Often, games are used as an escape from the real world. Fantasy lands created and cultivated by the communities who desire lands outside of our own. We have discussed these fantasy worlds and stories before, but “serious games” take us to the other side of the spectrum of escapism. We are no longer escaping to fantasy worlds in video games, but rather realities extremely close to us. SPENT gave us a closer insight into the difficulties of living check-to-check and having to manage one’s money down to the last dollar. These experiences are not new, they are not farfetched, nor are they so outlandish that they are fantasy. SPENT provides a very real perspective that someone, I guarantee, you know had to endure. SPENT sparked discussions on sympathy, money management, and the cyclical nature of living check-to-check.
This game is extremely valuable in making individuals aware, no matter their social backgrounds, of how difficult living check-to-check is and managing money beyond just yourself. The game gave facts and often prompted the player to either donate or reach out for help via social media. These tactics were meant to spark sympathy in players and encourage help. However, using the medium of video games to teach such a real topic is fickle because like I said, making people aware isn’t enough. Even more, people are able to detach from a video game, separating their reality from this perceived “fiction”, ultimately leading to the message being lost on them entirely. It is important to teach and want to teach about sensitive, uncomfortable topics because of how easy they are to ignore. The medium of video games allows for these messages to reach a further audience, but with the downside that these audiences will become aware but never take action. I guess with every medium comes the challenge of inciting change through education, but I feel it is even harder through games because of how players get into the habit of separating their video game fantasy words from their real lives.
SPENT really stood with me because of how accurate of a portrayal it is of living with monetary uncertainty. That message can be completely loss on an audience that 1) never experienced it, 2) does not personally know someone who has, or 3) is unable to sympathize with the situation. Part of the issue can be that the audience does not take the game seriously enough, or that they do not see the portrayal as reality, which is even scarier in my opinion.
You’re absolutely right to point out how SPENT can easily fail in its message if put into the wrong hands, and this is something that I remember seeing firsthand in middle school. When playing SPENT for class, I realized that I’d played it before around the time it came out when I was in the 6th grade, I think because a teacher recommended it. It wasn’t recieved in the way I think it was intended to be by my group of well-off mostly-white kids in the Las Vegas suburbs, who mostly found it funny that you could break your kid’s piggy bank and donate plasma for money. The game didn’t register as a representation of reality because we had such a limited scope on what reality is, a function of privilige and of childhood. I don’t know what it would have taken for it to have worked as intended, but I hope that future releases with the same intention can do better, or at least more clearly focus their efforts on a certain audience.