Whoever said videogames cause violence, mayhem, death, destruction and mass murder of kittens, fairies and polar bears (are you listening, Jack Thompson?) should take a closer look at the work the non-profit group Games for Change is doing. With games like Border Patrol, that encourage players to kill illegal immigrants, and incidents such as the case of a 16-year old New York girl from Bangladesh who was accused of planning a suicide bombing and detained for 6 weeks before being deported back to a country she did not know, rearing their heads in today’s world, one international human rights organization has taken to videogames to get their message across to people worldwide.

Using a number of creative outlets, Breakthrough focuses on implementing much needed change in today’s world through the use of music, art, performance, television and of course, videogames. Working through offices in India and the United States, Breakthrough has developed ICED! or “I Can End Deportation!” that lets people know about the harsh immigration policies of the United States, where a number of people have been deported to their native countries for the smallest of mistakes, or worse, for no mistake of theirs. According to their website:

Game players have to live the day-to-day life of an immigrant teen. The teens are constantly being chased by immigration officers, while making moral/consequential decisions and answering myth & fact quizzes about current immigration policies.

If the player chooses or answers incorrectly, he/she increases his or her chances of being thrown into detention. Once in detention, the player endures both physical separation from his/her family and unjust conditions while awaiting, often for unknown amounts of time, the random outcome of his/her case.

The game is set to launch online in November 2007.

With more and more people appreciating the medium and using it as a creative tool for social change, one wonders why people like Jack Thompson cherry pick their data to twist matters around in cases where the people involved have already suffered a tremendous amount of anguish. Of course, then there are some other people like Joseph DeLappe, who goes by the nickname of dead-in-iraq on America’s Army servers (which, incidentally, is a game made and promoted by the US Armed Forces) and just stands around waiting to get killed. When he does, he manually types in the name, age, service branch and date of death of every service person who has died in Iraq till date. With organizations like Breakthrough and Games for Change and dedicated individuals like Joseph DeLappe, games have transcended what The X-Files’ Dana Scully called a “testosterone frenzy” to become a profound political statement or better yet, a tool for change.