First, I would like to state that I find I am unable to vote for any of the entries, as I do not find any of them to have met all the criteria set forth in the competition. Several of the entries aren't even games, but proposals for game controllers or gaming networks. Others are not through the development phase, but are lingering ideas that still need to be made concrete by software development.

As for gaming, most of the entries don't seem very fun. Isn't that what games are for? According my dictionary, a game is a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one, played according to rules, and decided by skill, strength, or luck. To "play" means to engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation...I'm not seeing this to be a standout topic when I look at the submissions from which I must make a selection. The proposals submitted may have merit, as far as having ideas worth consideration, but they are far removed from the gaming world. The two I found that were close to actually being games still didn't meet all of the criteria for the competition.

Being a contest that is promoting innovation in healthcare through gaming, I would be looking for original, innovative ideas: At least two of the entries are obvious cloned derivatives from other successful platforms.

That said, I would like to point out that I find some of the entry topics to be offensive and filled with bigotry. Fat world? Who are you trying to kid? What's next? Cripple town? I must assume that you are looking for entries that are somewhat politically correct, and I find this to be way off base and somewhat disturbing.

Please accept my apologies if I have posted this in the wrong place. I didn't see anywhere I could post general comments about the contest, so my post ended up here.

Among the things I've always found most compelling about the games medium is its inherent capacity to represent relationships cause and effect. Thus, I've been struck to see the number of tools that have been designed to reward -- or reveal the positive consequences of -- optimal behavior but which also, very deliberately, reveal much less/nothing about the negative consequences of acts that aren't "good" for the player.

Designers are typically great at providing coherent, compelling explanations of the logic or "motivational strategy" underlying their decisions.

Yet, in the interest of provoking discussion, I wonder whether anyone thinks it's worth looking more deeply at, or asking about, the silences? As a friend put it to me, provocatively, last week: If a game can be designed to show the consequences of negative acts and does not, could it not, fairly, be criticized as a tool aiding denial? By treating rewards as the only good mechanism by which a game might prompt behavioral change, couldn't game makers be overlooking one that --- for many adults -- would serve a much more powerful motivator of change: genuine risk? This friend explained that what prompted him to move, quickly, to obtain a kidney transplant when dialysis could have served him (for quite some time) was knowledge/fear that -- without the transplant -- he would die.

Thoughts? Comments?

Best,
Diane
Changemakers

http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?articleID=00016C9D-2761-1477-9D3383414B7F0000

If you've not yet come across these articles yourselves, you might be interested in seeing these stories that explain how some epidemiologists (and others) are looking to online games as tools that could help them create sophisticated models and strategies for dealing with real-world pandemics.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/gadgets_and_gaming/article2296354.ece

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1655109,00.html

thoughts? comments?

Diane
Changemakers

Changemakers has representatives at Games for Health at the Deca Hotel in Seattle today, and then the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) tomorrow through Sunday. If you're at either of these we would enjoy talking to you and fielding any questions you might have. You can contact Robert via email rbenedict[at]ashoka[dot][org].

Virologist/microbiologist here looking to team up with a games expert/programmer to put together some really cool games to help people learn about the fascinating worlds of microbiology. Have lots of ideas and strategies, just need some help in implementation. Anyone interested?

Dear Changemakers community,

As Changemakers and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launch the “Why Games Matter” competition, I just want to indicate how much I look forward to the conversations we’ll be having over the next days, weeks and months as part of that competition. In my capacity as the Online Reviewer/Moderator for WGM, I will help entrants improve or fine-tune their entries; at the same time, I will facilitate the discussions about digital games, health, and health care that we hope will engage the entire Changemakers community.

What brings me here -- both to WGM and to the broader field of “games for change” -- is genuine excitement about the opportunities both bring to us. More than possessing simply our predecessors’ opportunity to employ technology to extend humans’ capacity, we have the chance both to see and to produce what positive changes in ourselves -- in humans -- we can effectuate via the digital technologies and the new media, like games, we can produce with them. This open-ness to a genuinely interactive experience – a drive both to change and to be changed – seems to me new… perhaps even a bit courageous.

Special about Changemakers (and Ashoka at large) is its holistic gaze – one that’s both deep and round. It understands that even medical treatments are manifestations of a world view – descendants of certain notions regarding how the world works and how structures in the world cause us to conceptualize (for example) what constitutes a sickness and how that sickness should best be handled. It too understands that changes in those notions will affect our understanding of the kind of treatment that’s optimal.

It seems to me that this framework for viewing problems is foundational to the WGM competition. Foundational too, I think, is a fairly universal abandonment of an old world view and how it caused us to think about The Doctor, The Patient, and The (Optimal) Relationship between the two; within that old world view, there wasn’t much cause for games. Just as many of our hierarchies have flattened, down a few notches has come our notion of the Doctor – once viewed as omniscient, even divine; and up -- from the ground where s/he bowed, deferentially, before the Doctor, and where s/he had little role in diagnosing his/her own malady or in improving his/her own health -- the Patient has ascended.

These changes in how we view doctors and patients have affected not only what roles and responsibilities we give each of them -- and they give each other -- for improving patients’ health; they too have affected where early venturers in the Games for Health field have committed their efforts. Belief in the importance of patients’ feeling efficacious and actively engaged in pursuing their own good health is central to a range of prescribed medical regimen – and to Re-Mission, a game that helps tweens with cancer. Players learn that, to power the weapons their proxy Roxii uses to kill cancer cells, they need to have sufficient levels of food, chemotherapy, etc in their blood streams, but that, by following prescribed regimen and killing all the cancer cells, they can survive. Similarly, in the game Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus, tween and young-teen players learn that if they can help their asthmatic dinosaur friends both keep their breath strength high and avoid asthma triggers, they can save their planet from both dust and destruction. Re-Mission measurably increased players’ sense of self efficacy and their adherence to prescribed regimen. Not only did players of Bronkie feel more confident about their ability to manage their asthma efficaciously; they experienced a 35 to 40% reduction in urgent care and emergency visits related to asthma and in missed school days due to the same.

I know that, in his book How Doctors Think, Dr. Jerome Groopman identifies weaknesses in the cognitive practices doctors employ to produce diagnoses and that he suggests that, with the help of patients and new technologies that pose the right questions, doctors can learn to become better thinkers. Yet, though various researchers have argued that, by playing certain computer and videogames, kids’ cognitive skills have improved, I’ve not seen a game that’s brought the same (measured) benefits to doctors in ways that benefit their diagnostic or cognitive skills. So, I ask you, members of the Changemakers community: have any of you seen a game that has? Tell us about it.

And – you’ll remember that I cited a single old world view (that associated with the Doctor-as-Diety, or D-a-D) whose displacement helped uncover a whole new sets of needs and opportunities in the field of health. I wonder: Is there the one “old” world view whose displacement was particularly important to how—or where -- you identify needs and opportunities in the fields of health care? If so: would you tell us about it and explain how it's affected you?

I really look forward to hearing from, and speaking with, all of you.

Diane (Tucker)
The Changemakers Team

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your interest in this competition. The mosaic has not been developed yet. We're at a very early stage in the process, still framing the issues we want the competition participants to address.

It will be great to have your input as we go, particularly when the competition is actually underway.

One of our goals is to have a robust give-and-take refining the mosaic--and the entries--in the discussion with the participants. This will help us all build the field in question and improve that field's ability to meet tangible and worthwhile goals with new resources, new insights, new collaborations, and the like.

Thanks also for your mosaic! It's great to see you developing this tool for your own purposes. Do bring more of these ideas to the competition discussion.

All best,

Karin

Hi,

I am curious whether the Mosaic has been developed for this competition yet?

We have a project starting up in July called Belonging Games and I have developed a "game makers" mosaic for it. You can read more about this here:
http://www.plan.ca/Belong/documents/Overview_of_BG.pdf

I'd like to be in touch with whomever is going to be developing the mosaic for this competition for the sake of collaboration, mutual learning, etc.

Cheers,
Brian