This year I attended the 7th annual Games for Health conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Games for Health is a part of the Serious Games Initiative, an organization that helps forge links between the electronic gaming industry and education, training, public policy, and public health organizations.
Game for Health 2011
The Serious Games Initiative strives to use new technology to better healthcare and the overall quality of health for us all.
I picked out four high level topics which seemed to be major themes throughout the talks: Advergaming, Exergaming, Gamification, and Gaming Prescriptions.
I've always enjoyed my time in Boston, and this trip was no different. The city has a great energy; I think it comes from being home to so many people in the process of educating, or being educated. There was a dense fog covering everything for the duration of my trip, only as I was heading for the train home did the fog lift and reveal the familiar skyline.
Advergaming
Three possible definitions come to mind when discussing advergaming:
1. Game created within an advertisement
2. Advertisement created within a game
3. Game that is an advertisement
Advergaming's popularity is on the rise as video game audiences increase and more traditional newspaper and television audiences decrease. Games are unique in the world of advertising since they can tell the message over and over again- without created a weary audience.
A fascinating example that was brought up by Ben Sawyer - the founder of Games for Health - was the gaming world's response to the swine flu outbreak. Non-developers were creating games by the hundreds about swine flu- many of them were highly inaccurate and meant to be humorous. The UK Clinical Virology Network realized the danger this incorrect information may have posed, and teamed up with Persuasive Games to create "Killer Flu". The goal was to create a game to inform the public about pandemic flus.
The game was a highly informative experience, teaching people pandemic flus, and how they compare with seasonable flu outbreaks.
Advergame: PneumoIQ Exergaming
Exergaming is the use of video games as a form of exercise, or to promote an active lifestyle.
Many of the people I talked to at Games For Health were using exergaming in a therapeutic capacity. The games they were using were anything from off the shelf Nintendo Wii games, to in-house productions using Microsoft kinect technology.
Belinda Lange of the Institute for Creative Technologies gave a talk about their use of kinect for therapy. They created their own games and projected them on to a huge screen in front of which the patients stood or sat. Patients used the game to perform simple motions, which were actually exercises designed to rehabilitate them.
Tad Stachs of Queens University showed examples of exergaming using bicycles simulators. He explained how important it was to use kinesthetic feedback. Users of his games became much more involved in as the level of feedback increased and the simulation felt more real.
Gamification
Gamification was a term used a lot at the conference. Some people seemed quite comfortable using it, but others disliked the term and were actively searching for a new word. Regardless of the reception of the word itself, gamification remained an important topic. With gamification your goal is to make a task more fun and rewarding.
Hope Labs gave a talk about a product they are beta testing currently called Zamzee. Zamzee is a game for teenagers that promotes an active lifestyle with real world rewards. In simple terms, the point of their game is to move around. The more physical activity you do over time, the more rewards you get from Zamzee. The rewards are useful too; gift cards from favorite shops are popular options.
Gaming Prescription
A gaming prescription is a link between a caregiver and a patient. It is a way to prescribe something beyond drugs or physical therapy. Participants at Games For Health were asked to give their own game prescriptions in the forms of 8x10" mocked up Rx pads. It was fascinating to see all the idea’s people had as they added their prescription to the wall.
Google’s Chief Health Strategist Dr. Roni Zeiger gave a talk that involved his own discussion of the gaming prescription idea. When he sees a patient he pulls up google body and shows the patient the affected part of the body. He then gives the patient a link to that part of the body so they are able to explore it from home.
Games for Health was an eye opening experience about how diverse the gaming world is. There is a lot more to be done, and plenty of opportunities.
A game prescription
