First, a confession: I'm a sucker for any social event that bills itself as a salon. Offer me a chance to recline on a sofa while the great intellects and wits of the day converse, and I'm there, especially if it doesn't involve traveling in time to 18th century France.
Therefore, I was delighted to receive an invitation from Gary Goldberger of Fablevision to attend the very first Boston Games Salon at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to his day job as a vice-president of Fablevision, Gary is the Boston area coordinator of Games For Change, and a G4C liaison in Second Life.
Monday evening's event was not actually not very sofa-intensive, but it certainly was an opportunity to hear some brilliant people talk about developing video and computer games that support positive social change. One of them was Kent Quirk of Cognitoy, who talked about a work in progress, "Melting Point," which will enable players to try out various scenarios for reversing the trend toward global warming. I especially liked his insistence that a serious game should not merely be composed of a brilliant platform, an exhaustive dataset, and a polemical (or educational) intention; it should also be fun. Otherwise, it's just an awe-inspiring example of computer modeling. There's nothing wrong with the latter, but (with apologies to mathematicians, philosophers, and psychologists who use very specialized definitions in their work) I consider fun an essential ingredient in any game.
Holding the salon at MIT was an excellent choice,* ensuring that a wonderful multi-disciplinary group of smart people and dedicated gamers were in attendance. I was also delighted to see some nonprofit colleagues in the room; it turned out that we had some expertise to share about how games are used in educational settings, about connecting the game developers to nonprofit advocacy groups, and about arranging for fiscal sponsorship.
It seems to me that the next step for me and my fellow nonprofit techies is to think about how to bring together our colleagues who are engaged in electronic advocacy with members of the Games For Change movement. Let's mash up the activism and organizing that that nonprofits are doing via the internet with web-based games that not only amuse us but teach us something about positive social change.
* I really knew I was at MIT when I visited the women's room and found that it was stacked with janitorial supplies, HVAC equipment, and office furniture. I can't explain why this seemed entirely typical of MIT, but it did.
Here are some other examples of games for change that were mentioned during Monday evening's salon:
