by Worldchanging Los Angeles local blogger, Evonne Heyning: Last week I traveled to Manhattan to speak at Games for Change, the annual gathering of the Serious Games Initiative. In two days we played over 15 new issue-oriented games and witnessed dozens more playable programs for social change and education. From enlightenment pursuit to Real Lives from around the world, I drifted in and out of dozens of personas and possibilities. There are games like Karma Tycoon that help teach you how to run successful youth centers and nonprofits around the community or Real Lives, a game where you can be born as anyone in the world and learn about the limiting factors of health, poverty and circumstance based on real statistics. Playing Melting Point was frustrating; the global warming game is VERY hard to beat along with Ayiti: The Cost of Life, the Haitian-based game from Global Kids and Gamelab. Play is essential at every age; there are simple opportunities in the games all around us. Ted Castronova of the TerraNova virtual worlds blog spoke at Games for Change on research and virtual world economies, illuminating the power of games for major social transformation. Economists, quantitative social scientists have great… (more)
(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Media at 11:46 AM)