Opinion: Immigration games

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Considering that other than the occasional round of Wii Tennis, I haven’t played a video game since I failed to beat ‘Legend of Zelda’ in the late 1980s, I’m not the best person to comment on the medium.

But an educational immigration game arrived on the Internets not too long ago, so I gave it a try. (OK, actually, it was kind of long ago, it got some news last year, and an official release came out in February.)

The game is from Breakthrough.tv and it’s called ‘I Can End Deportation,’ or ICED, for short (a play, of course, on the agency in charge of said deportation). You pick one of five characters -- from an undocumented Mexican immigrant to a Japanese student to a girl who thinks she’s a citizen -- and try to avoid getting deported, while learning about what trials immigrants, legal or not, have to suffer.

It’s a conversation-starter about an aspect of immigration policy avoided by many moderates, who need to be tough on enforcement or who may simply assume that the deportation process works well enough (unlike, say, actual worksite or border enforcement). They don’t worry much about the process, unless it goes seriously awry.

And though the game may be criticized as such, it isn’t a primer for anyone who’s actually evading authorities. Of course, the name alone makes it clear that the game makers weren’t exactly trying to avoid controversy. (See what the game’s creator has to say about the reaction she has received here.)

Anyway, I played until it made me sick, not because of all those violated rights (though those are nauseating in their metaphorical way), but mostly because first person perspective games make me queasy (yes, I know, pathetic).

Unlike other do-gooder games like the United Nations’ ’Food Force,’ ‘ICED’ doesn’t quite live up to the ‘edutainment’ portmanteau. It’s definitely more nerdy than fun. There are little quizzes and good deeds to perform for points, and pop-up factoids, and as far as I could tell, no violence or sex. And sadly, there’s plenty of both in actual immigration enforcement -- and showing some might have made this game’s message that much louder and clearer.

Two years ago, the board made note of games like this in an editorial mocking City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo for pursuing a lawsuit against an already obscene video game for containing a -- surprise! -- hidden obscene act:

Unfortunately for immigration advocates, the other side of the debate -- and not just the other side, but its genuinely creepy extremes -- have their own game, with GTA-level hideousness. (Link from Matthew Yglesias.)

*Photo from Breakthrough.tv.