The Road to Hell is Paved with Serious Games

Due to some poor planning on my part, I booked my flight home from the 2010 Games for Change festival for the same time I was supposed to be onstage speaking. Instead of trying to Skype in from 30,000 feet, I had a colleague help me record my contribution to festival’s rant session: “The Road to Hell is Paved with Serious Games.”

This week, Games for Change 2015 is happening here in New York. Over the last five years, the event has grown, changed locations and generally become much more of a “thing” than it was in 2010. Serious games, games for change, educational games and the other names we have for such games have changed as well. There are more game developers involved, and a wider range of companies, research groups, philanthropies, NGOs and government agencies are involved in conceptualizing, producing and funding this sort of game. As a result, the overall quality of serious games has improved.

Still, the core issues with serious games linger five years later. Some of my ideas about games have changed over the last five years, but the gist of my over-produced rant still resonates. Consider this an unsolicited reprisal rant for the 2015 Games for Change festival:

The Road to Hell is Paved with Serious Games from John Sharp on Vimeo.