Activism and Games. Exploring Boundaries

Activism games are artifacts designed with the intention to elicit experiences that initiate commentaries and confrontations regarding political, cultural and social issues, hoping to influence players as citizens. This article observes game activism as a threefold entity that includes games as media, and players as their users and designers as those who make the games themselves, as activists. Accordingly, it explores three activism game as case studies that expand in the urban space and overlay with its practices, involving players in situated activities. As a consequence, on the one hand we discuss how these games impact on the social, political and physical context where they take place; on the other we enlighten to what extent certain authored procedures revealed goals and purposes that can question the real essence of the game, by pushing players to ask themselves “is it still a game”.