Endgame Syria
29th June 2013
Read it.
Endgame Syria is a free interactive exploration of events unfolding in Syria today. Rejected by Apple’s App Store but now on PC, Endgame:Syria is a newsgame; a simulation that uses interactivity to explore a real world event. The original version was developed in around two weeks, this updated version allows users to explore the options open to the Syrian rebels as they push the ongoing conflict to its endgame. Each choice the user makes has consequences – the types of military units you may deploy, the political paths you choose to tread. Not only does each choice impact the current situation but your choices may also impact the final outcome. Users can play and replay events to see how different choices on the ground might lead to different outcomes. There is more info, links and sources data on the game’s site. Will you choose to accept peace at any cost? Can you win the war and the peace that follows? Find out in Endgame Syria.[emphasis added]
Oh, guess what, Political Correctness isn’t just a government problem. Every Hollywood movie that attempts to deal with terrorism can’t have Muslim jihadists as the villains, because it would ignite a political firestorm even if the ‘progressives’ in charge of the movie business could bring themselves to do it; and now game developers can’t deal with controversial subjects in Apple-platform games because the New Age metrosexuals in charge in Cupertino won’t allow it.
Rawlings previously produced strategy title Endgame: Syria that used game mechanics to explore that nation’s civil war. Endgame: Syria drew some criticism for using real-life current events in a game, and Apple blocked its release on the iOS App Store. The studio was able to get it back on the App Store after removing the references to real places and governments. Rawlings feels that this is an unfair double standard.
No shit. I remember the halcyon days when I was a Lifetime Subscriber to Strategy & Tactics magazine, where it seemed as if every issue had a new game that focused on a tense situation ‘ripped from the headlines’. But that was The Good Old Days, and Jim Dunnigan buckled under to nobody.