Games for Change 2019 Wraps with Fireside Chats + a New Partnership

The third and final day of Games for Change 2019 was headlined by an engaging fireside chat between Yannis Mallat (CEO Ubisoft Canadian Studios) and Stan Pierre-Louis (President & CEO, Entertainment Software Association), just a day after Ubisoft was awarded the inaugural Industry Leadership Award from Games for Change for its long track record of gaming projects aimed at social good. The chat discussed a range of dynamic topics including social multiplayer experiences, how modern video games are treating illnesses, the missions behind various Ubisoft Montreal projects, accessibility through new software and hardware, Ubisoft’s efforts for Notre Dame, and much more.

The 2019 Festival closed with a look toward some of the themes that will be a part of the 2020 event as Games for Change and Endless Network announced that they will partner to create the Learn to Code Game Fellowship, which will enable young game developers to apply their creativity to games that can help teach a new generation of coders.

G4C will identify and select three Fellowship cohorts (each consisting of two qualified university-enrolled students). The Fellows will work in teams, creating an open source game that will help players learn how to code. In addition to the Fellowship, Endless Network has also come aboard to support the Fifth Annual Games for Change Student Challenge in 2020. The support will allow G4C to scale their successful social impact game design program and reach more students in the host cities of Atlanta, New York, LA and Detroit.

Elsewhere on Day 3:

A keynote from Anantha Duraiappah (UNESCO MGIEP), which lasered in on the need for developing guidelines to qualify games as educational technologies. The positive disruption to the education system he introduced in the talk was a push for an increased focus on social and emotional intelligence. The group of innovators who filled the auditorium were encouraged to question the research behind the World Health Organization’s designation of “gaming disorder” as a disease in the ICD-11 and to support adding his proposed digital aim to the 2021 UNESCO Guidelines.

Eric Zimmerman (Game Designer & Professor, NYU) tackled the pitfalls of serious games and how they can impact the world, for good and bad. Zimmerman led his keynote by discussing the progression of games, from how they were once perceived as “brain rotting” to how they now can change the world. However, with this notion comes the expectation of metrics, which is a negative. Zimmerman topped his keynote by challenging the games industry to develop new messages in games and new models of play that promote interaction with spheres outside of gaming such as food, brands, art, and more.

One of gaming’s premier eSports ventures, the NBA 2K League, gave a fireside chat to give an update on Year 2 of the collaboration between the NBA and Take-Two Interactive. Zach Leonsis, SVP of Monumental Sports and head of the Washington 2K franchise sat down with Brendan Donohue, Managing Director of the 2K League, to discuss how the league has instituted more services from the NBA, continued its push for diversity and inclusion and drafted its first female player.

Leaders from The Institute of Play gathered to celebrate their key learnings from the 10 years they’ve been in the trenches. Moderated by Eric Zimmerman (NYU), the panel gathered Katie Salen (UC Irvine), Rebecca Rufo-Tepper (Northern University), Arana Shapiro (Institute of Play) in which they expressed the importance of changing the way young people experience learning.

The keynote “This is Not a Game: Creating Civic Engagement on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” combined comedy and a call to action for democracy to tell the story of a television show that created a game, which got an estimated 117,000 players to register to vote in the 2018 midterm elections. Speakers Gabe Zichermann (Failosophy), Razan Ghalayini (Full Frontal with Samantha Bee), and Adam Werbach (Planet 10B) found that rewarding people for participating in the democracy worked when the show, which is comedic, could lead players to an external party when ensuring follow-ups were made. The talk ended with encouraging words for audience members to use their creative skills to get involved in creating change in the upcoming election and to be vigilant in knowing the motives behind games, especially when it comes to political agendas.

Nichol Bradford (Executive Director & Co-Founder, Transformative Technology Lab) highlighted transformative technology, being able to take tech that restricts our ability to think and socialize, and instead use it to transform our emotions and mental well-being. According to Bradford, transformatic tech can offer greater clarity, joy and connection to the mind.

James Vaughan (CEO & Founder, Ndemic Creations) closed the festival strong with his keynote by sharing key lessons he learnt from developing his two popular titles Plague Inc. and Rebel Inc. Plague Inc., the world-renowned disease development game has been downloaded more than 120 million times across various platforms and consistently ranks among the top sellers in the App Store, Google Play Store, and Steam. Vaughan discussed how Plague Inc. created a compelling world that engages the public on serious health topics. By being a universal subject that all cultures understand, it continues to thrive with every iteration and update.

Nathan Stevens

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I have always enjoyed playing video games and am a programming team lead for a video game company. I co-founded Gaming Cypher because I enjoy the gaming community and would like to provide the best news service around. Feel free to ask me any questions and I will make sure to get back to you quickly.