Valuable Games

At this year’s Independent Game Conference – East, the Boston chapter of Games for Change ran a prototyping workshop with some 30 conference participants. The goal: brainstorm game concepts addressing one of the three issues targeted by our three participating nonprofits: Teach for America, Mercy Corps, and the Boston Foundation’s youth violence initiative. Participants generated a wide range of concepts ranging from learning puzzles to augmented reality and game design challenges. Just as interesting, goals ranged from educating players to fostering community to shaping real-world behaviors.

For our next act, Boston Games for Change will host a gamejam to move one or more of these basic concepts into a working prototype. In the meantime, we’ll be representing at the 6th Annual Games for Change Festival in New York, May 27-29. Register now!

Boston is proud to be hosting this year’s Independent Games Conference-East, and the Boston chapter of Games for Change is running a special workshop, “Change the World with Games.” The workshop brings together NGO leaders and game developers to discuss and take action on games for social change:

Non-Profit Organizations could be using games to communicate their mission fast, far, and wide. This workshop aims to demonstrate the potential of games to inform and motivate a wide audience. Attendees will work in small groups, directly with NPOs, to design mission-based games. Representatives from three local NPOs will be on hand to explain their missions and participate in the brainstorming. Attendees will choose one of the three missions as the theme for their design challenge, and work collaboratively over 45 minutes to design and share ideas. Game design experience is not necessary. Creativity is!

Register for IGDC now.
Use these discount codes:

• VIP: IGCEVIP09 10% OFF
• IGDA: IGDAIGCE09 10% OFF
• STUDENT: IGCE09EDU 50% OFF

According to the New York Times, the redesigned Honda Insight offers a built-in ecology game:

Honda has loaded it with an array of gauges and displays intended to coach drivers to be more economical. For instance, the speedometer’s background color changes from blue to green as one’s driving becomes “more environmentally responsible.” Readouts reward the frugal driver with an “eco score”; if you excel, you win a digital trophy surrounded by a wreath.

The author and his colleagues all found that they beat the EPA measures, probably because of the electronic coaching. How’s that for a “game for change” that might actually really change the world? Just keep your eyes on the road and watch out for cyclists, Insight drivers!

I missed this article from a month ago: Videogames with a Social Conscience. It paints with the broad strokes you’d expect from a national general-interest publication, but it does zoom in on one title, Far Cry 2:

But just as soon as the game begins, the protagonist contracts malaria. The player must then choose whether to work with one faction or the other, or with the local church, to get the medication he needs. Conditions in the country continue to deteriorate over the course of the game. The sniper rifle is still the most fun part of playing, and the moral questions of right and wrong are not exactly central, but they’re there.

The piece then skips on to the marquis Game for Change, Peacemaker, which is a shame because there’s a lot more that could have been said about the diversification of first-person shooters into areas of moral complexity.

Games for Change today unveiled a set of talks and tutorials that help organizations figure out whether and how games can advance their core mission. It’s called the Games for Change Toolkit, made possible by AMD.

Recently I’ve taken an interest in turning real world actions into gameplay, using MyBO as an example. While other games we’ve discussed have focused on “moral learning,” this class of games instead aims to shape or nudge behavior through game-like features.

Well, I’m now working on one such game that would support civic activism, particularly on location-based issues. It emerged out of a campaign to turn Boston into a “Fair Trade City” by convincing local stores and institutions to offer Fair Trade products like coffee, chocolate, and bananas. Because the campaign uses teams to build public support and to persuade stores, it seemed natural to frame the campaign as a game in which the rules scaffold valuable actions. For example, teams win points for identifying stores that already carry Fair Trade and for persuading new stores; however, it costs points to “claim” a store for persuasion, which they can also accumulate by signing on supporters. (Essentially, we want to model the idea of gathering up enough supporters to “attack”

Despite the fact that the software is only 40% complete, participants seem really motivated by it. We’re now seeking funding to launch the project, and would really appreciate any suggestions or feedback you might have on the concept. Our Knight Foundation application is publicly available for comment, and it can use your ideas. Or feel free to contact me directly. I’ll try to post more about the game design and how it intertwines with the real-world goals of the campaign.

It featured minimal graphics, no sound effects, and deeply flawed gameplay. Yet one of the most important game titles of 2008 was played by thousands and helped change the face of American politics. I’m writing about My.BarackObama.com.

Game designer and scholar Ian Bogost considered it a washout election cycle for political games. McCain had his “Pork Invaders” arcade gimmick, and Obama bought ads in Xbox Live (largely an indulgence). But I would argue that 2008 represents a watershed moment for video games, a moment when the medium showed that it can, indeed, change the world. My.BarackObama.com (“MyBO”) didn’t just communicate ideas. It encouraged people to go and do something.

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Nicco Mele of Dean for America fame has been hosting a weekly study group on politics and the Internet; today he’s brought in Ian Bogost of Georgia Tech and Persuasive Games to talk about politics and video games. Ian has been ruminating on this topic a bit of late, most recently on Gamasutra, where he chronicles the “Birth and Death of the Election Game.”

Nicco’s relationship with Ian goes back to 2004, when Persuasive Games helped the Dean campaign design a video game to explain the Iowa Caucus.

Ian’s starting with his usual love for Animal Crossing. No need to repeat that here.

Relevant elements of games:

1. Models capturing behaviors
2. Roles simulating an experience, constrained by rules, leading to empathy
3. Worlds that enable an immersion through imagined expertise

This allows games to give complex problems relevance in the context of our world. This is quite the opposite of usual politics and reductionist political rhetoric.

Politics as setting the rules for the roles that will play in a model of our future world that we’re in the process of constructing.

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Of sudden urgent relevance — Crude Oil, a game unveiled today on the Escapist. Read about it or get it now. It’s a two-player game: anyone want to play with me?

- Gene Koo