The Third Annual Games for Change conference kicked off at The New School University in New York today. The conference looks at using video, mobile and video games (they call them digital games, I like it.) for social change.

The keynote was delivered by Stephen Johnson, of Everything Bad is Good for You fame, and speakers include WatercoolerGames Ian Bogost, Smart Bomb's Heather Chaplin and Raph Koster.

The event highlights the growing importance of this once marginal effort to educate and inform through games. The conference includes an expo with nearly a dozen very interesting and informative games presented. Some of the titles include Bogost's Disaffected, Sundanese-life simulator Darfur is Dying and anti-capital punishment game Death Penalty Fun.

Missing from the expo was Columbine Super Massacre RPG, which I heard was in the works to make an appearance. If there's any place that such a game could get a thoughtful review and some interesting comment, it would have been at the Games for Change conference. I'll have to ping Bogost when he gets back to see if it was discussed. Brian Crecente

Games for Change

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