Monday 1 March 2004

Class Struggle - The Game(s)

Seen first on Pathetic Earthlings, this series of on-line games from the AFL-CIO is both amusing and thought-provoking. Though as befits propaganda-games, they're as subtle as a meat-axe.

They beat the old Avalon Hill boardgame, anyway (yes, I have a copy). Though how Bertell Oliman got a mainstream games publisher to produce an undisguised Marxist propaganda-piece as a game is an interesting story in it's own right. It was the 70's, I guess you had to be there.

Personally, I think a better simulation of how the world actually works is Steve Jackson's Illuminati game. Although filled with very, very tongue-in-cheek humour, there's more than a grain of truth in this parody of Conspiracy Theories. When it comes to International Affairs, we see through a Glass, Darkly.

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