Thursday, June 28, 2007
Oakland: Video Game Aims to Revive Community
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UC Berkeley
An avatar of a modern guy wanders the long-gone 7th St. jazz and blues scene. |
The past is always with us. For the city of Oakland, CA, it's about to come alive online in a way that could enrich public discussions of today's local development concerns.
UC Berkeley journalism professor Paul Grabowicz recently won a $60,000 Knight News Challenge grant to fund the development of an online video game, Remembering 7th Street, that recreates Oakland's jazz and blues club scene from the 1940s and 50s.
Guest contributor Anthony Wojtkowiak recently spoke to Grabowicz about this project.
Wojtkowiak: Why focus on this particular piece of local history?
Grabowicz: At that time, Oakland was a Mecca for jazz and blues musicians from all over the country. Over the course of about a decade, the area essentially got wiped out due to a series of ill-fated urban redevelopment projects. We're using a video game to portray that world as it existed and tell the story of the clubs, the musicians, and the people in the community and what happened to them.
Wojtkowiak: What's new about that? Aren't there already historically based games such as Medal of Honor?
Grabowicz: Our game defines an important local community and focuses on a very important aspect of that community. In essence, we have used a video game to recreate this community. It's not a broader game like Civilization, attempts to chart historical events.
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RECENTLY IN NEWS CHALLENGE SERIES
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Wojtkowiak: Why use a video game? What was your inspiration?Grabowicz: I used to work as a reporter at the Oakland Tribune. I wrote a history of West Oakland, and part of that was this whole 7th Street jazz and blues club scene. What's frustrated me ever since is that you could write about it but you couldn't bring back to life what it was like to be there.
Through the UC Berkeley Center for New Media, I found out that the UC Berkeley Architecture School was using video game technology to recreate ancient cities. When I saw that, I thought, "Oh my God, this offers the possibility to actually recreate the experience of 7th Street." A video game is an immersive world; it doesn't seem like someone else's attempt to describe to you what something was like.
Wojtkowiak: What other games did you look to as examples?
Grabowicz: That's run the gamut from World of Warcraft to Grand Theft Auto to Nancy Drew to The Sims. We really looked at a spread of different games trying to figure out which genre and narrative makes the most sense. We wanted people to be engaged in the game play so they would learn about the world while being part of a video game narrative.
Wojtkowiak: Why would we play your game?
Grabowicz: I don't want to pretend that we're the only ones who are trying to do this, but what's different is that were trying to use video games to reconnect people with their community, their culture, and their heritage. There is a serious games movement that is trying to use video games to educate people.
We have two target audiences, which makes our goal harder: We are targeting kids who play games as well as older adults who might really remember 7th Street. We're not trying to produce a game for national consumption. Mostly it's an attempt to help a local community understand its past.
Wojtkowiak: So instead of creating online communities in the way that Gears of War or World of Warcraft might, you'll be strengthening an existing community in real life.
Grabowicz: Many video games do form online communities. We're trying to connect that to a real community.
Wojtkowiak: Is that what made this a Knight News Challenge winning project?
Grabowicz: I have no idea (laughs). The only thing I can say is that I presume that Knight was interested in the idea of video games and games in general as a way for news organizations to deliver news.
Games and video games will be a way that news organizations of the future tell stories. I think we're looking out maybe five or ten years and trying to map out how to use games to say something valuable.
Wojtkowiak: Speaking of news, do you have anything to say to or ask of the journalism community?
Grabowicz: All of these technologies are challenging, to say the least. They're upending the news industry. We don't know what the future looks like as a result of all that. But these same technologies offer opportunities to tell stories in wholly different ways that I think are more fulfilling and engaging for the communities we serve.
It's easy for journalists to look at technology and blame it for all of their woes, but I think these technologies are invigorating and interesting. They hold a lot of promise. I spent most of my career as an investigative reporter at a newspaper -- so if I can make this transition, I think anybody can.
Wojtkowiak: I hope you're right. One last question: What's your all-time favorite video game?
Grabowicz: This is really going to date me, but I'm still incredibly fond of Pong. I should have seen then just how powerful video games could be.
Guest contributor Anthony Wojtkowiak is a journalism intern at John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In late August he will begin his senior year in the School of Communication at the University of Miami. Paul Grabowicz is a former Tidbits contributor.
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