Apr

18

Latest Job Created by the Obama Administration: Video Game Czar

Filed Under Culture, Politics | 20 Comments

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This new staffer is no doubt charged with finding ways to jam Obama administration propaganda into the nooks and crannies of as many games possible under the guise of “education”:

If you’re training for a new job someday soon with a video game controller in your hands, thank Constance Steinkuehler.

This summer, when your kids’ favorite science museum boasts a new augmented-reality environmental simulation? Same deal.

If in the next few years a video game teaches you anything — how to conserve energy, eat a balanced diet or solve quadratic equations — consider the invisible hand of one of the most unconventional White House hires in recent memory.

Steinkuehler studies video games. Since last September, she has been a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she’s shaping the Obama administration’s policies around games that improve health, education, civic engagement and the environment, among other areas.

So someday if you’re playing “Call of Duty” and Obama pops up to remind you to eat your peas, you can thank Constance Steinkuehler.

President Obama has been critical of parents who don’t set limits on children’s screen time, but he is also coming around to the benefits of well-designed games. In a speech last March at TechBoston Academy, a public middle- and high school, Obama told students he wanted to create “educational software that’s as compelling as the best video game.” He added, “I want you guys to be stuck on a video game that’s teaching you something other than just blowing something up.”

Using the video game industry to push a national agenda makes perfect sense to Ben Sawyer, founder of the group Games for Health. “It’s a strategic asset of the United States,” he says. “Why should we let it sit where it is?”

Screw “Let’s Move,” people — sit on your asses and get indoctrinated all day!

We’ve spent the past three-plus years witnessing the creation of this administration’s debut video game: Grand Theft Economy.

Comments

20 Responses to “Latest Job Created by the Obama Administration: Video Game Czar”

  1. Patti on April 18th, 2012 5:08 pm

    Michelle Obama: Barack’s led us out of the darkness and into the light

    Alternate headline: “‘Light’ apparently now a synonym for 8.2 percent unemployment.”
    http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/17/michelle-ob…

    By October they’ll be having voodoo chicken rituals in the West Wing…

  2. Truesoldier__ on April 18th, 2012 5:26 pm

    I can just picture it now……Obama on every computer/tv screen ala Max Hedroom. Just plan creepy and shudder inducing.

  3. backwoodsconsr on April 18th, 2012 5:47 pm

    Constance Funkuehler.

  4. SignPainterGuy on April 18th, 2012 7:43 pm

    8.2 % by U-3 counting methods. Double that for U-6 cm, but I tend to believe the real numbers are in the 20%s.

    Does islam allow voodoo rituals ?

  5. SignPainterGuy on April 18th, 2012 7:47 pm

    Pronounced "Fun-killer" ?

    I`m having trouble imagining any game the O`Stration molesting or having anything to do with producing as being anything remotely resembling "fun" enough for anyone to want to play once, much less repeatedly !

  6. Marshall_Will on April 18th, 2012 9:27 pm

    Check it out. If you've installed a recent update of Windows 7 they have several Gov websites *pre-loaded* into your favorites. Call them Nanny-Links if you like?

    How to beat the Holiday blahs. Yeah, really! If you're using W7, take a gander. Another perfectly good reason to send Microsoft packing. Do you really need anyone that chummy w/ the WH designing the very software for you PERSONAL use?

  7. SignPainterGuy on April 18th, 2012 9:51 pm

    Would that be faves on Internet Explorer ?

  8. SignPainterGuy on April 18th, 2012 10:02 pm

    Nothing on FireFox. but there is on IE. It`s dated 4-29-11 though, so it`s been on mine for nearly a year and NO, I didn`t put it there !

  9. Marshall_Will on April 18th, 2012 10:12 pm

    Golly Mr. pResident.., the private sector already has it covered! Anything you could possibly want to learn:
    http://www.khanacademy.org/

  10. Marshall_Will on April 18th, 2012 10:19 pm

    Now track where they 'lead'? I've switched over to Linux so buh-bye Billy boy. I won't be in need of your services any more. More Scareware/Drudge/MM progborne viruses than you can shake a stick at.

    I've long deleted them and funny, couldn't Google a thing about them? They had links that more or less leave you in the clutches of Meanchelle and her HUD/Let's move and the all NEW food pyramid etc.

    What ELSE has MSFT agreed to install on your computer?

  11. Marshall_Will on April 18th, 2012 10:28 pm

    OMG! Too funny. Guy who's sick & tired of getting shook down by TSA flips out and strips to his b'day suit. In Portland, OR of all places! Good for YOU brother, and work on that tan?
    http://www.katu.com/news/local/Man-protests-airpo…

    According to local coverage the guy was perfectly calm and said nor did anything that could be construed as threatening. This is the mood we're in Obama. We've HAD it with you!

  12. backwoodsconsr on April 18th, 2012 11:00 pm

    I deleted them without clicking on them. I'm not adding to their hits.

  13. clu seatoe on April 18th, 2012 11:05 pm

    “…how to conserve energy, eat a balanced diet or solve quadratic equations…”

    In other words, “Live your life at the lowest common denominator, we have government programs called entitlements set up for you so you don’t have to really excel in any particular field. It’s not important to excel at something. As long as you’re as good as your friends, you’re OK. If your friends or peer group can only reach a certain plateau, you don’t have to surpass them and top out in what interests you, you’ll just give them feelings of inferiority and inadequacy.

    You’ll have a government job waiting for you. One from which you can never be fired. Not even if you’re caught canoodling with a prostitute on your government desk, ala George Castanza, in your government office. Mediocre means being equal, mediocre is the goal, and mediocre is what America is all about. It’s where everybody is equal and nobody is better than anyone else. (Except me and the others of us at the top who make the rules).

    Thank you for your support.

  14. SignPainterGuy on April 18th, 2012 11:34 pm

    Good idea !

  15. jeffythequick on April 19th, 2012 1:26 am

    so let me be clear…

    I said the numbers are umm err ahh right, and I'm the err umm pResident, and if the ummm presidents says it, in a emm democracy, that err umm means it's umm err uhhh true!

  16. SignPainterGuy on April 19th, 2012 2:03 am

    So sayeth the Chicago Haysoos ……. a windy character !

    And that is what democracy looks .. er, uh … Sounds like ! Yeah, that`s it !

  17. jeffythequick on April 19th, 2012 2:50 am

    Hope he wore clean underwear, like Mom told us to…

    PDX-WTF?

    To be honest, wearing an Insulin Pump (al queda's newest weapon of mass destruction) got me the free feel-up, and whenever they did it, they were professional, and when talking to them, they weren't the happiest about doing it either.

    But, like all things, the first generation of checkers do it against their common sense, the second generation does it because it's the rules, and the third enjoys submitting people to their tactics.

  18. ChapBix on April 20th, 2012 2:37 am

    Imagine a video game where the players blow up the Obamster's campaign's deceptions at the voting booth with a vote Romney instead. Now if they could just write the code to send a subliminal message to the player(s), "Vote for Romney!"

  19. chris04 on March 13th, 2013 10:08 am

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  20. chornel on March 29th, 2013 12:36 pm

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