They're about war from a perspective that empowers and often nearly deifies the individual. Doomguy runs like 60 miles an hour, carries an entire arsenal, and can eat rockets to the face with a grin and keep on going. Master Chief is a 7 foot tall unstoppable ubermensch who single handedly destroys entire armies. They're nominally about war but the protagonists behave more like greek heroes. In more grounded games you're still often something like a sniper or another elite soldier who wields wildly disproportionate power. In multiplayer games, especially modern games, the individual is heavily emphasized with many customization options and different powers and abilities. Death is cheap and painless and the individuals K:D is emphasized over any collective goals like completing objectives or capturing points. No one suffers trenchfoot. No one spends hours bleeding out in a ditch screaming for their mother. If games include artillery then it is a momentary inconvenience. No games place you, powerless, in a bunker as you pray the shelling stops before you drown in mud. Civilians are never seen, all conflicts are between soldiers of roughly equal footing and thus bloodshed is kept morally pure.
War games are a grotesque parody of war that don't even try to show the substance of the real thing.
You could certainly make a game with a homeless or poor protagonist, but such a game would be unlikely to convey in any way the actual experience of being homeless or poor.
You could say the same about movies. Every form of media has to alter it's depiction of reality to match it's form. Often these changes make for a significantly less accurate picture.
The only way I could see it working would be as a character driven RPG like Disco Elysium or Planescape: Torment. I don't think creating an empathetic experience is the hard part, it's jumping from an interactive story to an actual game that's hard.
Being poor and homeless sucks. It's hard to make a compelling video game about experiences that are inherently dehumanizing and miserable.
Most popular types of games are all about war in one way or another. Yet they are fun.
They're about war from a perspective that empowers and often nearly deifies the individual. Doomguy runs like 60 miles an hour, carries an entire arsenal, and can eat rockets to the face with a grin and keep on going. Master Chief is a 7 foot tall unstoppable ubermensch who single handedly destroys entire armies. They're nominally about war but the protagonists behave more like greek heroes. In more grounded games you're still often something like a sniper or another elite soldier who wields wildly disproportionate power. In multiplayer games, especially modern games, the individual is heavily emphasized with many customization options and different powers and abilities. Death is cheap and painless and the individuals K:D is emphasized over any collective goals like completing objectives or capturing points. No one suffers trenchfoot. No one spends hours bleeding out in a ditch screaming for their mother. If games include artillery then it is a momentary inconvenience. No games place you, powerless, in a bunker as you pray the shelling stops before you drown in mud. Civilians are never seen, all conflicts are between soldiers of roughly equal footing and thus bloodshed is kept morally pure.
War games are a grotesque parody of war that don't even try to show the substance of the real thing.
You could certainly make a game with a homeless or poor protagonist, but such a game would be unlikely to convey in any way the actual experience of being homeless or poor.
You could say the same about movies. Every form of media has to alter it's depiction of reality to match it's form. Often these changes make for a significantly less accurate picture.
I mean a game that portrays the realities of being homeless would be a lot like a post apocalyptic horror.
Like Fallout or something. You have to be aware of your needs to survive.
But unlike in power fantasies like Fallout, you can't violently lash out at the world. You're unarmed, outnumbered and disorganized.
I don't think creating an empathetic experience around homeless people is that hard.
The only way I could see it working would be as a character driven RPG like Disco Elysium or Planescape: Torment. I don't think creating an empathetic experience is the hard part, it's jumping from an interactive story to an actual game that's hard.