This post is part of September 2011’s monthly blog theme, “Back to School“. For many, the idea of changing the world through technology conjures up ideas of high-tech gadgets costing billions of dollars to produce and requiring extensive training to use. But a group of hackers, educators, game designers, and 8-bit video game enthusiasts are… Read more »

Today we’re ushering in a new tradition on the Games for Change blog. From now on, each month’s blog content will be themed. And September is the perfect time to discuss back to school topics, with a focus on games for learning. All month-long we will share stories and original content that discusses games created for… Read more »

For the first time at the Games for Change Festival, we introduced an opportunity for producers and designers of games in development to get live feedback from experts on the main stage. The 2011 “Demo Spotlight” invited six upcoming games to present their work in front of a stellar jury: Frank Lantz of Zynga New York and… Read more »

In 2010, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) piloted their Virtual Worlds Institute, a digital media-based summer camp for middle schoolers. This year’s second Virtual Worlds Institute was a two-week long experience where students chose a prehistoric sea creature from the Cretaceous period and brought them back to life with research and cutting edge software.

Recently, our co-president Asi Burak had the privilege to do a guest editorial on Kotaku, one of the Internet’s most popular contemporary video game websites. In the recent months, Kotaku’s been taking a more critical approach towards the game community and industry by inviting other guest writers like Ian Bogost. The opportunity to share our… Read more »

Hot off the heel of winning a Games for Change Award for The Curfew and the release of their new game, Sweatshop, we spoke to Darren Garrett, the Chief Creative of Littleloud Digital Entertainment. Darren and his studio are also known for the BAFTA Award winning title Bow Street Runner. Games for Change spoke with Darren about their… Read more »

While the annual Games for Change Festival is known for packing wide and diverse content into its core programming, the Pre-Festival Summit (June 20, 2011) was an opportunity for those looking to set aside an entire day to immerse themselves in targeted and engaging information. This year, we were happy to present two individual workshops… Read more »

President Obama stated in his Debt Crisis Address that playing with our budget is a “dangerous game” we should not be playing. Hopefully this blog post will encourage Americans to play this “game for change” instead. It’s always been an uphill battle for those creating games with learning objectives. The developers of these titles must… Read more »

June 27, 2011 marked a historic day for the gaming industry, as the US Supreme Court declared that video games share the same First Amendment Rights to free speech of other popular forms of media, like books, music and movies. This has been a hot button issue in California since 2005 when Governor Schwarzenegger signed… Read more »

A few weeks ago, Games for Change Co-Presidents Asi Burak and Michelle Byrd spoke with the The MacArthur Foundation’s Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning blog to discuss the future of social impact games and their integration in and outside the classroom. The interview covers topics from how digital games and social change work together,… Read more »