Split-Screen :: The Game-Geek’s Daily Read

Who knew one of the benefits of working at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas would include developing your own DS game? The US government, in an effort to lower the smoking rate of it’s troops, is spending $3.7 million developing a DS game to educate soldiers on the ill-effects of smoking, with Alexander Prokhorov being the project head and the team behind Escape With Your Life (another anti-smoking title “targeted at the youth”) developing.

And this is no straight-up educational release: Prokhorov and his team are planning for play-tests from 2011 and a release in 2013. Which leads to the next question: Just how many DSs are there in Iraq and Afghanistan any way? Also keep in mind that the game “educates” the player about the ill-effects of smoking and is not a straight-forward deterrent. Check out Prokhorov’s reasons for using the games to dissuade smokers.

“The video game in general is becoming more popular among researchers who want to deliver a health message to a target audience. I think that the major advantage of this game [is that it] allows [players] to maintain interest. It changes the depth of knowledge, and deep knowledge is very different from the superficial knowledge that most smokers have.”

Prokhorov also stated that, “more than half of the 239 young smokers (ages 15 to 19) in a preliminary study reported quitting after using the game [Escape With Your Life].” Keep in mind that this is only the US population, and is a drop in the ocean next to the nearly 500,000 deaths that occur from smoking. Another study listed that about 1/3rd of China’s male population had their life-spans shortened due to smoking. The point of these stats is to impress that even though efforts are being made to reduce smoking, the number aware of the risks and yet who continue to smoke regardless is much greater.

The old cliche that most smokers have “superficial knowledge” about the dangerous effects of smoking in the economic, health and family-related fields holds little water. Does Prokhorov take into account the youth who hide their habits (rather successfully) from their parents? Does he account for those who’s parents are fine with their kids smoking? He sure as hell doesn’t account for the much larger veteran base of chain smokers, who have already developed tobacco-related health issues and yet persist in their habit.

Let’s be honest: A $3.7 million anti-smoking DS title, that too in the military, is a dumb proposition in terms of resources and effects. It could never achieve what an anti-smoking publicity campaign (along with some honest-to-goodness cracking down on tobacco companies and regulation laws prohibiting the wide-spread sale of cigarettes to children) could in the long-term. If the US government truly wants to take cues from other “quit smoking” games, it should concentrate more on spreading the message rather jazzing it up – as other anti-smoking media successfully have like Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking – if it wants a big impact.