At the closing keynote yesterday for the Games For Change event in New York, Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, along with interactive media scholar Dr. James Paul Gee, announced a promising new initiative - if teens are motivated to learn about media, then why not reach them through a computer game?

The project, called Our Courts, will be a game designed to teach civics and encourage teens to become involved in the democratic process. It's being developed with input from teachers and curriculum specialists, and will be designed primarily for classroom use. Initially, the project will emphasize the court system, but will later expand to other areas of government.

"What we hope to do is pioneer a new teaching method designed to respond to the learning styles of this digital generation," said Justice O'Connor in an address on the Our Courts website. "Students today seem to thrive on 3-dimensional, discovery-based learning. They're much less wedded to linear presentations of information, and they prefer to explore around an issue. They seem to learn best by becoming fully engaged in an interesting issue, and they do particularly well when learning in a case study environment."

"Digital students crave a media feedback, and they want convenience. Now, we hope to respond to each of these needs in the Our Courts online environment."

Hit the jump for full details from Our Courts' mission statement:

Our Courts Mission
Introduction
The evidence is clear-and should be profoundly disturbing: we are failing to impart to today's students the information and skills they need to be responsible citizens. A recent national survey conducted by the National Constitution Center (NCC), for example, demonstrated that more American teenagers

1. could name three of the Three Stooges than can name the three branches of government (59% to 41%);
2. know the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air than know the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (94.7% to 2.2%);
3. know which city has the zip code "90210" than the city in which the U.S. Constitution was written (75% to 25%);
4. know the star of the motion picture "Titanic" than know the Vice President of the United States (90% to 74%).

As Philadelphia Mayor and NCC Chair Edward G. Rendell noted, "[t]hese results are alarming for everyone who cares about the future of our democracy. The Constitution doesn't work by itself. It depends on active, informed citizens. And that's who these kids are: our future citizens."

The "Our Courts" Project was created to help those seeking to address the evident crisis in civics education. In doing so, we hope to pioneer a new pedagogic approach designed to respond to the particular learning styles of the "digital" generation. Accordingly, over the next 24 months, we will create an online, interactive, and problem-based civics learning environment, entitled "Our Courts," www.ourcourts.org. This web-based environment will be available, free of charge, to students and teachers nationwide for use in classes, enrichment programs, or extracurricular activities. The environment will be content-driven, but will also be media-rich, visually exciting, and highly interactive. It will be designed to captivate and engage students, while empowering and supporting their teachers. Our target audience, at least as an initial matter, includes students in the seventh through ninth grades, and the technology, visuals, and media used will be appropriate to that age group.

By "civics," we mean that discipline which provides students with the information and skills necessary to promote their effective participation in a representative democracy. We anticipate that our learning environment will 1introduce students to the three branches of the federal government and to the Constitution's distribution of power between the national and state governments (federalism) and among the branches of the national government (separation of powers). Beyond these foundational subjects, we will concentrate primarily, at least as an initial matter, on the judicial branch of the state and federal governments.

In undertaking this project, we have adopted as our own the goals of civic education outlined by a study issued by the Carnegie Corporation and the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement ("CIRCLE"), entitled The Civic Missions of Schools:

Civic education should help young people acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives. Competent and responsible citizens:

1. are informed and thoughtful; have a grasp and an appreciation of history and the fundamental processes of American democracy; have an understanding and awareness of public and community issues; and have the ability to obtain information, think critically, and enter into dialogue among others with different perspectives.
2. participate in their communities through membership in or contributions to organizations working to address an array of cultural, social, political, and religious interests and beliefs.
3. act politically by having the skills, knowledge, and commitment needed to accomplish public purposes, such as group problem solving, public speaking, petitioning and protesting, and voting.
4. have moral and civic virtues such as concern for the rights and welfare of others, social responsibility, tolerance and respect, and belief in the capacity to make a difference.

Our aim is to develop a civics education program that achieves these goals by providing content which is not only informative, but also relevant, thought-provoking, and engaging. We will create problems that will challenge students to think critically, and debate rationally and respectfully, about important issues of the day in light of the lessons of history. We plan to embed our problems in a web-based learning environment that will respond to the unique learning styles of the digital generation and that will demand that they interact-in both the physical and the digital worlds-with the materials. Our ultimate aim is to inform and to inspire students to be active and intelligent participants in our constitutional democracy.

The Our Courts Learning Platform
Develop-Create-Provide a pathway for understanding the role and importance of the Judicial Branch of our Democracy

Philosophy of Design
Our Courts promotes the importance of the Judiciary for today's students by utilizing the technologies they are already used to and excited about. Ultimately the instructional modules will be portable to a variety of distribution approaches—a teacher may present videos on his classroom projector or plug her computer in to a TV monitor for group viewing and discussion. Students may download material to their portable game device, or may listen to audio or view video on a laptop computer or iPod. In this way the Our Courts learning environment brings relevance, accuracy and organization while intentionally breaking the mold of traditional 'on-line instruction'. The development teams enjoy the ability to design with this objective in mind—rather than fitting their 'materials' into a lock-step format, educators are afforded the advantage of truly guiding the design and delivery process. This by no means implies a free-form, discovery-learning experience—to the contrary, the Our Courts environment represents a rigorous and credible academic resource...keyed to state and national standards, designed by the nations foremost experts in the Judiciary and in K12 education, working in partnership with leaders in media and technical design. Our Courts reflects the next generation of instructional delivery—today.

Development
June 2007, expert teachers will gather in Tempe, Arizona on the Arizona State University Campus and again in August, in Washington, D.C. to engage in planning, visioning, and development of resources and storyboards utilizing a collaborative Course Development Team (CDT) model. Five development teams comprised of Expert Teachers, Content Area Experts (state representatives from Department of Education), Instructional Designers will work hand-in-hand with media specialists to guide the construction and refinement of engaging and effective materials. A framework for gathering materials, writing curriculum, and associating instructional objectives with educational experiences will be provided via a web-based course design environment. This environment, built upon an existing SAKAI platform, will enable teachers to collaborate and to write and construct instructional materials, building a database of learning objects which will include: Text, Video, Flash Animation, and Audio assets.

This learning engine will automatically link each module to state and national standards as well as embedded assessment tools to measure student outcomes. This online CDT environment will enable a smooth transition of materials in-development to the live, Our Courts learning platform.

Teams will be assembled as determined appropriate by the Expert Teacher / CDT specifications. ASU technical staff will be leveraged to enable rapid response to production needs. This approach will ensure that project resources are maximized, eliminating developer/expert 'down-time'. By drawing from an existing core staff, the Project is able to best utilize funding—in essence drawing from a pool of resources 'as needed'.

Content Creation
Our Courts provides a student and teacher experience that is content rich and interest engaging. Teachers will commission the creation of material and resources—driving the design process in ways rarely available to an individual teacher. Through the CDT model, Expert Teachers and content experts drive the ongoing creation and refinement of learning objects—customizing both the materials, such as videos, animations, discussions, and games—influencing and personalizing the navigation pathways of the student experience.

Delivery
As essential as the development and content creation, the Delivery phase of the Project ensures a dynamic, vibrant, and effective experience for teachers and students. Our Courts provides educators with a set of resources at-their-fingertips (enabling them to assemble an engaging experience for their students) a set of tools to help teachers and students integrate new resources into their classroom experience as well as access online from school, home, or the community. For educators who chose to deliver instruction directly from the environment, a curriculum scope and sequence tailored for a two week instructional delivery timeframe is provided. The delivery environment facilitates and encourages community and collaboration among educators. Recognizing teaching as a relatively isolated profession—with time constraints of lesson planning, professional development, and instructional delivery itself, Our Courts serves as an online community through which educators share resources and approaches and guide the ongoing development of materials and resources. In this way, Our Courts is a constantly evolving resource, guided by the expertise of the board of directors and ensuring quality, accuracy, and alignment with state and national standards, the Our Courts environment enables the participation of educators and students in a way rarely experienced in the academic community.

AMD also sponsored the Games For Change event, where it announced that its AMD Foundation will offer grants to non-profits that teach social game development to kids, including Girlstart, GlobalKids, Institute for Urban Game Design and Science Buddies. AMD also told us at the event that beyond donations, its employees will do volunteer work supporting these efforts.

Part of AMD's support for Games For Change includes "Let the Games Begin," a workshop co-sponsored with the MacArthur Foundation that aims to teach nonprofits how to build games around social issues, and the company will also create a how-to toolkit for Games For Change that includes information and guidance on building these projects.

Full details follow the jump:

- New Initiative Designed to Enhance Education through Game Development -

New York — June 2, 2008 —AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the launch of AMD Changing the Game, the first initiative of the newly formed AMD Foundation. The AMD Changing the Game program is intended to improve critical technical and life skills by teaching kids to develop digital games with social content. The program is rooted in AMD’s commitment and experience in supporting education with the company’s passion and expertise in the gaming industry. The program’s launch accompanies AMD’s sponsorship and participation at the Fifth Annual Games for Change Festival to be held June 3 - 4 at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City.

AMD Changing the Game is a natural fit for AMD, which features products powering the visual experience of the two most popular gaming consoles in the world today1 and which recently launched AMD GAME!, a program designed to help consumers select perfectly suited PCs for high-definition gaming.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to harness the passion that kids have for gaming while teaching the skills they need to be successful in our 21st Century digital economy,” said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and chief operating officer.

In addition to technical skills such as science, technology, engineering and math, digital games can be used to help teach youth how to be more engaged citizens, to see conflict from another’s viewpoint and find positive ways to respond to challenging social issues such as poverty, hunger, disease, energy conservation, water use and global warming.

“Today’s youth are highly concerned about social issues and the current generation of youth gamers is among the most socially conscious in history,” said Suzanne Seggerman, co-founder and president of Games for Change. “The movement toward educating and engaging youth through digital games for change not only raises awareness of the importance of social issues, but gives youth an opportunity to make a difference. As this movement continues to build momentum, we believe that partnerships and grant support from leading technology companies like AMD will be critical to its success.”

Through AMD Changing the Game, AMD Foundation grants will go to nonprofit organizations that inspire young people learn while creating games with social content. Employees will also support the initiative through volunteer opportunities. In its pilot year, the following organizations will be funded:

* Girlstart, is an Austin, TX-based nonprofit organization created to empower middle and high school girls to excel in math, science, and technology. In the summer of 2008, the AMD Foundation’s grant will enable 60 Girlstart participants to attend a program focused on games with social content. As a capstone project, girls will be creating a social awareness event in Teen Second Life, a virtual gathering place for teens 13-17 all over the world to make friends, play, learn and create. The Girlstart team will identify a social issue of importance to them and create an event in Teen Second Life that will help raise awareness and inspire action around the issue.
* Global Kids, is a Brooklyn, NY-based nonprofit organization that seeks to transform urban youth into successful students and global and community leaders. Through its grant to Global Kids’ Playing for Keeps program, AMD has joined The Microsoft Corporation in enabling 20 young people from underserved communities to work with game developers to develop, create and distribute a game about the heroic role of residents following Hurricane Katrina. Last year, young people worked with developers in the Playing for Keeps program to create the game Ayiti: The Cost of Life which allows players to assume the role of impoverished people living in rural Haiti with the goal of meeting some key health, education and quality of life challenges.
* Institute for Urban Game Design, is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization teaching science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills through the hands-on creation of digital games. Beginning in the summer of 2008, the AMD Foundation’s grant will enable IUGD participants to apply their learning in 3-D modeling, animation and computer programming to the development of a game focused on the issue of energy usage. Students will learn about and explore the social issues associated with different types of energy.
* Science Buddies is a national, non-profit organization based in California's Silicon Valley offering a variety of web-based tools that help K-12 students explore science through research-based projects often done at Science Fairs and other school and community events. AMD Foundation’s grant will enable Science Buddies to launch a Video and Computer Games Interest Area on its site aimed at helping students understand and practice what is required to design digital games. AMD volunteers will work with Science Buddies staff scientists to develop project ideas to spark student interest in exploring topics such as human behavior in games, ergonomics, game design and programming and the incorporation of social or educational content in games.

As part of launching the Games for Change Festival, the AMD Foundation, in partnership with the John G. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is sponsoring “Let the Games Begin,” a day-long workshop for nonprofit organizations focusing on how to create social issue games. The workshop will feature interactive lectures by some of the nation’s leading authorities on social issue game development and cover fundamentals such as game design, fundraising, evaluation, youth participation, distribution and press strategies.

Following the Festival, the AMD Foundation and Games for Change plan to co-produce a how-to digital toolkit for nonprofits that includes examples of games with social content, interviews with key experts and additional guidance for nonprofits creating social issue games for the first time.

AMD is also working with PETLab, a joint project of Games for Change and Parsons The News School, to create a social issue game development curriculum for youth. The curriculum is expected to be piloted in the fall of 2008.

For more information about AMD Changing the Game, including a video and other materials, visit www.amd.com/changingthegame. Also visit AMD Unprocessed on Facebook for additional information and regular updates.

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing, graphics and consumer electronics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide.

About the AMD Foundation
The AMD Foundation connects and empowers individuals with knowledge, thereby opening doors to opportunity.

Foundation assets are specifically invested in: Initiatives that inspire and facilitate science, technology, engineering and math learning for current and future generations (STEM skills); Support of employees’ community interests by matching their personal donations of time and money to local organizations and schools (AMD Employee Giving Program); Contributions of aid when disaster strikes the communities where we operate (Disaster Relief).

About Games for Change
Games for Change (G4C) provides support, visibility and shared resources to individuals and organizations using digital games for social change, giving special assistance to non-profits and foundations entering the field. G4C was formed in 2004 as a sub-group of the Serious Games Initiative. Today, G4C acts as a national hub to help organizations network and develop videogame projects beyond their traditional expertise. Its members represent hundreds of organizations and include partners in the games industry, academia, nonprofits, local and state governments, foundations, the UN and artists.

Last night, an expo was held at the 2008 Games For Change event in New York City, to showcase the six finalists in Microsoft's Imagine Cup competition. Students from around the world were challenged to build games around the theme of environmental sustainability, using Microsoft's XNA community tools

The winner will be chosen at an upcoming Finals event in Paris next month.

"This is just our small part we're playing," Microsoft XNA general manager Chris Satchell told us. "It's really a broader challenge to the industry."

Microsoft can provide tools and a platform to support the development of socially-conscious games and to help them reach an audience where they're already playing, Satchell said. "But no magic happens without the creators... it's the stars that really produce."

You can see a compilation video of the six "star" finalists above, and hit the jump to see video of the games, along with more info about the concepts and the teams behind them.

2008 Imagine Cup Finalists

Team 1
BAMM! Studios
Team Members: FlorianMaetschke, Jens JochenIsensee, Martin Wahnschaffe
Country: Germany
Game Name: Image Earth
Game Description: Single player earth simulation game. Your central goal is to build up a strong, growing population and healthy environment •To achieve this you can build cities, power plants, farms and industry areas and place them on a 3D earth which is segmented into many fields. •In the course of the game pollution will become a big problem. Some of your buildings pollute the surrounding ground, others pollute the air. •Research opportunities come up along the way to help develop new technologies that reduce this pollution.

Team 2
Drunk Puppy
Team Members: Kenny Deriemaeker, JeroenVan Raevels, FilipVan Bouwel, Timothy Vanherberghen
Country: Belgium
Game Name: Future Flow
Game Description: Single player 2D and 3D arcade puzzle game that teaches players about environmental sustainability and ecological issues •Transform existing (unsustainable) cities into sustainable ones by upgrading or creating buildings with environmentally friendly features. •Use 3D views to build and upgrade your city. Use the 2D view to manage the connections between buildings that will help improve your city’s environment.

Team 3
ECOThink
Team Members: Frédéric Pedro, Nicolas Gryman, Anthony Chen, Maximilien Paitel
Country: France
Game Name: ECOThink
Game Description: Single player 2D campaign of an over polluted universe that needs to be rebuilt. •Rebuild the universe one city at a time by making smart choices for power that won’t pollute your community. •Tools throughout the game help you make the right eco friendly choices for power. Choose the wrong source and your community will not flourish. •Succeed by rebuilding each community by increasing population and decreasing pollution.

Team 4
GomZ
Team Members: Dong HoonKim, KiHwan Kim, Min My Park
Country: Korea
Game Name: Clean Up
Game Description: Single player 3D campaign to create and maintain your own cube (living space) with the help of cleaners, nanomachines that have the ability to turn pollutants into energy. •Protect your cube by removing pollution and turning it into useful energy so your cube can sustain itself. •3rdperson view lets you control your character as you use your cleaners to remove pollutants in your cube •Gather the appropriate cleaners from Earth, Air, Water and Energy to help you clean a particular pollutant.

Team 5
Mother Gaia Studios
Team Members: Rafael Costa, Guilhermr Campos, Helena Van Kampen, Tulio Marques Soria
Country: Brazil
Game Name: City Rain
Game Description: In this single player 3D “SimCity meets Tetris” learn about Urbanism, Ecology, and maintaining a Sustainable Environment. •As buildings drop from the sky, strategically place them on the grid so the community can grow while still being ecologically mindful. •Encounter challenges throughout the campaign that will help your community thrive.

Team 6
Siss
Team Members: Florian Leckebusch, Frank Goetz, Ingo Koster
Country: Germany
Game Name: Megalopolis
Game Description: Single player game takes control of a robot who has control over the ecological and economical growth of an island. •The player tries to get the highest score by managing an island for 10 virtual years •Build power plants and the most efficient living conditions for the human inhabitants. •Keep a good balance between quick expansion, income and environmental sustainability. In the end the number of people living on his island and the carbon dioxide emission are the keys to beat the highscore.

You may remember World Without Oil, which invited people to visit a website to share fictional stories that imagined their lives in the event of a severe oil shortage. Player ideas were incorporated as part of the ongoing narrative on the site, and players could add photos or mail letters to the game operators. It's considered groundbreaking, because it was one of the first ARGs that attempted to address a real world issue.

So how much does it cost to make a game like that? Sounds easy, right?

According to World Without Oil writer Ken Eklund, the cost of developing the game was $88,000. That's a lot for a game that ran on user-generated content!

It was funded by ITVS, who normally works with documentary filmmakers who produce PBS specials. They wanted to move into the interactive and online space, and had allotted $100,000 for the internet game proposal they liked best — and that was Eklund's.

Incidentally, World Without Oil's began only a year ago today - and the first stage of its fictional fuel crisis scenario was gas prices over $4 a gallon, a number many analysts have suggested we might see as soon as this summer. Yikes.

"We have social causes we care about, but we don't have the means to connect with people who can do something about them. We're not there, but its a world that's possible to see unless actvities like we're doing here today really gain some momentum."

Satchell was at the 2008 annual Games For Change festival, discussing the ways Microsoft hopes its XNA development platform will help provide creative activists and educators the tools and opportunities to connect with the young, energetic audience passionate about new media and world issues.

"People will base their lives around gaming experiences; gaming experiences will permeate their lives," he said, stressing just how important it was for the culture to recognize games as agents of genuine social impact.

So what is Microsoft doing?

"We can't solve everything, and won't even try. But what Microsoft can do is can help with a couple of key issues," Satchell said. Creativity struggles to reach the masses, he said, because it takes a long time for a single idea to make it all the way to the top of the industry.

Instead, he said, "We took everything we knew about professional tools and put it in a free product, and made it easy to use."

Social change games need to be built on the same console that people are playing games on already, he said. XNA is "not a silver bullet by any means - it's just one tool they have now to teach sciences or to teach the science of gaming."

Last year Microsoft announced its Imagine Cup competition, challenging users to submit XNA-built games around the theme of environmental sustainability. Over100 submissions were received from 60 different countries, and the winner will be chosen during the finals in Paris later this year.

And at Microsoft's XNA Creators' Club, people can submit new creations or mod existing ones, and then the community moderates and reviews the material.

"You can have a great game that is fun but says something social," said Satchell.

The bus, the woman told Gasperini, had been provided by the Nicaraguan government, and she had relied on it as her only means of visiting her sister. The Contras - anti-government guerillas funded by the U.S. - had destroyed the bus. The woman, passionate about American democracy, told Gasperini that if he could just tell everyone back in the States about what had happened to her bus, Americans would vote to help, the Contras would cease their attacks, and she could travel to her sister's again.

Touched by her plight and by her faith, Gasperini wondered what he could do to disseminate information about the Contra situation. In the end, he decided to do what he did best: Make a game.

That game, a 1989 mouse-and-keyboard HyperCard adventure on an 800k floppy disk, was titled Hidden Agenda, and it was a huge critical success, discussed on All Things Considered and in Newsweek, among others. Incidentally, the face of the man in the screenshot was modeled on Gasperini's apartment doorman.

Games For Change is an organization developed to support academics, activist groups, educators and the non-profit sector in creating games that act as agents of social change. At the organization's 2008 event in New York, panel moderator Celia Pearce introduced Gasperini, as well as another of the first social game designers, Balance of Power creator Chris Crawford, who's also credited with instigating an informal event in his living room in 1987 that would grow to become the Game Developers' Conference we know today.

The idea of developing games for other audiences than the core gamer, and with other goals than simple entertainment, is often hailed as a "new" phenomenon, as is the idea that games will "one day" be treated in the mainstream as a serious and valuable pursuit. But Gasperini and Crawford are notable for beginning this work long before there was a game console in every home.

"In digital culture, people always assume that they're doing something for the first time when in fact that is very seldom the case," said Pearce.

In fact, back in 1985, Gasperini met Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, still leading the company in its earlier days, and received some advice from him on being successful in the industry: Make a game that your dad would want to play.

Gasperini's Dad loved Face The Nation and 60 Minutes, so at the time, Hidden Agenda definitely fit the bill. Years later, though, Gasperini met up with Hawkins again during the time when EA was specializing in sports sims. They had just released a volleyball game titled Lords of the Beach, and so Gasperini asked him: whatever happened to making games for Dad?

"Well," laughed Hawkins, "My Dad likes watching girls in bikinis playing beach volleyball."

Crawford's 1985 game Balance of Power, a geopolitical simulator where the object was to prevent a war, actually preceded (and helped inspire) Hidden Agenda. But Crawford said that if it wasn't for massive economic losses in a game industry that looked to be about to tank, no one would ever have published his title, which decades later still inspires activist groups to develop social games.

"People only change when they're in pain," said Crawford, explaining why MindScape, a startup publisher, was willing to pick up his game after Atari's collapse left the industry "at death's door." EA, Broderbund and the era's other market leaders took a pass, he said.

Crawford and Gasperini both have faith, though, that a new game industry can be built alongside the existing one, to build games that provoke thought on world issues, that educate and encourage activism. It'll take time, though.

"It's a slow, steady process," said Crawford. "No industry develops suddenly. You have to develop public awareness of it. I figure it'll take at least five years for this to get off the ground, maybe 10 years before we have a real industry."

And unless the game industry ever finds itself in such dire straits again, Crawford said it's still unlikely that social games will ever reach success through commercial channels. "The games industry is creatively dead," said Crawford. "It is 'marketingly mature'. They know exactly who they're selling and the people they're selling to... You're not going to wreak any major changes in this industry."

[You can see the games discussed at the links provided in this article.]

If you were former Bungie designer François Boucher-Genesse, you'd have picked none of the above. Boucher-Genesse decided to leave top-shelf game design behind for the world of learning, academia and social change.

At the 2008 Games For Change conference in New York, where he'd come to learn more about the field of social and educational games, I asked him, flat out, if he was nuts. But Boucher-Genesse told me that Halo 3's massive success prompted more soul-searching than ego boosting, and he explained to me the reasons behind his decision and what he hopes to accomplish next.

"It is hard to figure out what is the impact that Halo makes in the world," said Boucher-Genesse, who is originally from Quebec. He acknowledged having heard stories of people who claim Halo helped them make an easier time of life's trials and travails, but in general, despite the commercial proliferation of Master Chief, Boucher-Genesse felt unsure of what effect Halo and games of its ilk were actually having on people.

"I don't have a clear sense for that... that's why I'm going in a field where the impact is going to be smaller, but at least I'll know that I'm probably educating some people. So I'm going to do educational games... where the impact is clearer," he said.

His primary goal, now, is to play whatever part he can in helping show the world that games are capable of teaching. For Boucher-Genesse, it's less about making a totally new kind of game and more about how to use the game design philosophy that already compels game fans in a broader way.

"I do believe that gamers could be interested in more subjects. I think that games already teach them something, it's just not being recognized as effective learning," he said.

For example, he said that playing real-time strategy games teaches quite a lot about resource management and coordinating various elements at once, but most gamers don't think about their play as being a useful skill - and most games don't offer learning experiences that gamers can apply when they're not playing.

He'd like to see more academics recognize the teaching power of games, firstly, and secondly, he'd like the gaming audience to be a little more open-minded as to possible wider context for the things they play. With that in mind, he's currently working with the University of Quebec in Montreal to research games for learning, and he's also going back to school this fall for a Masters in Education. With more academic research and more quantifiable results, he said, it'll be easier to get funding for future projects.

Boucher-Genesse said his former colleagues at Bungie were supportive of his dreams. Negative or inaccurate perceptions of games on the part of the broader culture, he said, make it very challenging for this kind of socially-oriented learning work to come from within the industry - but that doesn't mean developers aren't interested in creating games aimed at educating and empowering people, and hopeful that such efforts will find success. Microsoft, who owned Bungie until recently, is one of Games For Change's sponsors.

"When I quit Bungie, I spoke with a lot of people... who want to make something that's really good in the world, and they were like 'Yeah!'" He said. "They were really enthusiastic about me going there... the state of the industry right now isn't like 'developers want to make something, therefore they're going to make it.'" Every game has a publisher, after all, and every publisher has to make money.

Many in the non-profit sector, academics and education fields have just begun to consider games as a teaching tool. Now, it looks as if they'll have the benefit of experience from Boucher-Genesse and hopefully other accomplished game professionals as they aim to change the world.