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How Suzanna Samstag Oh is Bringing Games for Social Change to Korea and a Regional Focus to Games
Posted by Elena Haliczer on 06-05-08Suzanna Samstag Oh talks a mile a minute. I've barely gotten my laptop open and she's told me about her entire professional trajectory and the how's and why's of her current involvement in games for social change. It's fascinating. She's been a Peace Corps volunteer, headed up the creation of Newsweek's Korean edition, done freelance translation while shepherding her children through pre-school, and now teaches a class on social issue games for KAIST, the Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology, which is the MIT of Korea.
Suzanna Oh spoke on the "G4C Does TED" panel about the work she's doing on games for social change in Korea. To recap for those who did not either attend the festival or see that particular panel, Oh is a Games for Change Chapter leader, and just completed her first semester teaching a class on creating social issue games last semester at KAIST. The first class she says was more about "raising awareness of social issue games and challenging the preconception of games in Korea."
In Korea, she says, "there is an interesting dichotomy in the dialogue about games because while people in Korea are talking about game addiction, the government has decided games are a strategic industry because Korea doesn't have exportable natural resources. The thinking is that they have to develop their national intellectual products."
Oh's work so far has been to raise awareness of social issue games as a genre in both her students, and an interested, though unfamiliar, community of gamers, governmental organizations, and other groups.
The first semester of her class has focused on research, on finding out what issues Korean youth finds important, and contacting and being contacted by Korean governmental organizations and environmental action groups who have heard about her topic and are expressing initial interest in the outcomes. Her class also spent time playing existing social issue games like Ayiti by Global Kids and GameLab, and Peacemaker by ImpactGames.
A semester-long debate ensued over whether the students should focus on translating existing social issue games into Korean, adapting existing games for Korean issues, or creating completely new games with a regional focus.
During this debate Oh began to understand that, "culturally, the applicability of some existing social issue games in a homogeneous culture like Korea, where you are not dealing with hunger or immigration, and people aren't familiar with these issues, is pretty low. You're introducing these games to a culture that doesn't have those issues, and although you might want to share them, they do not understand the context to fully see their potential."
It was for this reason that the class decided it was important to create totally new, regionally focused games.
When creating social issue games, Suzanna believes that not only is it important to know the unique issues in your region, it is also important to understand the cultural stance on dialogue, especially about certain topics.
"For example ICED got a conservative backlash in the United States, but when you think about it, America is very receptive to that kind of critical dialogue. In other parts of the world, certain issues might not be open to a whole lot of debate. You have to be sensitive to how a culture reacts to dialogue."
In the course of the class, Oh and her students determined that the best topic for a regionally focused game would be on Korean reunification, and as they continue their coursework in the next semester, they will begin the conceptualization process on this proposed game.
Suzanna herself will be talking to governmental groups and others towards creating an unbiased, regionally focused game. Her chapter work will continue as she increasingly brings the message of social issue games into focus in Korea.
For those who wish to create their own regional chapter of Games for Change, she believes the first step is to raise awareness, to be able to explain what a social issue game is and why it can matter, not in global, but in a deeply localized terms.
We all look forward to hearing more from Oh and her work on social issue games in Korea, not only because she is one of our chapter leaders, but because we view this idea of regionalism in games as particularly important as this genre matures.