A rather lofty order for a video game, but Changemakers and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are sponsoring a competition and putting up prize money ($15,000 in total) to see who can present a game that will make an impact on health or health care - that doesn't just mean newsgames or the like with varying degrees of interesting content, but even games a la Dance Dance Revolution that (surprise!) turned out to be a novel way to get couch potatoes moving.

We expect this competition to shake up conventional wisdom about what constitutes a health game, the market for such games, and the approaches one ought to take in designing great health-related games. We anticipate a wide variety of entries (e.g., existing games, research about games, conceptual game designs that are past the programming stage of development, public or private initiatives for game-based approaches to health and health care, etc.).

Some of the games will likely have been specifically and carefully designed to address health conditions. But, we also hope to discover games that were not originally designed or marketed to improve health but whose application to health and health care has been demonstrated or show significant potential.

Entries close on 27 September.

Why Games Matter: A Prescription for Improving Health and Health Care [via Water Cooler Games]

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