Gaming Versus Evil

Video games get bad-mouthed by non-gamers quite a bit these days. Is it entirely fair? No, it’s not.

Now, I may be slightly biased, being an avid gamer myself, (I mean, my friends and I have a competitive Halo 4 team, called the News Team. We even have team hats.) But, I’d just consider myself more informed than non-gamers.

Video games do have a powerful potential to influence the user due to their interactiveness, and that’s where crude or overly violent video games are thought to be a negative influence on thought processes for young minds; but could the opposite not also be true?

What if there were video games that took advantage of this powerful influence in a positive way? Well, that trend has been happening now for several years and is beginning to gain traction. It is called Serious Games.

Microsoft should really consider the cape for their next generation of consoles. 

I was first introduced to serious games in September of 2011 when I read an article on the Huffington Post about Foldit, which is an online puzzle video game where the objective is to fold the structure of given proteins; the highest score solutions are looked at by researchers to determine whether can occur in nature. Scientists can then use these to eradicate real-life diseases.

So these gamers, few of whom had a biochemistry background, were able to map out the structure of an AIDS causing monkey virus in just three weeks. Scientists had not been able to do this for 15 years. Now, unlocking this structure is just one small step in the exhaustive hunt for a cure, but a remarkable feat nonetheless.

Seth Cooper rocks the nerdy caveman look pretty well, eh?

University of Washington computer scientist Seth Cooper, who is the lead designer and developer for Foldit said "Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans." Wow, now that's a quote. I might get a tattoo of that quote.  

But so this serious game trend has been picking up steam and just recently Ben Sawyer was announced as one of ten winners of the 2013 Dewey Winburne Community Service Award by the organizers of the SXSW Interactive Festival down in Austin, Texas. 

Ben Sawyer, Pioneer of the Serious Games Movement

Ben Sawyer helped create the Serious Games Initiative things like Serious Games Summit conferences, Games for Change and Games for Health. Good work, Ben.

Games for Change just released a new Facebook game called Half the Sky Movement: The Game where players play as an Indian woman named Radhika, and go on quests and face many serious real-world challenges. 

Half the Sky Movement: The Game characters.

I completed the first quest, which consisted of Radhika speaking up to her husband about their sick daughter, selling mangoes to get enough money to afford a taxi to the doctor so she can be cured. Once I completed the quest, it asked me if I wanted to pay just $20 for a vaccine in another country.


Pretty cool and interesting idea to attract a much different audience, right? According to Facebook the game has 10,000 monthly users already.

Games for good? Awesome idea, but can it inspire social change? Comment below and give me your thoughts!

Alright, well I’m Zach Rhodes and this is Computers Vs. Evil. Follow me on Twitter and leave a comment below! You stay classy, planet Earth. 

Computers - 4. Evil - 0.

(Disclaimer: Trying something different - reading the blog as a sort of video blog. Let me know if you like this better than the written form. I included both for comparative purposes.)