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State of International Gaming
- 1. Gaming Working Group June 2012
- 2. Case studies Raise the Village 3rd World Farmer EVOKE Pamoja Mtaani Bulletproof Inside the Haiti Earthquake Pros and Cons
- 3. Outreach: Fundraising/ Programmatic: Engagement, Awareness Raising Learning, Behavior Change Purpose Increase awareness of a cause Fulfill program objectives in and/or raise money or other the developing world (e.g. resources increase awareness of HIV/AIDS among youth) Primary Audience Developed world Developing world Platforms Internet (flash), smart phones Basic mobile devices, low and tablets, Facebook bandwidth computers, Facebook Examples 3rd World Farmer, Bulletproof Evoke, Pamoja Mtaani
- 4. A highly rated iPhone app created in the popular Farmville-style format. Virtual itemsreal-world contributions to a village in Uganda
- 6. 3rd world farming simulation. Played ~4 million times since its launch in 2005. 50,000 visits per month. Gamers presented with various challenges over which they have little control
- 8. Benefited from high production value, World Bank funding. “Levels of participation in EVOKE greatly exceeded expectations” Due to its success, the game is being run again this year.
- 9. Over 177,673 unique visitors to www.urgentevoke.com Site received 2,345,000 page views Time per visit averaging over 8 minutes (2.5 min is the Internet average) Players submitted over 23,500 blog posts (about 335 each day); 4,700 photos, and over 1,500 videos during the 10 weeks of game play
- 10. 19,386 people (11.3% of visitors) registered as players 6,618 people (34% of registered players) completed at least one mission
- 11. Only 142 people (0.73 % of registered players) completed all ten missions 73 people (0.37% of registered players) submitted Evokations.
- 12. In terms of page views and time spent on site, visitors to urgentevoke.com demonstrated substantially higher levels of engagement than those visiting worldbank.org, kiva.org or unesco.org.
- 15. From these budget figures, the following can be inferred: Cost per registered player: $32 Cost per active player: $94 Cost per South African player: $615 Cost per evocation developed: $8,520
- 16. High production value Local artists, developing world target audience, potential to have a direct impact
- 17. Lack of distribution; available only at a limited number of youth centers in Nairobi Lack of awareness of game among target audience (Kenyan youth) Ex: Youtube commercials not necessarily widely available due to lack of internet accessibility.
- 18. Impact: over 4,000 youth played between December 2009 and March 2011 Among males, exposure to the video game increased their intention to initiate secondary abstinence, utilize services (STI treatment and VCT) and reduce sex with older partners. Males also showed increased self-efficacy for condom use. Among females, exposure to the video game increased their intention to delay sexual debut, self efficacy for reducing concurrent sexual partners and for correct and consistent condom use.
- 19. Early and consistent involvement from the field is essential Group game design/multiple contributors was hard to balance Too much content: 5 BCC objectives for 2-3 hour game pilot Implementation must be considered and budgeted from the beginning
- 20. Created by Amnesty International Illustrates the violence of an execution. Metaphor for Amnesty International’s work
- 21. A creative fundraising approach 99 cent download cost “A video game is a piece of art, and like books or movies, they can help to spread awareness about some issues”
- 22. Amnesty Int’l - France Seeks new approach to engaging donors for their 50th anniversary ~55,000 downloads at La Chose $0.99 each French advertising agency volunteered their time and suggested using a game Mobigame French mobile game company developed the game and donated their time to Amnesty Int’l Bulletproof game
- 23. Looks at the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti Shown from the perspectives of a survivor, an aid worker, and a journalist
- 24. Feedback on Inside the Haiti Earthquake: Has been used at McGill University to illustrate the complexity of humanitarian response Game players have praised it for providing a spectrum of responses rather than “right” and “wrong” choices. Players reported contradicting emotional responses; repulsion by graphic images as well as a strong desire to engage.
- 25. A safe, cost-effective way to illustrate the complexities of humanitarian aid operations. More engaging than traditional forms of media.
- 26. Raises the profile of a particular cause Can increase interest and future funding Potential to go viral More engaging than other media forms Possibility of direct, real-world impact Repeat engagement Crowdsourcing to solve difficult problems
- 27. Creates safe, anonymous space Provides alternative interaction models other than peer/peer, teacher/student Serious games recreate challenging situations Memorable cultural learning Learner-centered rather than teacher- centered
- 28. Potential for expansion: People worldwide spend a total of 3 billion hours a week on video games. The US alone has over 180 million people who play video games for an hour or more a day. Expanding knowledge base In the past 20 years, the number of academic papers and books on the subject of serious games has skyrocketed.
- 29. If poorly distributed/marketed, will have very low impact Genuinely difficult to design an interesting game Mission issues Difficult to get people physically engaged
- 30. Can be expensive to make Real-world linkages require staff, which increases costs Lack of expertise/knowledge on how to produce a game Costs may outweigh benefits Other potential difficulties?
Editor's Notes
- I’m going to try to give an overview of the state of gaming for international development. The idea is to drill down into a couple of case studies to start answering questions about things like cost, how games get made, and who is involved. During the presentation, if there are things you’d like to see more of, items you would like more information about, please let me know. If there is a lot of interest in some of this stuff, we can set up independent sessions about that topic. I can already tell you our next meeting with focus on using M&E in games—how you measure how many people have played and what impact they game has had. If there are other topics you are really interested in, please speak up.
- For the purposes of the GWG, I’m breaking down the games into two main categories
- A highly rated game created for the iPhone.Uses the farmville style format.Real-world component. Players spent real money to purchase items in the game. In-game currency called Florins. That money is contributed towards buying goods like clothing, medicine, and food for a real village in Uganda.Players are sent real-world images of the impact their contribution is making
- Overall the game has been highly reviewed as a successful example of building on a popular game model and combining it with philanthropy.Some of the serious game benefits visible here are the possibility of repeat play, the real-world engagement, wide market reach, and it raises the profile of a specific cause. The company that produced this and completes the programming in Uganda is actually a low-profit limited liability company (not an NGO).They keep staff in Uganda for distribution and targeting, and have a host of programmers and artists in the U.S.
- 3rd World Farmer is a farming simulation game set in a nonspecific country. The goal is to educate players about the many hardships faced by rural farmers in poor countries over which they have little control. These include bad weather, poor harvests, civil war, illness, fluctuating market prices, among others. a twist on the popular farming game trope, as is Raise the Village.According to the game’s designer FrederikHermund, the game has been played approximately 4 million times since it was created in 2005. The website currently receives around 50,000 independent page visits per month. He claims that these numbers are currently growing as the game is being mentioned increasingly on both game sites and educational portals such as edmondo.com. This is a good example of a game that required a relatively low budget to create, but has had a significant reach. One of the main reasons for this is that the game, according to a number of reviews from independent gaming websites, is genuinely fun to play. Reviewers note that the challenges it illustrates can be disheartening (which is part of the point), but the game remains engaging enough for players to keep taking part.
- A massive multiplayer online educational game. Goal of driving large scale collaboration for social change. First round played out with a focus on South Africa. Next round will focus on Brazil. Considered one of the most successful serious games ever created.A 10-week run time with the goal of using crowdsourcing to find optimal solutions to social problems.
- Let’s take a closer look at some of the statistics
- (Positive)Over 177,673 unique visitors to the urgentevoke.com websiteOver 2.3 million page views on the urgentevoke website, with time per visit averaging over 8 minutes, nearly 4x the internet averageEvoke generated almost 10% of the World Bank’s entire external website traffic (1.1 million out of 12.1 million page views)
- What does this mean in terms of the absolute number of players? It is worth noting that a small percentage of players visiting the website registered as players, and only about a third of registered players completed at least one of the game’s ten mission.
- Negative: Only 142 people completed all ten missions/quests. 73 people submitted Evokations, which were essentially simple proposals for small grants for projects to improve the players’ communities.
- This data was taken from a survey the World Bank offered registered players at the conclusion of the 10-week game time. 518 players took the survey.
- Information from the same survey of 518 players.
- Active players are defined as players who completed one or more quests or missions. Active players made up 34% of all registered players. Overall: Most compelling example of real-world crossover. Because considered generally successful, will be run again with focus on Brazil. Crowdsourcing to solve problems, learner-centered. QUESTION: What other reasons could you see for this type of game being successful?
- PamojaMtaani was the result of a partnership between Warner Bros. and PEPFAR, a division of USAID focusing on HIV/AIDS prevention and relief. It was praised for its high production value and inclusion of local Kenyan music artists to give the soundtrack an authentic feel. Game designed, developed, tested, and deployed in 10 months
- There is currently only one computer in the US on which the game is available, at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank where it was developed. QUESTION: What are some reasons the game may have faced such limited distribution?
- Unfortunately, I can’t find the official final evaluation for PamojaMtaani, but I know there is one out there. Here is what I’ve been able to track down: http://hivfreegeneration.org/wp-content/uploads/Pamoja-Mtaani-Fact-Sheet-FINAL1.pdf
- QUESTION: What do you think about this type of game vs a game such as Raise the Village or Evoke? Does it have the potential to be more, less, or equally effective?
- In honor of its 50th Anniversary, Amnesty International wanted to try a fundraising technique that was both new and involved donors in a concrete way. They approached a French advertising agency called La Chose, which volunteered its time to design the game’s concept and then find the most appropriate game studio. La Chose decided on Mobigame, a French company that had already successfully created hit games such as Edge. Mobigame agreed to donate its time to the cause as well, as a gift to Amnesty Intl. The third level of interaction was with Apple Inc. There were some brief issues about the broken glass effect when a player fails to stop bullets, as Apple did not want its iPhone screen to be associated with breakability. These issues were settled and Apple offered additional technical assistance to optimize game performance.
- There is a short presentation on the game mechanics of this game at the G4C conference this yearThis was a multi-media roll out with an accompanying documentaryFunders: Canadian Media Fund, Bell New Media Fund, TVO
- Many reasons to pursue serious games, many benefits they can provideRaises profile of a particular cause—can choose something very specific and illustrate it in a way that makes it memorableIncrease interest/future funding. The more awareness a cause has, the more recognition and ideally attention it will receive.With increasing internet availability, games have the ability to “go viral”—that is, become extremely popular in a short amount of time—at low cost to the producerGames are often more memorable and engaging than other media forms such as journalistic pieces or sound bites. By participating in the gaming process, players become more invested in the issue.Some games combine awareness raising with a real-world aspect that can encourage people to take action. For example, the Evokations from EVOKE which we will discuss later.
- Games create a safe, anonymous space where players can explore issues that are difficult to discuss with parents, peers, etc. Applies for example to health-related topics such as HIV/AIDS and safe sex practices. In some cases illegal to discuss.An alternative interaction model. In an online forum, a safe interactive space. Would need to be monitored, however.Serious games recreate challenging situations without actual risk to the player. For example, Inside the Haiti Earthquake which we will go into later. Allows players to view a natural disaster and its aftermath from multiple viewpoints without placing the player in harm’s way. Games are by nature learner-centered rather than teacher-centered, because it is the player who directs the action within a game, whereas in a classroom setting for example it is the teacher who directs activities.
- Based on the number of game players in the world and the number of game players within the US, there is a massive market to which serious games can be advertised.There is also an expanding base of academic research being done on serious games as learning tools, particularly over the past few years. The concept of serious games is being taken seriously at the university research level.
- At the moment there are a number of successful serious games, but also many that have either failed to make it off the ground or failed to have a significant impact. Poor gameplay—many games are produced every year that never reach a high level of recognition, often because they are simply not that interesting, despite a good message.One of the main reasons: poor distribution and marketing. The primary function of an NGO is not game advertising. Not as well-established channels for getting the word out about a game or making it available. Fewer funds available for marketing than commercial games. The bottom line: no one will play your game or learn anything from it if they don’t know it exists. Mission issues: in larger organizations especially, there are occasionally conflicts of interest within a group about the way the organization is portrayed. It is naturally difficult to get people to take a step beyond game participation to engage in the real world. There are a number of games that have managed to do this successfully, and we’ll take a look at them in our case studies.Lastly, if a game does aim to pursue real-world linkages, such as with EVOKE, it will require more staff and in turn be more expensive to design and roll out.
- Again, NGOs often lack the budget for game creation that mainstream commercial games have. B/c it isn’t the primary area of expertise, there may be a general lack of knowledge on how to produce a game or what makes a game successful. Benefits of gameplay may not outweigh costs—a learning curve should be accounted for, however. In the case of EVOKE, an overall successful game, the cost of game development when broken down per player ends up being $94/person. However, the game is entering a second round this year—will be interested to see the change in data between the different rounds.