Questioning Edifying Games

In his call for this month’s Round Table, Corvus Elrod asks whether games can teach the player anything, associating this question with snobbish criticisms of the medium as being artistically good for nothing. This hypothetical critic’s argument that edification is necessary to aesthetic seriousness is reinforced by the “serious games” movement, which often produces bludgeoningly enlightening pieces about the tradeoffs involved in World Problems.