By Andy Robertson

New art forms are polarizing. We love or hate Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde animals or Tracey Emin’s unmade bed but roundly understand that avant garde art has value, the artist trying to challenge us and make us think something.

Video games draw similar fire. Detractors hem and haw that they’re all about shooting guns and wasting time, and worry about the harm they may be doing that we haven’t identified yet. Supporters congregate into defensive groups, highlighting not only their entertainment and relaxation value, but touting that they have educational and self-improvement benefits too.

Having spoken about the meaning of video games at TEDxExeter, I read the recent TED Blog posts “10 online games with a social purpose” and “7 talks on the benefits of gaming” with great interest. However, even with all the talks available, the posts still focused on justifying games by their secondary benefits. Games are redeemed by their ability to “be more effective than pharmaceuticals” or “help people heal from injuries” and “achieve greater wellness in the face of disease.”

Don’t get me wrong — this is a significant and fascinating piece of the puzzle. But it isn’t the whole picture. The irony in this equation is that if we judged novels, films or music solely in terms of potential harm or self-improvement, we’d miss their value in just the same way as we are missing a key part of what makes video games culturally significant.

A better way, I’m suggesting, is to not rule out the possibility that games may have intrinsic value beyond the harm or improvement sphere. This leads to the risky step of suggesting games can be about something more than entertainment. Like books and films, games engage our minds and emotions about particular topics. But unlike books that tell us a tale or films that show us a story, games invite us to overhear and interact with their narratives.

Although video games like to think they are leading the pack, board games have actually been doing this for years already. Brenda Brathwaite’s TEDx talk, “Games for a Change” is a great explanation of how her board games challenge the player to think, reconsider and reflect in a way we usually associate with books and films. Only here, as Brathwaite explains, the player is culpable in the story in a totally new way.

“Games for a Change changes how we see topics, changes our perceptions of people involved in those topics and it changes ourselves,” she says in this talk. “We change as people through games because we’re involved.”

This is new thinking, and hard to grasp at first because of our preconceptions about what games can be. In fact Brathwaite’s meaning-focused talk was renamed to be more educational sounding — “Gaming for Understanding” — when it was re-published recently on TED.com. Of course there’s no conspiracy here, but this curation reflects our tendency to file positive stories about games away in the educational or self-improvement pigeon hole.

Another interesting TED talk on this topic, that shows this idea has been brewing for a while, is David Perry’s “Are Games Better than Life?” from 2006. Although a little overshadowed by advances in realistic visuals, at its heart, this is Perry’s case for understanding games as more than entertainment. As he sums it up at the end, “Games on the surface seem like simple entertainment, but to those that look a little deeper, the new paradigm of video games could open entirely new frontiers to creative minds that like to think big.”

(In his talk, Perry brings onstage Michael Highland, who’s gone on to do some really interesting thinking about gaming as a spiritual state, which he shared at TEDxPenn. While this is “games as religion,” rather than “games supporting religion,” it’s fascinating nonetheless.)

My TEDx talk, “Sustainable perspectives on video games,” is about critiquing video games on a similar level to books and films, while at the same time allowing them to be themselves. In it, I make the case that we need to start talking and thinking differently about video games if we are to capitalize on their unique version of storytelling. This talk led me in surprising directions, as people were both perplexed and intrigued at how a video game could offer a meaningful cultural experience. One such direction — an invitation from Exeter Cathedral to incorporate a video game as an integral element of their Sunday worship. I have to admit I was both taken back at the invitation and surprised by how well the game we chose, Flower on the Playstation 3 (pictured at the top of this post), fit into the spiritual setting. Even the Cathedral clergy agreed.

It’s perspectives like these that will enable us to escape our polarized harm-or-improvement mindset when it comes to video games. Instead we can be honest about the existence of problematic game experiences and consider whether there is more than entertainment here.

Bandi Mbubi has conflicting feelings about his cell phone.

On the one hand, Mbubi — who fled his native country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as a student activist fearing for his safety — has seen firsthand the ability of cell phones to connect people in the formerly cut-off part of the world. In this moving talk from TEDxExeter, Mbubi reveals that cell phones have allowed for himself and his children to have a relationship with his parents, who are still living in the Congo.

But at the same time, Mbubi sees cell phones as intrinsically linked to the war in the Congo. It all comes down to one mineral, tantalum, which is used in cell phones, computers, video game consoles and other electronics. The mining of this mineral funds armed conflict in the war-torn country.

“What you hold in your hand has contributed to unimaginable human suffering. Over 5 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, countless women, men and children have been raped, tortured or enslaved. The quest for extracting this mineral has not only aided but fueled the ongoing war in the Congo,” says Mbubi in this impassioned talk. “Why should we allow such a wonderful, brilliant and necessary product to be the cause of unnecessary suffering for human beings?”

As Mbubi points out, “We demand fair trade food and fair trade clothes. It’s time to demand fair trade phones.”

To help inform consumers about the human cost of their cell phones and other electronics, and to apply pressure to companies to comb their supply chains and carefully chart the sourcing of their tantalum, Mbubi has created the non-profit CongoCalling.org. And if you waited in line for an iPhone 5 last night, know that Apple is one of the companies Mbubi is hoping to affect with the campaign. While Apple does have a policy on sourcing conflict-free minerals, and is currently conducting audits of its supply chain, Congo Calling hopes that consumer awareness will bring about swifter change.

Below, a few ways that you can help the push for fair trade phones.

1. Alert your politicians to the situation. Congo Calling would like to see governments, especially those that are large international aid donors, pressure both phone companies and the Congolese government to take action on this issue. For residents of the UK, Congo Calling has a template for a letter you can send to members of Parliament, as well as a resource to find out the name and contact information for your member of Parliament. For residents of the United States, GovTrack.us is a great way to find information on your representatives in Congress.
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2. Recycle your old electronics and keep your current electronics longer. As consumers with spare income, it’s hard to resist getting out the credit card when a new shiny gadget appears on the market. But our constant updating of devices is part of the problem here, as each new phone and tablet requires minerals. While this article from IPS News notes that recycling alone won’t meet the worldwide demand for tantalum, we can make a difference by putting more space inbetween our electronics purchases. (Need further convincing to hold off on that iPhone 5? Read this article from Tech Insights which shows that producing the phone only costs $169. Read more at Apple Insider and Mashable.)
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3. Sign a petition for Tim Cook of Apple. The creator of this petition on Change.org, Delly Mawazo Sesete, writes, “I want an iPhone for the holidays this year, but having monitored mining sites in eastern Congo for several years documenting human rights abuses, I have seen firsthand the rape, violence, and devastation being fueled by the trade in minerals found in electronics products. Join me in asking Apple to create a conflict-free product that includes conflict-free minerals from eastern Congo that help Congolese communities by the 2013 holiday season.” Congo Calling hopes the petition could urge Apple to accelerate their research on mineral sourcing.
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4. Ask Samsung to change its policy. In order to avoid using minerals tied to conflict, Samsung has stopped trading with suppliers in the Congo altogether. Congo Calling suggests writing or calling the company to urge them towards informed trading rather than no trading.
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5. Write HTC and ask for a policy on conflict-free minerals. Congo Calling also has its eye on HTC, theTaiwanese manufacturer of smartphones and tablets, because they currently have no policy on sourcing conflict-free minerals. Again, the organization hopes that consumer pressure — through emails and placing complaint calls — will nudge the company to pay more attention to mineral sourcing.
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6. Ask your employer or university to start a campaign. Congo Calling applauds the efforts of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The University has asked Dell, Apple and HP to provide a “conflict free guarantee.” See a video students created explaining the guarantee below.