The Hollywood Hill has been constantly searching for ways that quality media produced by our members can make a real difference in solving global social problems. As the Serious Games movement rolled out we started envisioning a game lab that could develop significant games that would have real-world impact. As part of our social change education, we introduced the entertainment community to the Games-for-Change movement in 2006 (see Social Change Video Games, The Next Frontier). With the emergence of Facebook into the mainstream and the growth of social video games, we saw that the role of games in social activism could now be ubiquitous and immediate.
The Hollywood Hill established The Play4Change Lab to produce games that would have positive real world impact. Our vision was to create a hybrid lab that would encompass the concepts and missions of Serious Games, Games-for-Change and Alternative Reality Games (ARG). Developing commercial-grade games that can engage large audiences is our highest priority. Helping to develop best practices and a set of standards, as well as impact reports and research for our social change video games is also a high priority. The lab is to be housed at The Hollywood Hill Los Angeles-based facility.
Some of the major obstacles (funding, distribution and user acceptance) holding back Serious Games, Games-for-Change and ARGs can be addressed by bringing in the commercial games industry through The Hollywood Hill's reach, and tapping into Armchair Revolutionary's crowdsourcing platform for distribution and public funding. In order to execute the needed level of quality for broad user adoption, the Play4Change Lab's games will be produced by teams of professional freelance game designers and producers hired on a project-by-project basis, with research on their impact and best practices conducted in collaboration with universities and foundations. The lab's Advisory Board of key commercial gaming designers and developers assists with the development of the games, as well as the hiring of talent, and marketing/distribution strategies. Armchair Revolutionary's new social change website, armrev.org, will provide the funding, distribution and activist leg for the social change impact.
The Lab's first game project is titled Make Waves. Play4Change Lab advisory board member Robin Hunicke, whose producer/designer credits include Steven Spielberg's Boom Blox game and EA's MySims, sums it up perfectly:
"People understand that our oceans are threatened - but it's often hard to grasp the scope or scale of these problems. The goal of the 'Make Waves' project is to inspire a sense of ownership regarding the health of our oceans - by building a connection with each player. Similar to FarmVille or SimCity, we'd like to give our players 'plots' of ocean to care for - exposing them to systems that are crucial to ocean life... and the challenges that life has to overcome these days."
"Actions like habitat destruction, overfishing and pollution have concrete, measurable outcomes like decreased diversity, rising prices and increased mercury levels. Making this connection concrete helps people understand how even simple, individual acts make a difference in the long run. That, we believe, can inspire change!"
"What's more, we're working with a number of experts and advisors to see how "Make Waves" can capture live data about the ocean, or real-world player actions... and use that in the game itself. Blurring that boundary between Science, Activism and Entertainment is what Armchair Revolutionary and the Play4Change Lab is all about."
Full website arriving shortly.