Many more sessions are coming, but here is the first draft of content we’re going to have at this year’s Games for Health Conference including our first announced keynote!
Stay tuned for more announcements and additional information over the next two weeks as we finalize all three days of Games for Health 2013.
First Announced Keynotes!Healing and Health with Virtual RealityFor years, developers have strived to make immersive virtual worlds, and gamers have spent countless billions on the systems that play them best. Software, hardware, and input devices have all leapt forward, but the connection between the player and the virtual world has remained limited.
We’ve dreamed of stepping inside of our games, but the best we’ve been able to do is puppet characters through a tiny window! Until now. Technological progress in a variety of fields has finally brought immersive virtual reality within reach.
During this keynote, Oculus VR founder, and designer of the Oculus Rift VR headset, Palmer Luckey will talk about the intersection of body, mind, and virtual reality, and offer insights into how this new game technology can make a positive impact on the health of people and communities.
How a Mobile Game (and Zombies!)
Six to Start and author Naomi Alderman combine the emotional power of world-class storytelling with next-generation media to make unforgettable games and experiences.
Arguably the best mobile exergame to date, Zombies, Run! has sold over 400,000 copies and has seen fans of the game from around the world use it as a key part of their outdoor and indoor exercise routine.
This Keynote presentation by members of Six to Start’s Zombies, Run! team will delve into the inside story of the game’s development. From its successful Kickstarter debut to its current bestselling status on leading mobile platforms, you’ll get it all – with zombies included.
Over 40 additional sessions are also now posted online including…Games for Autism: Therapy and Diagnosis
This session combines two talks orientated around opportunities with games for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Talk 1: Access Granted: Exploring Video Games as a Therapeutic Tool for Children with Autism
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting approximately 1 in 88 individuals in the United States. General characteristics of ASD include deficits in verbal and nonverbal communication, social interaction, and restricted and repetitive behaviors and interests. Regardless of ASD symptoms, research indicates that individuals with this disorder prefer to engage with activities they find interesting and motivating.
During this talk research and findings will be presented developed by exploring both how and why individuals with ASD choose and interact with technology, especially popular media such as video games and the perceptions of their parents about games and related technologies. Attendees to this session will gain insight on how, and why games might be effective for children with Autism and the best paths to successfully addressing Autism populations with games.
Talk 2: Assessing Play: Using Games To Diagnose Autism
This talk looks at how a game-based solution of interactive social challenges can help to possibly replace or augment existing clinical methods for childhood diagnosis of Autism with a game-based solution.
The psychological and psychiatric clinicians have been the driving force behind our game because they are frustrated by the lack of ecological validity in the most widely used interview-based methodologies. Time and again, parents doubt that the answers children provided when presented with oral descriptions of social situations are accurately representative of what they have seen those children do in similar situations in real life.
This presentation will showcase a system that weaves assessment into a game environment and will include discussions of how it was tailored to different environments and for addressing social information processing issues like those faced by children on the Autism spectrum. Also included will describe preliminary clinical results gathered in early 2013 as this game is shared with both ASD and Typically Developing Children.
Games for a New Climate: An International Collaboration in Research and DesignIs play an effective vehicle for preparing for climate change? Can games be part of long-term strategies for better organizing volunteer-driven organizations? Do academic-driven research methods lead to field-ready tools? Over the last four years, Parsons The New School for Design’s PETLab has collaborated with the American Red Cross and the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre to explore these and other questions.
Games for a New Climate has produced games with ambitious goals: prepare communities at risk due to changes in the local climate; assist the Red Cross staff in training its volunteers; and help individuals and communities better forecast and plan for potential problems, including the implications of climate change on public health. John Sharp, PETLab’s co-director, will discuss the games the project has produced, the methodologies used for developing the games, and the successes and shortcomings of the project thus far.
New ideas for Pervasive ExergamingExergaming is a stalwart genre in commercial game circles now. Extensions into schools have become regular forays of companies often as adjuncts to P.E. class curriculums. Despite all the activity there remains a large gap between the capabilities and sales of exergames as a commercial category and their scaled and applicable uses in organizations such as schools, and even enterprises.
This session gathers two projects and a leading researcher together to explore new concepts in exergaming. Pervasive exergaming imagines a world where the distance between any one user and a beneficial exergaming experience is reduced to 0. There is no major equipment to be secured. Experiences are tied together across modalities and locations and the gamut of activities and presentations moves beyond just a fitness oriented dipiction.
Attendees to this session will get an overview of where exergaming stands today and what sorts of new trends may be signaling innovation and opportunities to reduce the barriers to exergaming reaching its potential. This review will then give way to presentations by two projects that are looking to break exergaming into new forms and platforms.
HealthTeacher is using purposely simple game concepts delivered over the Web to classrooms to create easily deployable movement games into schools that can be played outside distinct periods of P.E.
Fitness Interactive eXperience is creating a browser based experience that acts as a delivery platform of exergame experiences to end users across multiple population types to become a system that could stitch together many distinct forms of exergaming together.
What We’ve Learned From Casual Games and Where We’re Going With Defense GamesFeaturing six years of data collection from ongoing studies on the effects of casual video games on depression, anxiety and cognition, this presentation provides an overview of research at East Carolina University’s Psychophysiology Lab that has been compiling evidence of the positive effects of casual video games on health.
Emphasis will be placed upon the usefulness of casual video games in ameliorating symptoms of physical and mental conditions as well as in improving overall cognitive function/performance. Data from several recently completed studies using physiological and biochemical markers will be presented.
The session will also discuss a new Department of Defense funded projects involving naturalistic games for assessment, intervention and evaluation using mobile platforms.
Attendees will learn about current neurological theories and research findings on the positive effects on stress, mood and cognition, hear a discussion about the practical applications for video games with positive health effects, and discuss the use of naturalistic games for assessment industry.
Virulent & Progenator X : Using Games to Explore the Science of Biology & HealthThe University of Wisconsin’s Games, Learning, and Society Lab (GLS) has created and distributed several games that focus on explaining key biological concepts to the public-at-large. This session features demonstrations of those projects, how they came to be, and what was learned by creating and releasing them.
Two Board Games for Health : Monster Appetite & Aligning Forces 4 QualityIncreasingly we are seeing game designers move back and forth between paper and electronic forms and cross-pollinating ideas between the two modalities. While Games for Health focuses heavily on computer-game based projects this session looks at two recently developed board games designed to address issues in health & healthcare.
Monster Appetite addresses the obesity epidemic, one of America’s largest public health c
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