MS: Xbox Live Users Ready For Socially Conscious Games

**4me2** · 5th June 2008

XNA isn't just for up-and-coming game developers hoping to make the next "Halo."
Microsoft wants its free development toolkit to be used by people to create socially conscious games.

I spoke with XNA General Manager Chris Satchell at Microsoft's Expo Night at the 2008 Games for Change festival. The event, held earlier this week at Parsons School of Design in New York, showcased the work of students who used XNA to create games about global warming, malaria prevention and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, among other social causes.

"When look at Gen X and Y, that's a big age range playing games at the moment, but they're also very concerned about social issues," Satchell said, echoing his keynote about how XNA can help change the world of games. "I think if you speak about issues people are passionate about, and if you do it on a medium that they like, like gaming, then you've really got the ability to influence them going forward."

Can social change games have as much impact as something like Al Gore's Oscar-winning, global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth"?
"Absolutely," Satchell said. "As we get more proficient as creators telling these socially aware stories and game concepts, I really think there's no reason why people can't speak through a narrative just like another medium could."

Full Story: multiplayerblog.mtv.com

**I Black Belt** · 5th June 2008

So does this mean that we gamers will be subjected to endless reams of non-skippable cinematics and fmv with purty pictures of flowers and whales and some fat faceless bellend harping on about "we do not own the planet, we merely borrow it from our children" shite?
Perhaps if they showed some hard core lezza action whilst the narrative was going on, then it might, just might enter my subconcious.