Harmonix Music System co-founder Alex Rigopulos has personally donated $10,000 to the disabled gaming charity the AbleGamers Foundation. The company will also work with AbleGamers to learn what it can do in the future to make games such as Rock Band and Dance Central more accessible to gamers with disabilities:

"I believe that finding ways to better accommodate people with disabilities is a vitally important responsibility for the videogame industry. Harmonix is working with the AbleGamers Foundation to learn what we can do in future products to be as inclusive as possible," said Rigopulos. "I hope that my support of the AbleGamers Foundation will inspire others within this industry to do the same."

Mike "Broly" Begum is a dangerous man when it comes to Super Street Fighter 4 and he does not even use his hands. The 22-year-old has become a master of the game using his tongue, cheek, and chin to play the game. Begum has a rare condition medical called arthrogryposis, a disease that causes stiff and abnormal joints at birth. The condition left Begum without the full use of his legs or hands. The debilitating illness has not stopped Begum from becoming one of the best SF4 gamers in the state. Last week, he placed fifth at the NE1 gaming center tournament in McAllen, Texas.

The gaming community knows him as "Broly," a character in Dragon Ball Z. The name stuck after he used it in his very first tournament. His favorite character in the game is Chun-Li because of her speed and flexibility. Begum used the name Broly in his very first tournament, and since then, it's become his identity. Begum is very confident about his skills:

The complaints of a disabled gamer who had a number of problems playing his copy of Dead Space 2 (for PC) is being helped by developer Visceral Games. British gamer Gareth Garratt, who has to play the game with his chin because he suffers from cerebral palsy, was upset that the new horror game from EA's Visceral Games studio wouldn't let him reconfigure the walking keys. Frustrated with the lack of reconfiguration options in the game (a common complaint among disabled gamers for many of the top console and PC games on the market), Gareth took to the OverClockers UK forum to complain about it.

Chuck Bittner is disabled, a gamer, and in need of your John Hancock for a good cause. Chuck, who is the star of the web site, AskACapper.com, has put up an online petition asking video game console makers and game developers to allow consumers to reconfigure button configurations. Companies he is making this appeal to include Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Zipper Interactive, Infinity Ward, and Treyarch - though in general he would like ALL game developers to support remapping controller functions in games.

The reason he wants to have the ability to remap keys in games and on consoles is to make setting up configurations for those with disabilities a lot easier. You can read the entire petition below, but I urge you to visit it online and sign it:

Tickets for the 2011 Gamification Summit have sold out according to the event's organizers. Organizers say that, for those who were not able to purchase tickets, live streaming coverage via Fora.tv will be available. Those who register to watch the live streaming coverage before January 14 will receive special $149 early bird pricing. After January 14, the rate will go up to $199. In case you've never heard of it, gamification is the use of game mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences in a non-gaming environment.

At the event, Liz Gannes of AllThingsDigital will interview Jane McGonigal, author of "Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy and How They Can Help Us Change the World." Liz Gannes has been covering Silicon Valley business technology since 2004 and is the founder of NewTeeVee. Additional speakers include the CMO of RecycleBank Samantha Skey, Ian Bogost of Georgia Institute of Technology and Evan Tanna of Shopkick.

The non-profit organization Games for Change, which is focused on designing digital games that create social change, has named new co-Presidents.

The two new leaders are Asi Burak, co-Founder of Impact Games, and Michelle Byrd, who has served 12 years as the Executive Director of the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP). Burak’s role will center on “curation, development, and execution of programs and services to raise the production, quality and influence of social impact games,” while Byrd will concern herself with “institutional relationship and partnership efforts, along with fundraising, business affairs, financial management, and communications strategy.”

Beijing, China is the next stop for AMD's Activate! initiative. The world's second largest chip maker announced that the Dandelion Middle School in Beijing is now offering a course in game development. AMD says that its curriculum is designed to help teens improve critical science, technology, and math skills by allowing kids to develop games using a suite of specially designed software development tools.

Announced earlier this year, Activate is a program that enables kids ages 13 - 15 to "easily design and program video games." Activate! was created by PETLab and funded by a $77,000 AMD Foundation grant in support of AMD Changing the Game. PETLab is a joint project of Games for Change and Parsons The New School for Design. You can learn more about PETLab by visiting petlab.parsons.edu.

A game that has players attempt to reconcile their share of the massive U.S. national debt was chosen as “Most Likely to Succeed” in a competition at last week’s seventh annual Games for Change conference.

U.O.Me (You Owe Me) is the brainchild of two “public policy experts,” Eric Heis and Nicola Moore, and allows players to “make policy decisions and personal sacrifices to pay down the debt,” which is estimated at around $201,000 per person. It’s promised that, by the time they finish the game, players will “understand what a huge challenge reducing their personal share of the national debt really is.”

Moore stated, “Our game will reach new audiences with nonpartisan policy education.” She added, “Our greatest challenge is trying to get others in our generation who stand to inherit $62 trillion of debt--to understand what that means for their future.”

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in concert with Games for Health, will launch “game jams” in six U.S. cities, including Boston, Seattle, Atlanta, Orlando, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Albany, and Fairfax, on May 21st.

The jams are designed to leverage the capabilities of game developers in support of the Apps for Healthy Kids competition, which is part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign. Developers, artists and local youth will gather to make game prototypes in just 48 hours.

IGDA Board Chair Gordon Bellamy said, “This unique partnership provides a fun way for our members to focus their creative energies towards the goal of the Apps for Healthy Kids competition. We’re looking forward toward generating some amazing entries for the contest.”

The winners of Microsoft’s U.S. 2010 Imagine Cup competition, which centers on the use of technology to help solve the world’s toughest problems, have been announced.

 This year’s grand prize winner in the Game Design category, as detailed by The Chronicle of Higher Education, was a team from Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC)—which also had one member from the University of North Carolina— that developed a game called Sixth. The title involves a “child in a developing country who must go through obstacles to meet a need, such as finding clean water.”

The name Sixth “refers to the one-sixth of the population in developing countries that live in slums.”

Yesterday, Matt Drudge linked to a USA Today article with the derisive headline "Video Game to Reduce Deficit?" But is that really as crazy as it sounds?

The USA Today piece reported that Erskine Bowles, who's heading up President Obama's "war on the federal deficit," talked to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer about making a video game that would let anyone "take a stab at balancing the budget."

The idea is that in order for deficit reduction to succeed, citizens have to understand the size of the budget, how the process works and, most important, what the tradeoffs are between benefits and their costs. That process, though already public, is basically inaccessible to anyone without the time (and patience) to read through thousands of pages of studies, estimates and commission reports. What the public needs is a compelling and concise model to play with that would let them get a handle on the dynamics of the federal budget without needing advanced degrees in accounting, law and economics.

A group against the development of Canada’s oil-rich Tar Sands is attempting to draw attention to their stance through the release of a simple online Flash game.

Thought up by the Polaris Institute and created by Insidious Design, the game, named Tarnation, lets players shoot oil at Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper  and Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff. Once the pair has been doused with enough light, sweet crude, players can sign their name to an email to the two pols, which states that “The tar sands represent the wrong direction for Canada.”

As part of her Let’s Move campaign to end childhood obesity, First Lady Michelle Obama is on the hunt for games that encourage kids to be more physically active and to make better choices about what they eat.

The Apps for Healthy Kids competition officially starts accepting submissions today and will offer up $40,000 in prizes to the winners across two categories—tool and games. Applications will be judged by both the public and an all-star panel that includes Entertainment Software Association (ESA) President Michael Gallagher, LucasArts Engineer Eric Johnson, Zybga’s Mark Pincus and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Judging ends on July 14, 2010.

Our man Dan Rosenthal is at the Game Developers Conference and filed this report from a lecture he attended last night:

The Serious Games Summit at GDC closed out its first day with a sobering presentation from Allan McCullough and Parry Aftab entitled "Violence Prevention -- Playing A Video Game Can Make A Difference." Sponsored by the Child Safety Research and Innovation Center, the session explained that while games often get criticized as being too violent, the games industry can actually work to lessen the real-world effects of violence and abuse against children through serious games.

An online game launching tomorrow will attempt to spur players into making headway against some of the world’s biggest problems.

CNN details the game, entitled Evoke, which is billed as an entry in the “alternate reality” genre. Developed by the World Bank Institute and designed by Jane McGonigal, the game will last ten weeks. Over the course of that time period, participants will be presented with new challenges and will attempt to make headway against the challenges in real-life. For example, if a current challenge involves famine, players might try “to provide meals for someone in their neighborhood.” Once they have documented their real-world actions, via a blog post, photo or video, they will receive credit for finishing the mission and can receive additional awards and rewards from fellow players.

Upon the game’s completion on May 12, players who complete all 10 challenges will be named a “Certified World Bank Institute Social Innovator – Class of 2010.” The best players can also receive travel scholarships and “online mentorships with experienced social innovators and business leaders from around the world.”

While anyone in the world can play Urgent Evoke, the game is designed for people in Africa, a place, which it’s noted, has less Internet access than anywhere else in the world. To that end, the game has been designed to work seamlessly on cell phones as well. So far 3,500 people have signed up to play the game, 400 of them from Africa.

CNN also has a short video up in which McGonigal gives an overview of Evoke.

The Homeland Guantanamos website offers an embedded Flash game designed to highlight the plight of immigrant detainees in U.S. custody.

Users will take on the role of a journalist posing undercover as an Immigrant Detention Center Guard in order to solve the death of 52-year old Guinea immigrant Boubacar Bah. A friendly detainee inside will aid the investigation as you tour the facility in search of clues.

The game is based on true events—Bah was a real detainee at the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey (which the game models the detainee center after) and died in custody on May 30, 2007.

A video report from the New York Times on Bah’s death claims that following a fall, believed to have taken place in a bathroom, he was found unconscious. Bah later briefly regained consciousness and was taken to a medical center, where he became agitated. He was shackled and put in solitary confinement, where he again became unresponsive. 15 hours after his fall, Bah was rushed into emergency brain surgery. His family was not notified until five days after the fall. Bah was in a coma for four months before eventually dying.

The website estimates that 300,000 legal and illegal immigrants are currently in custody in the U.S. and that 87 immigrants have died in custody since 2003.

The game was developed by Free Range Studios for the human rights organization Breakthrough.

The New York Times video was just one-part of a series of reports on in-custody deaths of immigrants in the U.S.


Via ArtThreat.net

A new project co-founded by a Carnegie Mellon University graduate student is creating educational games for extremely affordable computers that are gaining popularity in developing nations.

PlayPower grew from an idea Derek Lomas had while attending a conference in India, where he noticed that families were snatching up $12 computer systems right and left. The 8-bit computers are not very powerful, but the processor that powers the PC (the MOS 6502, which powered the Apple II and Nintendo NES) is in the public domain, meaning that development is relatively easy and inexpensive.

Lomas told the Post Gazette, “It doesn't require a $50 million development budget to make a great game.”

The PlayPower team is currently at work on three games, two of which feature the Hindu deity Hanuman. One Hanuman-starring title will teach users how to type, with the hopes that such a skill could translate into better job opportunities, while the second is a multiple-choice quiz-type game. The third title in development will try to raise awareness of malaria.

Lomas added, “I think that many of the more powerful educational effects of the system can be in the way it changes a kid's interest and ambitions.”

Lomas anticipates that all three games can be finished this year. He also hopes to build a relationship with those selling the computers so that PlayPower’s software can be bundled in.

Over 1,000 volunteers from around the world are already on-board to assist in game development. PlayPower also hopes to harness the growing 8-bit retro community for assistance in future releases.

Videogames can provide new and effective ways to raise awareness and engage users, prompting an article that asks whether they might be the future of social change.

A piece on Change.org builds its case around a successful promotion put on by Zynga’s social game FarmVille, which allowed the game’s players to buy special seeds to benefit Haitian charities. The Sweet Seeds for Haiti drive ended up raising over $1.0 million dollars.

The article compares Zynga’s successful implementation to one that is more old-school:

…a consortium of foundations and online giving platforms were sponsoring America's Giving Challenge, which put up almost $250,000 in bounty for nonprofits to engage their supporters. In a month, almost 8,000 competing nonprofits raised a total of just over $2 million. One of the biggest pushes in our field basically had the same level of return as releasing a virtual freaking seed.

If that doesn't raise some eyebrows, it should.

While contributing to social change is good and all, the author worries a bit about “videogame-embedded philanthropy” taking the place of real-world positive actions, though he views it as an opportunity for non-profits:

I worry a bit that for those whose first taste of good is this sort of video game embedded philanthropy, they will feel like their experience of having contributed is good enough. That the input of buying a charitable good equals an output of feeling and having done good, and that is that. Of course where the real opportunity lies is in the conversion of those passive supporters to active users. That may be a great place for creative nonprofits to focus next.

Zynga’s Mark Pincus thinks that the future charitable virtual goods market could be worth a billion dollars.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has launched a browser-based Flash game to call attention to what the group calls “outdated killing methods” utilized by the McDonald’s fast-food chain.

Super Chick Sisters is a Super Mario-like five level game that has players attempting to rescue Princess Pam (Pamela Anderson) who has been kidnapped by the Evil Ronald McDonald. Information from PETA’s campaign against McDonald’s is sprinkled throughout, for example a chick tells your character, “Chickens who are killed by McDonald’s suppliers have their throats cut while they are still alive. You must save them from this cruelty!”

A kid-friendly version is available as well.

PETA notes that:

McDonald's American suppliers are under fire for using an outdated killing method that often causes birds to suffer the pain of broken wings and broken legs, to have their throats cut while they are still conscious, and to be scalded to death in defeathering tanks.

PETA is urging McDonald’s U.S. suppliers to adopt a more humane killing method that is being used in Europe.

Somewhat lost in the pre-E3 buzz is the 6th Annual Games For Change Festival, currently underway in New York City.

The show has a terrific lineup of speakers, including Ian Bogost, Henry Jenkins, Clive Thompson, Lucy Bradshaw, N'Gai Croal, and James Paul Gee.

For updated G4C Festival news, check out the official Games For Change Twitter feed.

A new alternate reality game examines the future of caring in America.

Ruby's Bequest challenges players to make the fictional town of Deepwell a more caring place in order to earn a sizeable sum left by the mysterious Ruby Wood. The game will continue through April 10th.

From the ARG site's description:

Like Grover's Corners or Lake Wobegon, Deepwell is a fictional place. Deepwell's people, however, are alive (played by actors) and Deepwell's story is not preordained – it's up to our participants to shape its outcomes. In the next 60 days, as Deepwell moves forward into the next decade, its viewers will be traveling along. As they experience the future's challenges to the way we care for one another, they can respond with perspectives, ideas and solutions. Ruby's Bequest is a place where people with any level of experience with caring can meet and collaborate on visions of a more caring future...

 

Like Deepwell, America faces a future in which the ecosystems of caring grow more stressed. When you contribute your perspectives, stories and common sense to help Deepwell solve its problems, you are actually helping our nation anticipate its future challenges and craft its wisest responses. Each contribution helps us collectively to arrive at larger truths.

Via: BoingBoing

The Games for Change Festival has opened registration for attendees. The 2009 G4C will take place in New York City, May 27-29 at Parsons The New School for Design.

A press release describes the event:

The Annual Games for Change Festival brings together the world's leading foundations, NGOs, game-makers, academics, and journalists to explore this potential and how best to harness games in addressing the most critical issues of our day, from poverty to climate change, global conflicts to human rights... 

Called "the Sundance of video games" for "socially-responsible game-makers" we're promoting a new genre of video game - games to change the world - for the better. 

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times will deliver the keynote. Other speakers include:

• A fireside chat with leading scholars Jim Gee and Henry Jenkins
• A conversation between Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Producer, Spore, Electronic Arts and N'Gai Croal, Newsweek
• Ian Bogost, CEO of Persuasive Games
• Heather Chaplin, journalist and author of Smartbomb: The Quest for Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the Videogame Revolution.
• Seth Scheisel, New York Times game critic and technology journalist

As we saw in 2008 with Breakthrough's immigration rights-themed I.C.E.D!, non-profits are increasingly turning to game tech to reach a wider - and younger - audience.

Along that line Ars Technica reports that Games for Change has released a toolkit designed to help non-profits tap learn how to tap into issue-oriented games of their own.

The Games for Change Toolkit is primarily a Flash-based presentation containing video, reference material, and links to demonstration games that cover various aspects of game design, from the initial concept to production and distribution. While an actual [software development kit] may not be involved, the toolkit introduces nonprofit organizations to both the broad potential and finer details of bringing an issue-conscious game into reality...

The Toolkit covers seven primary topics and introduces each with a video snippet of their relative presenter's speech: Urge, Concept, Design, Production, Distribution, Evaluation, and Case Study...

Singapore's The Straits Times reports on an in-development game in which players use the "cheery pink power of bubblegum" to fight government oppression.

Gumbeat is a Flash game being developed as part of a cooperative effort between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and digital media students in Singapore. So how does Gumbeat play? From the report:

...the heroine chews on candy and blows them into big pink bubbles beside unhappy citizens in the unnamed country in which the candy is banned. This cheers them up enough to entice them to join the protagonist in a revolution, mustering enough angry citizenry to overthrow the oppressive government.

 

This is the aim of the game, said National University of Singapore undergraduate Sharon Chu, who presented her team's game to reporters earlier on Tuesday... The game was made to show that games with serious-themes like say, 'political oppression', can be fun, said Ms Chu.

Chu left the issue of whether the repressive country in question was Singapore up to the "player's interpretation." GamePolitics readers may recall that Singapore's government banned Mass Effect for a time last year over a brief lesbian love scene.

Later this month, Copenhagen-based Serious Games Interactive will release Global Conflicts: Latin America.

The game, intended for students 13-19 years old, will be published in seven languages and is designed to teach students about political and human rights struggles in Latin America. From an SGI press release:

Many Latin American countries have dark histories of genocide, widespread corruption; and systematic exploitation of the indigenous population. The game lets you explore how these historical realities still cast long shadows on the everyday life of people in the region today.

In the game, students are challenged to assume the role of investigative reporters:

You arrive in Mexico at the US border with a bag full of journalistic ambitions. Latin America is one of the most turbulent, violent and poverty-stricken places on the planet. Yet it is only when Western interests in the region are threatened that we hear anything about the nations that struggle with paramilitary rule, extreme poverty and exploitation of the population.

 

In a region where politicians and police are feared rather than respected, people try desperately to grab a piece of the land and call it their own. All too often, however, it ends badly. Can you make a difference by writing investigative stories?

Global Conflicts: Latin America will be released for PC and Mac.

Earlier this year the BBC reported that the introduction of the highly aggressive American signal crayfish had essentially killed sport fishing in Scotland's Loch Ken.

With the region's traditional fishing tourism in steep decline, the economic health of towns around the Loch is in jeopardy.

By way of publicizing the crisis T-Enterprise has created Britain's Got Crabs, a Flash game which challenges "British Beavers" to shoot waves of the crayfish. It's not much of a game, but it does help to raise awareness of the ecologic crisis in the Loch.

GP: The game is embedded here, so if you'd like to try it just click Play...

Every gamer's favorite academic, MIT Professor Henry Jenkins, will be among the presenters at the 5th Annual Games for Change Festival which takes place June 2-4 in New York.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will deliver the festival's closing keynote. Other speakers include Ben Sawyer of the Serious Games Initiative, Dr. James Paul Gee of Arizona State University, Prof. Ian Bogost of Georgia Tech and Heather Chaplin, co-author of Smartbomb.

From the GFC press release:

The only festival... will explore real-world impact, the latest games and funding strategies... Expert practitioners -- academics, activists, non-profits, funders -- will be called in to examine the impact of current games, evaluations planned and the ongoing work to build the field.

 

You will have a chance to see a variety of new games in development first-hand, and at the Games Expo sponsored by Microsoft, festival-goers can play the latest state-of-the-art games.