Whether mobile games are seen as a political issue, entertainment medium or art is above all one thing: context-dependent. Every game is located in society and at the same time addresses it. With a click here button, one can have access to a mobile game like coin master.
Relevance of coin master to politics
Political significance can tend to be assumed for all mobile and computer games, also and especially when they appear to avoid any political act. Since even in these kinds of games, the following applies: The players give orders, but have to play according to the rules of the game in order to be able to play at all. At the other end of this spectrum are games that are deliberately used for political education or propaganda purposes. It is viewed to get in touch with an otherwise difficult-to-reach target group.
On the basis of apparently politically ambitious computer games from the past years, the exhibition project asks about the possibilities and limits of the genre to create an opposing position within the entertainment business.
This opposing position can be conveyed on the one hand by playing through the likelihood of political decision-making, on the other hand by explicitly highlighting social conditions and grievances. Because that is what unites all the games shown in the exhibition. They deal with risky working situations as well as the surveillance state, gender issues, the consequences of armed conflict, revolutions against totalitarian systems or dealing with refugees.
Effects of globalization and references to the real world: Clearly reflected in mobile games
Computer and mobile games are by no means a purely western phenomenon, but rather a global medium. Not only do users play globally networked with each other, but games are also produced all over the world.
The games and politics show the range of computer and mobile games as socially and politically relevant medium. This not only encourages playing but thinking and questioning as well.
The apparent paradox of the serious game also shows the scientification of our culture and the turn to new tools. Computer and mobile games are a popular form. It is through which socially relevant processes of globalization, media upheavals and digitization can be clearly presented. They are powerful new tools.