The video is now up from my talk at American University on Games to Empower Neighborhoods: How a new kind of game is building local networks and promoting sustainable business. The talk features the games Macon Money, NYC Commons, and contrasts with 311-style apps like See-Click-Fix.
Abstract: A new class of civic games is affecting the real world. Real-world games can go beyond education and training by attempting to get something done, like raising funds or building trust across race and class divides. Different models are needed to understand the impact of such games, especially for local empowerment. Results will be discussed from a particularly bold experiment by the Knight Foundation, where a new game was created to structure economic activity, and fight socio-economic segregation. This talk offers a new way to understand how game-based activities can drive economic development alongside community empowerment, and how to evaluate some of the unusual risks of algorithmic policy.
Afterward, a nice summary of the talk was posted by Pat Aufderheide of the Center for Media and Social Impact (CMSi); and the Commons Lab wrote about the talk with more quotes, which was reblogged by the Governance Lab at NYU.
See also: my prior article on Learning within Real-World Action (2012), published by IJLM from MIT Press (see full cite, with Jeff Watson and Susana Ruiz).
This research was only possibly thanks to the generosity and prior work of Madeleine Taylor of Network Impact in partnership with Anne Whatley of Cause Communications (see also their excellent report for the Knight Foundation).
Co-sponsors of the talk included the Serious Games initiative at the Wilson Center, the AU Game Lab and AU Center for Media and Social Impact, and the AU Library.
(From the AU event page for this Faculty Forum.)
