Playing SPENT was a revealing experience. Being a person who enjoys online games, I eagerly started this assignment. Usually I find online gameplay more therapeutic and numbing than thought provoking, however. My experience with this game was indeed different. Opening up the UI of SPENT, you see a great design with bold typeface that sets the narrative in place. The player reads the set-up across the screen and enters into the world it has created. We are faced at first with macroeconomic statements describing the 14 million Americans experiencing unemployment (SPENT). Next, we are told to imagine ourselves in this situation, with no savings, no house, as a single parent who is down to their last $1,000.00 (SPENT). Typically I desensitize myself to computer simulations, especially ones involving violence, as use them more as a way to check out from reality rather than involve myself in it. So I had to force my attention to engage inside the game and deal with the issues involved with some emotion, which required a focused effort on my behalf. But I wanted to be attuned and aware in order to fulfill this course requirement of course. Reading further into the game, the situation unfolds in a bleak manner that only grows in the sense of unfairness. Basically the scenario was depressing and incredibly bleak. In addition to running out of savings, our game self, we learn, is a person of integrity who actually works hard and does the right thing. The game stresses the circumstantial nature of the battles we face, and ultimately relieves our game player self from the personal responsibility burden that is assigned to most people in dire circumstances such as these. In this narrative, it is the contingencies of life that create a perfect storm in which we are caught and seem to implode us from within. Our options in the game are limited. We may select from a series of low wage taxing jobs that offer little help in actually working us out of our financial dark hole because the wages are so low we must work excessive hours under hard labor conditions in order to just to get by and meet our basic needs. In the first round I worked as a restaurant server and in the next round I became a warehouse worker. In one round my bills have gotten excessive and I am faced with a situation where I wonder if I should eat my own pride and ask to borrow money on Facebook just to meet my own bills. This game definitely made an impact on increasing my awareness and sensitivity for all income levels in society. Even for bleeding heart liberals who profess to be sympathetic to working poor and low wage workers, our capitalist society socializes us into covert stigmatization of poor people. The people clamoring at the bottom of the financial ladder are simultaneously at the bottom of the social ladder. The dominant society tends to subtly associate financial failings as a matter of moral responsibility and personal failing. To some degree I do agree with this idea, although it is criticized widely for its prejudice. I do believe that financial responsibility is an aspect of personal responsibility and has a moral component. If people did seek to be credit worthy borrowers and properly function in society, our current system would not exist. There is a pride to the American capitalist dream. That said, our attitudes towards poverty and redistribution are shaped by how we view opportunity. This game is one that reminds us that not all people experience the same advantages or opportunities in life. Others are a victim of circumstances beyond their control. The humane way for a society to regard poverty is with an ethic of sharing and redistribution rather than selfish covetousness and hostility.
Works Cited
"SPENT." SPENT. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.
