G4C Social Impact Games 101

This year’s Games 4 Change Conference will have a special bonus day to introduce non-profits to social impact games. You can read all the details below, but the most exciting part is that our Dr. Flanagan will facilitating a Grow A Game workshop to get the day started.

From Games 4 Change:
Based on feedback we’ve received over the past few years, we’ve created a one-of-a-kind workshop for non-profits new to the field of social issue games at the start of the 2008 G4C Festival. This workshop is a soup-to-nuts tutorial on the fundamentals of social issue games. The workshop will feature leading experts on topics including game design, fundraising, evaluation, youth participation, distribution, and press strategies, and will be extended for the rest of the year through an online community dedicated to learning about social issue games.

8:00am Breakfast
8:30am Opening Remarks from Suzanne Seggerman, brief G4C overview
8:45am Karen Sideman, Project Director of PETLab will give a brief walk-through and assessment of key social issue games
9:30am Mary Flanagan, Tiltfactor Lab, does a Grow-A-Game workshop, providing participants with a little confidence-boosting hands-on game design “experience”
10:30am Break
11:00am Ian Bogost, Persuasive Games and Eric Zimmerman, Gamelab give a game design fundamentals overview
12:30am Colleen Macklin, Director of PETLab, gives an overview of the technology available
12:45pm Lunch
1:45pm Barry Joseph, Global Kids gives a brief case study on Ayiti, including fundraising, assessment
2:15pm Carol Artigiani, Global Kids and Mallika Dutt, Breakthrough give an informal talk on the non-profit perspective – challenges and rewards
2:45pm Suzanne Seggerman and Heather Chaplin, Journalist and Author, discuss v. briefly press and distribution strategies
3:00pm Break
3:15pm Brainstorming sessions – groups break-out around shared missions to further their morning’s game ideas, or other ideas they have brought to the event. Game designers assist groups as they see fit
4:00pm Pitch and Puff session, each group has 3 minutes to pitch their ideas to the panel of game design experts (presenters plus Chris Swain USC, Tracy Fullerton USC, Katie Salen, Institute of Play, Parsons and Celia Pearce, Georgia Tech), who give feedback verbally and online during (and after if they can.) The audience gives feedback on index cards, we also have a note-taker to record comments
6:00pm Reception