A force more powerful. A teaching tool in strategic nonviolent conflict.

Wanted to create a game to help people understand how movements are built.

Questions: Does A Force more powerful support templates? It may be that the scenario editor supports that.

A person comments about how the public diplomacy online is similar to the Olympics. However, the questioner points out that gamers can be jerks. How do you approach this? The response talks about how if gamers know that a message is trying to be sent they will try to subvert it. When you get a game like World of Warcraft, with 6.5 million players, you can find people that you want to play with.

Question: How do these games get distributed? How do you evaluate the impact? How do you get feedback?

MTVu relies on the audience and artists to spread the word. System of a Down lead singer is really concern about fighting genocide and that has helped spread the word

For A Force More Powerful, people buy it at http://www.afmp.com. That said, people involved in a struggle cannot talk openly about their struggles.

Question: How do you move online activity offline? A force more powerful is about building skills. Also, as people become involved, it can affect their voting. From a different perspective, direct transfer may not be the best way of looking at things. Games provoke our imagination. It is transfer through imagination where the real power of games is. We need a new vernacular for what games do.

Question: What makes a game a game, and not ‘just a simulation”? A game teaches people how to think, instead of going through a specific set of tasks in a simulation.

One suggestion: We could have a game called America’s Grand Theft Army

06-G4C