Gaming for understanding
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0:00 - 0:02When we think of games, there's all kinds of things.
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0:02 - 0:05Maybe you're ticked off, or maybe you're looking forward
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0:05 - 0:07to a new game. You've been up too late playing a game.
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0:07 - 0:09All these things happen to me.
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0:09 - 0:11But when we think about games, a lot of times we think
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0:11 - 0:13about stuff like this: first-person shooters, or the big,
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0:13 - 0:15what we would call AAA games,
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0:15 - 0:16or maybe you're a Facebook game player.
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0:16 - 0:18This is one my partner and I worked on.
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0:18 - 0:20Maybe you play Facebook games, and that's what we're
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0:20 - 0:23making right now. This is a lighter form of game.
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0:23 - 0:25Maybe you think about the tragically boring board games
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0:25 - 0:29that hold us hostage in Thanksgiving situations.
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0:29 - 0:31This would be one of those tragically boring board games
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0:31 - 0:33that you can figure out.
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0:33 - 0:35Or maybe you're in your living room, you know,
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0:35 - 0:38playing with the Wii with the kids, or something like that,
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0:38 - 0:40and, you know, there's this whole range of games,
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0:40 - 0:41and that's very much what I think about.
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0:41 - 0:43I make my living from games. I've been lucky enough
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0:43 - 0:45to do this since I was 15, which also qualifies
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0:45 - 0:48as I've never really had a real job.
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0:48 - 0:50But we think about games as fun, and that's completely
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0:50 - 0:53reasonable, but let's just think about this.
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0:53 - 0:56So this one here, this is the 1980 Olympics.
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0:56 - 0:58Now I don't know where you guys were, but I was
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0:58 - 1:00in my living room. It was practically a religious event.
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1:00 - 1:04And this is when the Americans beat the Russians,
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1:04 - 1:06and this was -- yes, it was technically a game.
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1:06 - 1:09Hockey is a game. But really, was this a game?
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1:09 - 1:12I mean, people cried. I've never seen my mother cry
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1:12 - 1:15like that at the end of Monopoly.
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1:15 - 1:18And so this was just an amazing experience.
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1:18 - 1:20Or, you know, if anybody here is from Boston --
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1:20 - 1:24So when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series after,
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1:24 - 1:28I believe, 351 years,
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1:28 - 1:30when they won the World Series, it was amazing.
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1:30 - 1:32I happened to be living in Springfield at the time,
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1:32 - 1:34and the best part of it was -- is that --
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1:34 - 1:37you would close the women's door in the bathroom,
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1:37 - 1:39and I remember seeing "Go Sox," and I thought, really?
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1:39 - 1:43Or the houses, you'd come out, because every game,
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1:43 - 1:45well, I think almost every game, went into overtime, right?
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1:45 - 1:48So we'd be outside, and all the other lights are on
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1:48 - 1:51on the whole block, and kids, like, the attendance was down
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1:51 - 1:53in school, and kids weren't going to school.
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1:53 - 1:55But it's okay, it's the Red Sox, right?
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1:55 - 1:58I mean, there's education, and then there's the Red Sox,
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1:58 - 1:59and we know where they're stacked.
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1:59 - 2:02So this was an amazing experience, and again, yes,
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2:02 - 2:05it was a game, but they didn't write newspaper articles,
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2:05 - 2:08people didn't say -- you know, really, "I can die now
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2:08 - 2:11because the Red Sox won." And many people did.
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2:11 - 2:14So games, it means something more to us.
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2:14 - 2:16It absolutely means something more.
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2:16 - 2:18So now, just, this is an abrupt transition here.
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2:18 - 2:21There was three years where I actually did have a real job, sort of.
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2:21 - 2:23I was the head of a college department
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2:23 - 2:26teaching games, so, again, it was sort of a real job,
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2:26 - 2:29and now I just got to talk about making as opposed to making them.
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2:29 - 2:31And I was at a dinner. Part of the job of it, when you're
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2:31 - 2:34a chair of a department, is to eat, and I did that very well,
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2:34 - 2:38and so I'm out at a dinner with this guy called Zig Jackson.
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2:38 - 2:40So this is Zig in this photograph. This is also one of Zig's
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2:40 - 2:42photographs. He's a photographer.
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2:42 - 2:45And he goes all around the country taking pictures
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2:45 - 2:49of himself, and you can see here he's got
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2:49 - 2:54Zig's Indian Reservation. And this particular shot, this
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2:54 - 2:57is one of the more traditional shots. This is a rain dancer.
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2:57 - 2:59And this is one of my favorite shots here.
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2:59 - 3:02So you can look at this, and maybe you've even seen
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3:02 - 3:05things like this. This is an expression of culture, right?
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3:05 - 3:07And this is actually from his Degradation series.
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3:07 - 3:10And what was most fascinating to me about this series
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3:10 - 3:11is just, look at that little boy there.
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3:11 - 3:14Can you imagine? Now let's, we can see that's a traditional
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3:14 - 3:17Native American. Now I just want to change that guy's race.
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3:17 - 3:19Just imagine if that's a black guy.
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3:19 - 3:21So, "Honey, come here, let's get your picture with the black guy."
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3:21 - 3:24Right? Like, seriously, nobody would do this.
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3:24 - 3:27It baffles the mind. And so Zig, being Indian,
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3:27 - 3:29likewise it baffles his mind. His favorite photograph --
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3:29 - 3:32my favorite photograph of his, which I don't have in here is
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3:32 - 3:34Indian taking picture of white people taking pictures
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3:34 - 3:37of Indians. (Laughter)
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3:37 - 3:39So I happen to be at dinner with this photographer,
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3:39 - 3:41and he was talking with another photographer
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3:41 - 3:43about a shooting that had occurred,
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3:43 - 3:46and it was on an Indian reservation. He'd taken his camera
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3:46 - 3:48up there to photograph it, but when he got there,
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3:48 - 3:50he discovered he couldn't do it. He just couldn't capture
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3:50 - 3:54the picture. And so they were talking back and forth
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3:54 - 3:57about this question. Do you take the picture or not?
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3:57 - 3:59And that was fascinating to me as a game designer,
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3:59 - 4:01because it never occurs to me, like, should I make
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4:01 - 4:04the game about this difficult topic or not?
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4:04 - 4:06Because we just make things that are fun or, you know,
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4:06 - 4:09will make you feel fear, you know, that visceral excitement.
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4:09 - 4:11But every other medium does it.
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4:11 - 4:14So this is my kid. This is Maezza, and when she was
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4:14 - 4:16seven years old, she came home from school one day,
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4:16 - 4:18and like I do every single day, I asked her,
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4:18 - 4:19"What'd you do today?"
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4:19 - 4:22So she said, "We talked about the Middle Passage."
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4:22 - 4:25Now, this was a big moment. Maezza's dad is black,
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4:25 - 4:29and I knew this day was coming. I wasn't expecting it
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4:29 - 4:31at seven. I don't know why, but I wasn't.
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4:31 - 4:34Anyways, so I asked her, "How do you feel about that?"
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4:34 - 4:37So she proceeded to tell me, and so any of you
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4:37 - 4:39who are parents will recognize the bingo buzzwords here.
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4:39 - 4:41So the ships start in England, they come down
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4:41 - 4:43from England, they go to Africa, they go across the ocean --
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4:43 - 4:45that's the Middle Passage part — they come to America
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4:45 - 4:47where the slaves are sold, she's telling me.
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4:47 - 4:50But Abraham Lincoln was elected president, and then he
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4:50 - 4:53passed the Emancipation Proclamation, and now they're free.
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4:53 - 4:55Pause for about 10 seconds.
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4:55 - 4:57"Can I play a game, Mommy?"
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4:57 - 5:01And I thought, that's it? And so, you know,
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5:01 - 5:04this is the Middle Passage, this is an incredibly significant
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5:04 - 5:08event, and she's treating it like, basically some
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5:08 - 5:09black people went on a cruise, is more or less
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5:09 - 5:12how it sounds to her. (Laughter)
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5:12 - 5:15And so, to me, I wanted more value in this, so when
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5:15 - 5:18she asked if she could play a game, I said,
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5:18 - 5:19"Yes." (Laughter)
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5:19 - 5:22And so I happened to have all of these little pieces.
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5:22 - 5:24I'm a game designer, so I have this stuff sitting around my house.
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5:24 - 5:26So I said, "Yeah, you can play a game," and I give her
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5:26 - 5:28a bunch of these, and I tell her to paint them
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5:28 - 5:29in different families. These are pictures of Maezza
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5:29 - 5:32when she was — God, it still chokes me up seeing these.
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5:32 - 5:35So she's painting her little families.
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5:35 - 5:38So then I grab a bunch of them and I put them on a boat.
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5:38 - 5:42This was the boat. It was made quickly obviously. (Laughter)
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5:42 - 5:45And so the basic gist of it is, I grabbed a bunch of families,
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5:45 - 5:47and she's like, "Mommy, but you forgot the pink baby
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5:47 - 5:48and you forgot the blue daddy
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5:48 - 5:49and you forgot all these other things."
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5:49 - 5:51And she says, "They want to go." And I said,
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5:51 - 5:53"Honey, no they don't want to go. This is the Middle Passage.
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5:53 - 5:55Nobody wants to go on the Middle Passage."
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5:55 - 5:58So she gave me a look that only a daughter
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5:58 - 6:00of a game designer would give a mother,
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6:00 - 6:02and as we're going across the ocean, following these rules,
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6:02 - 6:06she realizes that she's rolling pretty high, and she says
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6:06 - 6:08to me, "We're not going to make it."
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6:08 - 6:11And she realizes, you know, we don't have enough food,
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6:11 - 6:14and so she asks what to do, and I say,
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6:14 - 6:15"Well, we can either" -- Remember, she's seven --
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6:15 - 6:17"We can either put some people in the water
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6:17 - 6:19or we can hope that they don't get sick
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6:19 - 6:21and we make it to the other side."
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6:21 - 6:24And she -- just the look on her face came over
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6:24 - 6:26and she said -- now mind you this is after a month of --
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6:26 - 6:28this is Black History Month, right?
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6:28 - 6:29After a month she says to me,
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6:29 - 6:32"Did this really happen?"
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6:32 - 6:35And I said, "Yes." And so she said, "So, if I came
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6:35 - 6:36out of the woods" — this is her brother and sister — "If I came
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6:36 - 6:39out of the woods, Avalon and Donovan might be gone."
"Yes." -
6:39 - 6:43"But I'd get to see them in America."
"No." -
6:43 - 6:45"But what if I saw them? You know, couldn't we stay together?"
"No." -
6:45 - 6:48"So Daddy could be gone."
"Yes." -
6:48 - 6:50And she was fascinated by this, and she started to cry,
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6:50 - 6:52and I started to cry, and her father started to cry,
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6:52 - 6:54and now we're all crying. He didn't expect
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6:54 - 6:55to come home from work to the Middle Passage,
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6:55 - 6:58but there it goes. (Laughter)
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6:58 - 7:01And so, we made this game, and she got it.
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7:01 - 7:03She got it because she spent time with these people.
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7:03 - 7:07It wasn't abstract stuff in a brochure or in a movie.
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7:07 - 7:10And so it was just an incredibly powerful experience.
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7:10 - 7:12This is the game, which I've ended up calling
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7:12 - 7:14The New World, because I like the phrase.
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7:14 - 7:16I don't think the New World felt too new worldly exciting
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7:16 - 7:19to the people who were brought over on slave ships.
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7:19 - 7:21But when this happened, I saw the whole planet.
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7:21 - 7:23I was so excited. It was like, I'd been making games
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7:23 - 7:27for 20-some years, and then I decided to do it again.
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7:27 - 7:28My history is Irish.
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7:28 - 7:31So this is a game called Síochán Leat. It's "peace be with you."
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7:31 - 7:33It's the entire history of my family in a single game.
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7:33 - 7:35I made another game called Train.
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7:35 - 7:38I was making a series of six games
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7:38 - 7:40that covered difficult topics, and if you're going to cover
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7:40 - 7:42a difficult topic, this is one you need to cover,
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7:42 - 7:45and I'll let you figure out what that's about on your own.
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7:45 - 7:49And I also made a game about the Trail of Tears.
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7:49 - 7:51This is a game with 50,000 individual pieces.
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7:51 - 7:53I was crazy when I decided to start it,
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7:53 - 7:55but I'm in the middle of it now.
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7:55 - 7:56It's the same thing.
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7:56 - 7:59I'm hoping that I'll teach culture through these games.
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7:59 - 8:01And the one I'm working on right now, which is --
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8:01 - 8:03because I'm right in the middle of it, and these for some reason choke me up like crazy --
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8:03 - 8:06is a game called Mexican Kitchen Workers.
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8:06 - 8:08And originally it was a math problem more or less.
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8:08 - 8:11Like, here's the economics of illegal immigration.
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8:11 - 8:13And the more I learned about the Mexican culture --
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8:13 - 8:15my partner is Mexican — the more I learned that,
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8:15 - 8:18you know, for all of us, food is a basic need, but,
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8:18 - 8:22and it is obviously with Mexicans too, but it's much more than that.
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8:22 - 8:24It's an expression of love. It's an expression of —
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8:24 - 8:27God, I'm totally choking up way more than I thought.
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8:27 - 8:29I'll look away from the picture.
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8:29 - 8:33It's an expression of beauty. It's how they say they love you.
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8:33 - 8:35It's how they say they care, and you can't hear somebody
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8:35 - 8:36talk about their Mexican grandmother
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8:36 - 8:39without saying "food" in the first sentence.
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8:39 - 8:43And so to me, this beautiful culture, this beautiful expression
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8:43 - 8:47is something that I want to capture through games.
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8:47 - 8:50And so games, for a change, it changes how we see topics,
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8:50 - 8:52it changes how our perceptions about those people
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8:52 - 8:55in topics, and it changes ourselves.
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8:55 - 8:57We change as people through games,
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8:57 - 8:59because we're involved, and we're playing,
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8:59 - 9:03and we're learning as we do so. Thank you. (Applause)
- Title:
- Gaming for understanding
- Speaker:
- Brenda Brathwaite
- Description:
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It's never easy to get across the magnitude of complex tragedies -- so when Brenda Brathwite's daughter came home from school asking about slavery, she did what she does for a living -- she designed a game. At TEDxPhoenix she describes the surprising effectiveness of this game, and others, in helping the player really understand the story.
(Filmed at TEDxPhoenix.) - Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 09:23
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Gaming for understanding | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Gaming for understanding | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Gaming for understanding | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Gaming for understanding | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Gaming for understanding | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Gaming for understanding | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Gaming for understanding | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Gaming for understanding |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 11/22/2016.