I chose to play an advergame and an educational game. My advergame was from PETA and it helped promote PETA's decision to boycott clothes sold by Burberry due to their usage of fur. I believe that PETA did a very good job in advertising their belief by creating a game of it. The structure of the game was very well thought out, seeing as, PETA displayed vast amounts of blood on the floor and boxes filled with what seemed to be dead animals. Though, it was a bit extreme, it surely gave the gamer the impression of how passionate PETA is about this subject. Also, due to the drastic measures that PETA used to portray their thoughts, the gamer (which in this case, was me) was able to see what it really “looks” like behind the scenes and in turn, they might even think about taking a stand for this cause. PETA created this game to help educate the people that “the only place we should ever see fur is on the backs of the mammals it belongs to” and not being worn by other people. Although, it wouldn’t be my way of displaying this subject, there doesn’t really seem to be another way around it. For if PETA had tried to hide the facts about this situation and not have felt so stoutly about it, the gamers would not have cared about this as much and might have just played it for fun.
Furthermore, I also played the game FreeRice, which can be seen as both an educational game and a persuasive game. It’s purpose is to help the UN World Food Program end world hunger by donating 20 grains of rice. The gamer’s goal is to correctly define as many words as they can and for each word they define correctly, they help donate 20 grains of rice. This is an educational game because even though, the gamer is playing for a good cause, they are learning new words, all the while. It is also a persuasive game because it influences players to play a fairly easy game in order to donate rice to people in third-world countries who are suffering from famine. I believe that this is also a very good way of advertising the need of fighting against famine because not only is it simple to play but it is also free. People in other countries are getting free rice just because other people are playing a game for free. They don’t even have to send in a dollar a month, like some of those other commercials on TV, just to help somebody elsewhere. Now, I’m not sure if this game actually donates 20 grains of rice, but it is a great attention-grabber. Most people wonder about ways in which they can help the world or fellow people around them. However, even if this game is just that, a game, it might be able to encourage people to go out and find ways of aiding others who are in dire need and desire assistance, but might not be able to attain it.
