Exploring the problems with empathy games

I read Liz Ryerson’s article before I played Problem Attic and consequently interpreted the game in a specific way. While playing the game, I very much tied the distressing, uncomfortable and nauseating feelings I experienced to the experiences Liz Ryerson hints at in her article. I thought of the game design and mechanics in the context of that article and everything she had written in it. Consequently when we discussed the interpretation of Problem Attic in class I had already been equipped with a specific interpretation that originated not from Problem Attic but Liz Ryerson’s article. This is one of the problems with empathy games: they are dependent upon the provision of a specific context to achieve the desired empathy. Without a supplied context, all we have are the feelings we experienced in the game without a situation to attribute them to. This is important because of what empathy games seek to accomplish: getting the player to understand the feelings of another person and in turn that person’s specific situation. I’d like to use Problem Attic to explore this idea. Let’s imagine that there exists a player who decides to play Problem Attic. For whatever reason, this player did not look into the game creator’s background nor the inspiration for the game. Would this player really arrive at the specific conclusion that this 8-bit puzzle platformer is about homelessness, abusive relationships, and other kinds of trauma? I doubt it. The player may feel the feelings that Ryerson wished to convey but those feelings are not connected to any specific experiences. In this context they are only connected to playing Problem Attic. I would say this situation does equate to empathy. The player is not understanding another person’s situation, they are just experiencing certain emotions, unattached to anything besides the game. I believe this is because it is not really suggested or declared that these are the feelings are what Liz Ryerson while grappling with homelessness, abuse and the other things she struggled with: there is no context for interpreting the feelings. So it seems like the answer is to just provide a context right?

The provision of a context raises its own sets of issues. In providing a context, a game creator is saying “these feelings you experience define this specific situation.” But who is the game creator to choose how a situation or issue is defined? Is the opinion that is being offered through the game sufficiently accurate? At what point would we even declare an individual is fit to translate the experiences of the community into a video game? Or can anyone come up and claim to represent the community? Empathy games are not immune to this question of qualification and the messy web of determining qualification.

In addition to the issue of the qualified representative, we need to realize that an empathy game is subject to the issue of objectivity surrounding any subjective account. Empathy games are not governed by a truth-seeking body. Empathy games are not objective recollections of events. The designer of an empathy game is suggesting her own interpretation when she designs the game and the feelings that it inspires. While I personally may agree with the way sexual assault, homeless and the other traumatic experiences are described in Problem Attic it is not hard to consider other scenarios where things aren’t as clear cut. What about an empathy game that suggests the United State’s role in Vietnam was a heroic battle against the tyranny of communism and nothing else? If I think the opinion being suggested is wrong, does that mean it’s not an empathy game? I don’t think so.

Finally, I’d like to raise the question of the value of the empathy game label itself. Let’s say we can solve the problem of providing a context and solve the problem of who decides the context (absurd assumptions but whatever, moving on). Doesn’t that mean all games could become empathy games if they were provided with a qualified context? If I supply the context that Super Mario Brothers is some metaphor for the proletariat’s quest to overthrow the Bourgeoisie doesn’t that make Super Mario Brothers an empathy game? Can any game really become an empathy game? If so, then the uniqueness associated with being labeled an empathy game vanishes. The only counter I could imagine to this issue is making the definition narrower, like saying that part of the definition for empathy games is the sufficiently explicit provision of a context within the game itself and a declared intent to get the player to empathize with another person. But naturally this would push empathy games towards a rejection of ambiguity where that ambiguity may hold some artistic value.