Less than one month remains to register for the 10th Anniversary Games for Change Festival, New York City’s largest gaming event that unites creators of games for changewith those interested in accessing the positive social impact of games.
Last year’s Festival sold out with more than 800 attendees, and tickets for this year’s event are going fast — register now to get your ticket: http://bit.ly/
IGDA members receive 10% off Festival registration with the code “igda”.
Our full program of speakers, workshops, panels, rants, and events is now online: http://www.
Game Making
- Six thought leaders from the videogames industry will keynote the “10 Years of Games for Change” series: Leigh Alexander, Ian Bogost, Robin Hunicke, Brenda Romero, Jesse Schell, and Eric Zimmerman.
- The “Win Win: Models for Creating a Social Impact Game on a Budget” panel will outline four ways organizations can team up with indie game designers on gameprojects.
- Tribeca Hacks and Tiny Games are among the hands-on workshops.
- Richard Hofmeier, winner of the Independent Games Festival grand prize for his retail simulator Cart Life, and Jenny Kuglin of Inkthirsty will speak on how the essential appeal of games can exploit their victims’ trust (and other cheap psychological tricks).
Games and Learning
Thanks to our partners at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, we have some of the leading influencers in games and learning participating in this year’s event:
- A conversation with Stacey Childress, Deputy Director of Education, and leader of the K-12 next-generation learning portfolio at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
- James Paul Gee, the Cooney Center’s Michael Levine, Amplify’s Diana Rhoten, Education Week’s Kevin Bushweller, the Institute of Play’s Katie Salen, and E-Line Media’s Alan Gershenfeld.
- A first look at the line-up of educational games launching this fall from News Corp.’s independent subsidiary, Amplify, featuring developers Schell Games, Preloaded, High Line Games, Fay Games, Zachtronics, Strange Loop, and Bossa Studios.
- What’s the connection among neuroscience, learning, play, and games? One panel is determined to find out.
- And you’re likely to hear some healthy doses of skepticism around games and the classroom during a series of rants under the theme “Gamifying Schools and Schoolifying Games.
Games and Social Impact
- Find out how New York City partnered with Kognito Interactive to support citizens’ mental health following Hurricane Sandy.
- The team behind Half the Sky Movement: The Game, which has seen 680,000 players and counting since it launched on Facebook in March, will share insights on developing and publishing a large-scale social impact game, with speakers from Zynga.org, Frima Studio and Games for Change.
- Nonprofit Global Kids shares how mobile technologies can engage youth in public space exploration, local history, and civic participation.
- Developer James Vaughan will explore how mobile game Plague Inc., which caught the attention of the CDC earlier this year, educates millions of people and why it is effective at doing so.
- Learn how games researcher Jessica Hammer created a games-based youth education program in Ethiopia with Girl Effect, an NGO created by the Nike Foundation in collaboration with the NoVo Foundation.
- The U.S. Department of Defense, which has launched more than 40 games in the past 10 years, will forecast the future direction of games in the government.
And of, course, we can’t forget about the games! We announced the Games for Change Awards nominees last week, which include incredibly innovative works such as a graphics-less audio adventure, a biofeedback-enhanced psychological horror game about dealing with trauma and a geolocational game centered on Jewish/American history and time travel: http://www.
We hope you’re as excited for this year’s festival as we are! Feel free to send any questions to meghan (at) gamesforchange (dot) org.
See you there!
Games for Change
