Sixth Annual Games for Change Festival May 28 - 29 At Parsons The New School for Design New York, NY Sponsored by Foundation Agenda - Thursday, May 28 - Morning 8:45am • Opening Remarks (Tishman Auditorium) – Suzanne Seggerman, President and Co-Founder, Games for Change. 9:00am • Keynote Address (Tishman Auditorium) – Nicholas Kristof, Author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The New York Times. Morning: Strategy Track - Option 1 Morning: Action Track - Option 2 9:45am • Research Hits the Road – Games and Civic 10:00am • Issue Literacy (Wollman Hall) Engagement (Tishman Auditorium) A fundamental concern Games for Change seeks to Fall 2008 saw the release of a major new study– "Teens, address is “issue literacy”— the understanding of issues Video Games and Civics." Funded by the MacArthur and their systemic causes. This session presents three Foundation, conducted by the Pew Internet & American programs teaching youth about games as tools for Life Project and co-authored by Joseph Kahne of Mills exploring and addressing societal concerns: Boys and College, the study found that, "virtually all American Girls Clubs of America game design curriculum, Colleen teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and Macklin, Director of PETLab and Associate Professor, that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a CDT Parsons, The New School for Design; John Sharp, significant amount of social interaction and potential for Professor Interactive Design & Game Development, civic engagement." We are also witnessing across the SCAD-Atlanta; Barry Joseph, Director, Online board an extraordinary surge of civic participation in Leadership Program, Global Kids; Mary Flanagan and teens and college students through new media James Bachhuber, Vexata, an issue literacy board game, campaigns such as MTV's "Choose Or Lose." And the Tiltfactor Lab. Joan Ganz Cooney Center will be releasing a new study 10:45am • Break in May 2009 on games and their application in education and civic engagement. It is becoming 11:15am • Documentary Games (Wollman Hall) increasingly clear that games are a powerful new tool in engaging young people on the most pressing issues As game theory and the practice of making games they carry with them into their future. Panelists: Joseph become recognized as valued pedagogical and cultural Kahne, Dean of the School of Education at Mills College; processes across a broad spectrum of disciplines, we Ian Rowe, former head of Public Affairs at MTV; Michael see forthcoming a movement specific to a new genre— Levine, Executive Director Joan Ganz Cooney Center; documentary gaming— which will position game moderated by Omar Wasow, Ph.D. candidate in African- systems within a framework that questions the practice, American studies and political science, Harvard. ethics, and identity of games. Can documentary best practices help us negotiate the socio-political and 10:30am • Break cultural significance of a game? Do the same ethical concerns and the validity of the “truth claim” affect 11:00am • Games and Assessment, Games and games the way they have historically influenced the Engagement (Tishman Auditorium) efficacy of documentary and journalistic media? How As more and more games are being used and created may designers, filmmakers and activists collaborate to specifically for learning as well as civic participation, the advance and diversity the space? Panelists: Steve need for clear assessment strategies for measuring the Anderson, Assistant Professor, Director, Media Arts & effectiveness of the various approaches is increasingly Practice Ph.D. Program, University of Southern imperative. From well-funded and established game California; Tracy Fullerton, Professor, USC, Interactive projects like Quest Atlantis, to the extensive and Media; Emily Verellen, Senior Program Officer, Fledgling comprehensive studies at University Wisconsin at Fund; Judith Helfand, Filmmaker, Co-founder, Working Madison’s Academic Co-Lab to the more experimental Films; moderated by Susana Ruiz, Doctoral student, Co- initiatives like the NYC “Game School” Quest To Learn, founder, Take Action Games. games and learning scholars share their views on how best to begin a long-term and sustainable framework to assess games for learning. While they will reflect on experiences in their own designs, the panel is charged Tishman Auditorium is located at 66 W. 12th St. to report out in a manner that will allow us to benefit Wollman Hall is located across the adjoining courtyard from some of their experience and insight as we design from Tishman. Follow the signs through the building, assessment for civic engagement and social change in across the courtyard and up to the 5th floor our own games. Panelists: James Paul Gee, Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University; Katie Salen, Executive Director, Institute of Play; Associate Professor, Design and Technology Department, Parsons The New School for Design; Constance Steinkuehler, Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Kurt Squire, Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. 2 Agenda - Thursday, May 28 - Afternoon 12:15pm • Box Lunch 4:30pm • Networking Game (Lang Student Center) Lunch on your own or Grow-A-Game Workshop (Wollman Hall) The G4C community is made up of almost exactly equal parts NGO, educator, industry, and media, and is Mary Flanagan, Tiltfactor Lab, will use her specially- best known for the cross-sector collaborations that designed Grow-A-Game cards to lead the audience in form the core of these emergent game models. This an exploration and hands-on game-building exercise in pre-Expo Night activity challenges festival-goers to creating games about meaningful social issues. Lunch reach across their disciplines to foster an environment on site! Maximum 150 participants. of play and meaning as the beginning of the evening’s event unfolds around them. 1:45pm • Iron G4C Designer, Eric Zimmerman and Karen Sideman (Tishman Auditorium) 5-7pm • Game Expo (Lang Student Center) Leading game designer and author Eric Zimmerman Expo Night is an evening reception where festival- and Karen Sideman, of Games for Change will take the goers can play games, meet each other, and enjoy food audience through the process of how a game is and drink in a lively and informal atmosphere. Visitors proposed, conceived, designed, play-tested, evaluated, will also be invited to play the newest games from our and assessed. A freewheeling and performative session community, including games on debt, HIV/AIDS, and a inspired by the television show Iron Chef, Iron G4C number of important domestic and global issues. This Designer will engage participants from all the G4C year, the Knight Foundation will be sponsoring the sectors including funders, game designers, educators 2009 Knight News Game Award, where we will feature and NGOs on stage in the full game design process. and present awards to the best news games from the The final product: two playable in-session games for past several years. change pitted against each other with a final pitch session to pick—and play—the best one. For more information, see pages 7-23 Contestants: Joaqim Alvaro, Brenda Brathwaite, Tracy Fullerton, Mary Flanagan, Barry Joseph, Frank Lantz, John Sharp, Kurt Squire, Constance Steinkhuler Tishman Auditorium is located at 66 W. 12th St. Judges: Heather Chaplin, N'Gai Croal, Alan Wollman Hall is located across the adjoining courtyard Gershenfeld, Colleen Macklin from Tishman. Follow the signs through the building, across the courtyard and up to the 5th floor 3:00pm • Money and Meaning (Tishman Auditorium) Lang Student Center is located at 55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor New York Times game critic and technology journalist Seth Scheisel moderates this industry-focused panel, with former industry game execs (and current G4C board members) Alan Gershenfeld (Activision) and Sharon Knight (Electronic Arts) in a conversation with Lucy Bradshaw, Executive Producer, Spore, Electronic Arts and Larry Goldberg, former Chief Corporate Office and EVP, Activision Studios, on the challenges and opportunities of engaging the mainstream industry in creating multi-million unit sellers with social impact agendas. Is the mainstream industry ready for a game for change? Is the game for change community ready to make a financially viable video game? How do we bridge the dual (and sometimes dueling!) goals of money and meaning? 3 Agenda - Friday, May 29 - Morning 10:00am • Fireside Chat with Henry Jenkins and Jim Gee (Tishman Auditorium) – Henry Jenkins is the Co- Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. James Paul Gee is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University. Morning: Strategy Track - Option 1 Morning: Action Track - Option 2 10:45am • Funders' Perspective (Tishman Auditorium) 11:00am • Ethics & Game Design (Wollman Hall) New challenges are arising from the philanthropic This panel addresses the challenges of expressing sector as foundations explore how to fund the values through games and the difficulties of emerging use of games in the public interest. What are maintaining ethical game design. Topics include the their current initiatives, goals and constraints? What ethics of games promotion, representation in games, can the community do to assist their work? Hear from and the game development process, as well as the the organizations examining and supporting the work potential