| | | | The biggest and best Festival yet!
Thanks to all who joined us for the largest and most energizing Games for Change Festival yet! We were thrilled to host a record-setting 1,000 attendees at Parsons School of Design at The New School. This was also the most diverse Festival yet — there was a near even 50-50 split between female and male speakers and attendees.
We'd like to give a special thanks to our curators — Amy Sterling (Neurogaming & Health track), Michelle Miller and Mark DeLoura (Games for Learning Summit), Naomi Clark and Lindsay Grace (Civics & Social Issues track), and Erik Martin (VR for Change Summit) — for bringing together an engaging, thought-provoking program.
Check out the Festival and VR for Change Summit photos on our Flickr, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for when we begin adding videos from over 100 sessions in the next few weeks. In the meantime, catch up on the news from the Festival below!
| | VR for Change Summit was a success — stay tuned for more VR events
This year's Festival featured the first-ever VR for Change Summit, with over 12 virtual experiences for attendees to interact with and talks presented by Planned Parenthood, NY Times, Samsung, Facebook, Emblematic Group, National Geographic, and more. Speed networking and breakout discussion sessions sparked conversation, debate, and new connections.
As the Summit and its participants demonstrated, VR is a powerful medium for social change, and we are committed to helping this special community grow. We will continue convening this community online and at year-round events. To learn more about these activities, please consider joining our VR for Change newsletter here. If you're interested in partnering with us on VR for Change, please email partnerships@gamesforchange.org.
| | Congrats to the G4C Award winners and nominees!
Congratulations to the winners of the G4C Awards, especially Walden, A Game, which won Game of the Year and Most Significant Impact! A major thank-you to Overwatch voice actress Anjali Bhimani for emceeing the Awards.
The Awards winners are:
Game of the Year & Most Significant Impact awards
Walden, A Game: Walden, A Game, is a first-person simulation of the life of American philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, during his experiment in self-reliant living at Walden Pond. Players follow in Thoreau's virtual footsteps, balancing their basic survival needs with a search for the sublime in the small beauties of the woods.
Best Gameplay Award
Tracking Ida: Tracking Ida is an educational ARG inspired by the pioneering journalism of Ida B. Wells and piloted in Watts in 2017. Players learned about Wells' crusade against lynching by unlocking archives and solving puzzles. Connecting history to the present, they investigated police killings today and learned media making to spread awareness.
Most Innovative Award
Everything: Everything is about the quiet explosion of life going on all around us. It is a simulation of reality where everything you see is a thing you can be, from animals to planets to galaxies and beyond – you can be the Universe or create your own.
Best Learning Game Award
Dragonbox BIG Numbers: Dive into the world of the Nooms and learn big numbers, long addition and subtraction! Players are challenged to think strategically over the course of the game to trade resources and unlock new worlds.
G4C + Mashable People's Choice Award
At Play in the Cosmos: At Play in the Cosmos puts players in the pilot's seat, where they journey through space and time in a quest to solve mission challenges. The game helps students build an intuitive understanding of the scale of the universe, the tools astronomers use, and the process of science.
Vanguard Award
Constance Steinkuehler, professor of informatics at University of California, Irvine, was awarded the Vanguard Award for her contribution to the advancement of games for change.
Lifetime of Play Award
Bernie DeKoven, game designer and author, was awarded Lifetime of Play for his dedication to the conversation around play and games for over 50 years. Watch Bernie's acceptance speech on YouTube. | | 2 North American debuts at the Festival: Blindfold and Gaming in the Real World
iNK Stories' new VR interactive narrative, Blindfold, made its North American debut at the VR for Change Summit. iNK Stories, in partnership with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and The Center for Human Rights in Iran, brings to life the dangers that free journalists face worldwide, putting players into the shoes of a photojournalist in a tense interrogation.
At the premiere, Navid Khonsari, founder and creator at iNK Stories, was joined on stage for a panel discussion by Omid Memarian, an Iranian journalist who was held captive against his will for 55 days in 2004, and accused of being an enemy of the Islamic State. Omid shared his personal experience and expressed the importance of a free press, explaining that the game relies a lot on empathy, giving insight into what foreign journalists held in captivity still experience to this day.
The film, Gaming in the Real World, also made its North American festival premiere. It is the first feature documentary about video games changing the real world. It follows three game developers (Mojang, the creators of Minecraft; Paradox Interactive, publishers of Cities: Skylines; and indie-game developer José Sanches) in their struggle to make their games be more than just a game, but also an effective tool in planning our future cities and democratizing the planning process.
| | Get your copy of The Game Jam Guide
The Game Jam Guide e-book, which debuted at the Festival, shares over 20 flexible lesson plans and new ideas from experts who led game jams in NYC that were focused on real-world issues.
The guidebook is the culminating work of four Moveable Game Jams, funded by the Hive Digital Media Learning Fund through a Catalyst Grant in 2016. The game jams focused on three themes: climate change, smart cities, and immigrant history. The guide was developed and written by Kevin Miklasz from BrainPOP, Matt Farber, Alex Fleming from Mouse and Sara Cornish from Games for Change.
Game jam partners included Global Kids, Mouse, Institute of Play, Museum of the Moving Image, Brooklyn College Community Partnership, and CoderDojo NYC. This program reached over 1,000 students at events held in four NYC boroughs, which motivated NYC students to submit 400 original video games to the G4C Student Challenge.
| | Teach in NYC? Apply for free professional development to teach game design
Teachers in NYC public middle and high schools are invited to apply to join the G4C Student Challenge, a national game design program in which students create games about social issues.
Selected teachers will receive two days of professional development in game design in September, and will teach a game design course in the 2017-18 school year with Mouse's game design curriculum.
Be sure to share this opportunity with any NYC teachers in your network!
| | Thanks to our generous Charitybuzz donors!
Thanks to everyone who bid on the gaming experiences offered through our Charitybuzz auction and donated over $20,000! We are also extremely grateful to the organizations and individuals who made these gaming experiences possible: - Two tickets to next year's E3
- Lunch with Overwatch voice actress Anjali Bhimani
- A voice-acting session under the direction of Senior Casting and Voice Director Andrea Toyias at Blizzard Entertainment
- A visit to 2K's headquarters and chance to join an NBA2K Twitch stream
- A tour of Rockstar Games headquarters and swag, including a custom PS4 or Xbox One
- A chat with Kickstarter's head of games, Luke Crane, about games and crowdfunding
Keep an eye out for our next auction! Email partnerships@gamesforchange.org if you are interested in offering an experiential prize in one of our future charity auctions. | | | | | | |
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