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Asi Burak and Michelle Byrd Named as Co-Presidents of Games for Change
Posted by Mark Smith on 07-12-10

For Immediate Release – New York, NY (July 12, 2010) – The Board of Directors of Games for Change announced today the appointment of Asi Burak and Michelle Byrd as Co-Presidents of Games for Change, the leading global advocate for making and supporting digital social impact games.

Mr. Burak and Ms. Byrd will work together on the strategic vision of…

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Notes from G4C + G4LI’s Games for Learning Research and Design Innovation Day

Posted by Hsing Wei on 05-27-10

Games for Change moved a few blocks downtown to NYU to round out this year’s festival with another new event, Games for Learning: Research and Design Innovation, a day long series of panels and talks hosted in partnership with the Games for Learning Institute.  The day even acquired its own motto, thanks to UCLA’s Greg Chung, whose quip, “hope…

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Virtual to Real Change

Posted by Hsing Wei on 07-22-10

Mirroring the constant evolution of entertainment games, socially conscious games are likewise experimenting with new techniques and platforms.  A recent Adweek article highlights Barefoot Explorers, an iPhone game studio started in 2009 by a former Microsoft executive, as an example of a maturing group of games for change developers with ambitions for production quality and game play that does not sniff of chocolate covered broccoli.  Barefoot Explorers’ first game, Panda Hero, is an eco-adventure game where kids save endangered pandas in the digital world and simultaneously support reforestation in the real world.  Similar to games like freerice.com, three trees are planted (in partnership with non-profit Trees for the Future) each time a customer downloads the game.  Since its release this past April, more than 20,000… Continue reading the rest of this post.
  

Games Among the Winners of the Knight News Challenge

Posted by Hsing Wei on 06-24-10

One of the winners in the $2.74 million 2010 Knight News Challenge, a contest funding ideas that leverage digital technology to inform specific geographic communities, is a games for change project.  Ian Bogost (Georgia Tech) and Michael Mateas (UC Santa Cruz) collaborated in the conception of Cartoonist.  Growing partly out of research for a book, Newsgames, the project is premised on creating games that revive engagement in local current issues.

“People may have appeared to read the paper for the news, but many bought the paper for the funnies or the crossword, getting the news as a bonus along the way.  The comics and the crossword are more orthogonal to current events, but the editorial cartoon offers a more direct vector… Continue reading the rest of this post.