Kotaku
Games For Change 08
In "Creatively Dead" Industry, Change Comes From The Outside
In mid-1980s Nicaragua, a woman stood beside a burnt out bus in a tiny, remote town. Game designer Jim Gasperini was in the region to visit his brother, a journalist covering Contra issues during the Reagan administration.
The bus, the woman told Gasperini, had been provided by the Nicaraguan government, and she had relied on it as her only means of visiting her sister. The Contras - anti-government guerillas funded by the U.S. - had destroyed the bus. The woman, passionate about American democracy, told Gasperini that if he could just tell everyone back in the States about what had happened to her bus, Americans would vote to help, the Contras would cease their attacks, and she could travel to her sister's again.
Touched by her plight and by her faith, Gasperini wondered what he could do to disseminate information about the Contra situation. In the end, he decided to do what he did best: Make a game.
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