Spent is a game that allows the player to experience choices of someone living in extreme poverty for 30 days. They have to confront choices that challenge people living in extreme poverty every day like when they should dodge bills, when they should not report car accidents to the police and when they should not help their kid, all based on their finances.
In class, I, as well as others brought up the fact that the game in many ways trivializes the experiences of poor people by having people play as a person in this position for just one month. The player also has the ability to learn from mistakes and get a clean slate, something that is all-but-impossible for people living in the situations that SPENT explains. These factors very easily lead into gamification and make many people crave to simply “beat” the game with as much money as possible, instead of trying to understand what the developers of the game were trying to teach.
Others in class responded that it might make people more knowledgeable about the experiences of those living in poverty and that the point of the game is to stir up donations and conversation. Although this game does have the potential for gamification, it also has the ability to open a window into a meaningful conversation about poverty.
However, I don’t know if that is doing enough to change people’s perceptions. Although the game does allow people to donate, and indeed makes the link to donate very visible once the game is over, it still does not mean that people will donate. One question I have is how many people in our class actually donated. I worry that SPENT acts a lot like Phone Story in that it presents a compelling narrative that teaches people about an injustice in the world, of which they may be partially unaware, or at least ignorant. However, both games quickly fade away from the player's mind once they stop playing. The player has the luxury to move on with their life, and sink back into blissful complacency, unlike the people being portrayed in SPENT. Therefore, the game is only able to create a long-lasting impact if the player is primed and wants to learn.