Engendering Empathy

Earlier this morning I reread most of Tom Bissell's Extra Lives. Best quote:

Why does a medium that frequently takes world-saving as its imperative so often leave one unmoved by having done so? I know I have saved the world so many times in video games that lately I have felt a kind of resentful Republicanism creep into my game-playing mind: Can't these fucking people take care of themselves?