March 10, 2008 -
Nintendo told the New York Times that there are no plans for North American distribution of Imagination is the Only Escape (screenshot at left), an under-development DS title. Game designer Luc Bernard's creation deals with the Holocaust and tells the story of a young French boy who escapes into a fantasy world to avoid facing the real-life Horrors of Nazi occupation. From the NYT:
Darkly illustrated and full of gruesome historical facts, it is a far cry from the normal fare written for the Nintendo DS, which tends toward games featuring cute ponies and the like...
Bernard, whose grandmother cared for orphaned Jewish children after the war, told the newspaper:
There will be no on-screen violence in this product. I don’t see war as a game. I don’t find that amusing.
Although the Times cites some negative quotes about the game's Holocaust theme, Myrna Shinbaum, a spokeswoman for the Anti-Defamation League, took a more reasonable approach:
We certainly believe that we have to find new ways of teaching lessons of the Holocaust as new technologies are being developed.
GP: Wasn't a comparable theme of escapism expressed in the award-winning 1997 film Life is Beautiful? Why can't a video game address a similar topic?
UPDATE: A piece on gi.biz says that Imagination is only in the early stages of development and has not been blocked for release in either the U.S. or European markets by Nintendo.
Comments
That could be interesting. How about a game (probably a Mass Effect style RPG) where someone has messed around with time and actually prevented the holocaust? You'd have to actually go back to several key points and CAUSE the holocaust to happen to rectify history. Without the outrage over the holocaust, the nazis were not demonised and the resistance was a lot less, they managed to beat the allies in europe and secure the continent. After they did, they then started the non-aryan purge and caused millions more casualties.
It could be a really interesting and creepy morality play, do you sacrifice the 10+ million that died in the 1940s as well as your own self respect or save them only to have 30+ million killed in the 1950s and have the nazis in control of europe?
I'm thinking you could manipulate the wannsee conference, develop anti-jew propaganda (hehe maybe jews play compuer games & are therefore a danger to society) and perhaps even manipulate hitler into jewish hate before the war. After each mission you would have some sort of period of self reflection set in your character's native time & see how your actions are affecting your character, if your character seems to enjoy it too much, his wife/husband/dog may not speak to him anymore.
I like stories without a happy ending and the thought of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few has always resonated with me (and not just because I watched Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan the other day).
Just an assumption presented as fact.
Unfortunately I havent read or have access to the full article so I too am just making assumptions.
Myrna Shinbaum, spokeswoman for the Anti-Defamation League, said that she had not seen Mr. Bernard’s game and could not assess whether it was tasteful. “We certainly believe that we have to find new ways of teaching lessons of the Holocaust as new technologies are being developed,” she said.
Oh my, 'I haven't seen it so I can't comment'? Am I reading this wrong or is someone doing the sensible thing here?
Another interesting game might explore other proposed solutions to the "Jewish Question"... the Nazis initially wanted to just ship all the Jews off somewhere else.
Ooooh, or what about a game where you run a concentration camp. As the game progresses, you might have to perform certain tasks (eg. get work done for the war effort, ensure medical experiments are performed, etc.), but you would keep receiving more and more prisoners. Might be interesting to see how long you could go before you're forced to start killing them one way or another. That sort of game wouldn't even have to be Nazi-specific -- similar camps (sans gas chambers, of course) have been used by other cultures in other wars. The idea, of course, would be to force the player to think about the horrors of war and/or nationalism (if you feel the need to take that side) even when a plan is NOT in place to systematically kill all the prisoners.
I beg to differ. I learned quite a lot playing Professor Layton (puzzles and common sense), and Chains of Olympus (Greek mythology)
People have to thread carefully with themes like these and I can see why some exec not wanting to start a firestorm would avoid it.
Except that doesn't make it into British School history books... I wonder why. Come to think of it, I don't recall being taught much about the concentration camps used on a massive scale during the Second Boer War either.
Gift.
See? Now THAT'S a proper troll.
Ahh, but why kill the troll when you can charm him and make him dance?
What about Bono? He's a huge pompous jerk who just wants attention and money, but he's not a Jew, now is he?
Why - seriously just why? For what reason do they have to ban this? I assume this will take an RPG-ish form, or it will be like an interactive novel, abit like other games such as, well, many titles already released for the DS. I have the feeling that this is being banned because it's coming in the form of a video game. Graphic novel, novel, small animated movie, whatever, and they wouldn't have given it a second thought. They have no reason to prevent the distribution of it in the US (hopefully Mr. Brown doesn't follow suit, becuase this sounds like an interesting title I'd probably buy if we get it over here) and it's clear to see whatever excuse they've come up with is totally unjustified.
:P
With that being said, a game that can teach history is something we'll never see happen and I'll explain why. In a game, your goal is to get from start to finish and accomplish the goal that is presenting a conflict for you. In Mario games, you're to navigate through the world and save the princess from King Koopa (or Bowser). Your mind as a player is to have fun and have action going through it. A game that attempts to teach history can only state facts. It will never force the player to know how the events really happened or draw any emotions about what people felt. That is best left for books and movies/television. So, in my honest opinion, I understand why Nintendo would consider not marketing a US Release for that. Since NoA doesn't make European release decisions, it's not their field of authority to say what can be marketed in Europe and what cannot.
I would like to see more developers attempting a new style of games that help develop skills and provoke emotions from people but if you're asking to educate someone through an entertaining game, I'd say that's an almost impossible task. It can be done (maybe Jerry Bruckheimer can direct the game) but the odds are against the developers.