May 16, 2026
Headlines

Social Good

The 10th Annual Games for Change Festival Launches in NYC from June 17 – 19

Alex Landa18 mins

Do you like gaming? Do you enjoy new and innovative ideas that can better our world? Of course you do! It’s time to check out the 10th Anniversary Games for Change Festival at New World Stages in New York City June 17th – 19th.

The event is created and hosted by Games for Change (G4C) with the mission to promote social change through gaming. This international conference unites gaming professionals of different backgrounds from around the world ranging from commercial gaming to academia with the shared goal of bettering tomorrow. “The story of the Games for Change Festival is the story of how digital games have evolved, growing from an audience of 40 in 2004 to more than 10,000 attendees on-site and online,” said Michelle Byrd and Asi Burak, Co-Presidents of Games for Change. This year’s event aims to be the biggest and best one yet.

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3 Mobile Apps for the Gamification of Energy Conservation

Kevin Shane06 mins

It’s important to recycle and reduce consumption and turn off the water while brushing teeth, but who wants to sort trash? Who wants to go around the house making sure all the light bulbs are off? If you make it a game, you create a situation where people actually want to use less power, and some cases, you could even generate more power. There are a number of mobile apps for iOS and Android that aims to make the whole act of conserving energy a little easier. Here are three applications aimed at encouraging eco-friendly behavior.

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Soccket: The Soccer Ball That Generates Electricity

Alex Landa14 mins

If you’re able to read this, then you have ample electricity for everyday means. However, there are places in the world that have little-to-no available electricity for simple purposes like lightning their homes at night. Some folks have made a soccer ball that’s able to produce electricity by simply being kicked around in order to provide assistance to those who need it.

Over at Uncharted Play, the creators have invented an energy generating soccer ball called Soccket. The ball produces electricity from the kinetic energy made when kicked around and it only takes 30-minutes of play to power an LED light for 3 hours

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Mobile Game Get Water Teaches About Water Scarcity with Good Gameplay and Narrative

Alex Landa36 mins

There are games that try to create a message while still attempting to remain enjoyable. Many times either the message becomes blurred or the game simply isn’t fun. Get Water manages to hit both marks properly.

Get Water by Decode Global is a simple screen-swiping endless running game about a young girl named Maya who is dragged out of class to obtain water while fending off various animals in her way. Many swiping games such as this have little-to-no story or purpose — they’re just casual games to play when waiting at the doctor or in between classes. Get Water has strong messages about water scarcity, gender inequality, and educational problems that plague other countries.

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Fooya, the Crowdfunded Game from India to Teach Healthy Eating

Alex Landa54 mins

Food fights in the cafeteria are usually not well-liked by adults. Virtual food fights that promote education about food, health, and wellness is a totally different story.

Fooya is a third-person, single-player food fight game meant to replicate the childhood activity. FriendsLearn recently used KickStarter to raise money to expand the game with a multiplayer expansion of the current single-player version which will be titled Fooya with Friends.

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Motivating Action Through Game Design with Tadhg Kelly

Ivan Kuo02 mins

The Gamification Revolution is the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts every Thursday at 1 PM EST/10 AM PST/1800 GMT. Join us and have all of your gamification questions answered by these experts.

This past week’s guest was veteran game designer and current Creative Director of Jawfish Games, Tadhg Kelly! In this week’s episode Gabe and Tadhg discuss what motivational design means from a game designer’s point of view and how that applies to gamification. They also advise startup Commitchange, on how they could improve their design to promote more civic action.

Check out the video below for the full interview.



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Be sure to catch this week’s episode featuring BankersLab CEO, Michelle Katics, on the gamification of finance!

You can now catch the Gamification Revolution every Thursday at 1PM EST/10 AM PST/1800 GMT.

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Paula Owen’s Mission to Raise Environmental Awareness with Gamification

Alex Landa04 mins

Some people use gamification to help their business. Some use it to improve medical science. Doctor and Consultant Paula Owen believes gamification can save the environment.

In effort to boost interest in environmental issues, the Science Museum of London has launched a game to enhance engagement and education as a part of Climate Week.

The project is being targeted towards people who have not yet participated in environmental issues because “it had all been a bit guilt-filled and full of doom and gloom.” Dr. Owens explains: “It is the idea of bringing in fun and games into a serious topic in order to try to enhance engagement.” As seen with gamification and education, there have been noticeable results with engagement and interest when the topic is presented as a game.

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Al Gore’s Reality Drop Game Is a Small Step Towards Climate Change Awareness

Gary Henkle106 mins

It’s easy to see why Jane McGonigal and other commentators might loathe Al Gore’s new game social sharing game “Reality Drop.” It feels like it was written by your dorky middle-aged Dad who only knows how to speak corny, and judging by the pop culture gurus she associates with,  Jane is probably disappointed that during this game Al Gore doesn’t pop out of  stage curtains in front of a TV studio audience to scream “look under your seat -Reality has dropped! You win a Prius! You win a Prius! Everybody wins a Prius”

After playing Reality Drop, I find it might be helpful for us to collectively lighten up.

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GSummit 2012 Behind the Scenes: Beth Shiroishi, AT&T

Taavi Lindmaa21 mins

(7/26 Gamification Expert Interviews Unlocked)

Every week until GSummit SF 2013, we’ll be unlocking some special content from last year to give you a preview on what to expect this April 16 – 18.

Listen to Beth Shiroishi, Vice President, Sustainability & Philanthropy at AT&T, talks about how the AT&T Foundation has been supporting gamified education and social good endeavors:

To see more expert gamification videos, visit our Video page or Subscribe to our YouTube channel!

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Cancer Research UK Hosts Hackathon to Build a Smartphone Research Game

Ivan Kuo13 mins

This past weekend, top developers at Facebook, Google and Amazon Web Services joined research academics and public attendees for a Cancer Research UK hackathon to utilize crowdsourced genetic data and turn it into a smartphone game, tentatively called GeneRun.

The hackathon’s goal is to produce a game that makes use of crowdsourced “citizen scientists” (a la Fold.it) to quickly interpret and analyze data that will facilitate research for cancer drug interventions.

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The Transformative Power of Social Games with Asi Burak

Ivan Kuo02 mins

Last week we had a special episode of the Gamification Revolution, the only live gamification webcast featuring Gabe Zichermann and fellow gamification experts happening every Monday at 1PM ET/10AM PT/1800 GMT. We were lucky enough to have Asi Burak, Co-President of Games for Change, and speaker at GSummit SF 2013 for a little Games for Change special episode.

Watch this week’s episode to get hear Asi’s approach towards social impact games and why he believes games are the best medium for affecting change. In essence, games are a unique medium to convey stories. Traditional medium simply tells you what to believe and what is or isn’t right. Games are unique in that they enable a player to experience multiple perspectives on an issue and allows them to make a personal conclusion through player choice and actions. Learn more about Asi’s approach below:

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Be sure to check out the Gamification Revolution next week to see legendary designer, Jesse Schell, as our next guest.

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Prominent Gamifiers: Asi Burak

Ivan Kuo04 mins

As the Co-President of Games for Change, Asi Burak has had a long career using the transformative power of games to promote greater social good in the world. Asi’s path to social impact games began with his education in a Masters of Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon and a BA in Design from the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem. His initial work in mobile gaming with Axis Mobile has led to many significant projects that has been picked up by international media outlets. Some of this exceptional work includes:

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How to Use Badges for Positive Growth

Sudarshan Gopaladesikan011 mins

It isn’t uncommon to hear the gamification sphere talk about the dangers of using badges. People claim they are typically used as an extrinsic reward, which leads to consumers quickly losing interest in gamified applications and services. Couple this danger of using badges with Gartner’s prediction that 80% of gamified solutions will fail by 2014 due to poor design, companies and designers looking to adopt gamification as a strategy to meet business objectives need to be aware of useful implementations.

That said about being meticulous on design, badges can still be used effectively as a positive growth tool. This past spring and summer, Global Kids—a premier non-profit organization dedicated to developing youth leaders that come from underrepresented demographics—conducted a beta-tested study on “Six Ways to Look at Badging Systems Designed for Learning”.

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