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Games for Change (G4C) provides support, visibility and shared resources to organizations and individuals using digital games for social change. This is the primary community of practice for those interested in making digital games about the most pressing issues of our day, from poverty to race and the environment. We are the social change/social issues branch of the Serious Games Initiative.

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Learning to Fix Real-Life Disasters in a Virtual World

Posted by Hsing Wei on 10-22-07

The I-95 Corridor Coalition (a multi-state, interagency alliance for cooperation and coordination by key policy makers on transportation issues) devoted $1.4 million for the development of a virtual incident management training game.

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Winning the battle towards improving most social issues, whether it be the environment or poverty, requires multi-party coordination.  A program sponsored by the I-95 Corridor Coalition is one example of how games can be a part of that equation.  Its program presents incident situations and allows participants to experience a wide array of realistic scenarios and analyze the impacts of their decisions.


The system will enable training for up to 500 responders, trainers and “victims” simultaneously at a variety of locations (reducing training and travel cost while increasing participation capacity).  Participants will include state, county, and local transportation departments, toll road authorities, law enforcement agencies, fire departments, emergency service providers, medical examiners, hazardous materials handlers, towing companies, the media, and other operating agencies.  Equally important to educating players about incident management techniques, the game is designed to promote communication, coordination and cooperation among organizations.


A recent Guardian article raises additional examples of the fledging use of games in achieving organizational goals.  Lifting a quote from the article that may be particularly inspirational for games for change developers, “[games] go beyond simulations… the techniques in games make you want to go back and play again. That’s the key thing: you get rewarded for doing better. So ‘games’ is important in the definition.”