Global Kids

Title card Games as Youth Media: A Six Year Review

Games as mass media. March, 2002

Serious Games Roundtable at the Game Developers Conference. March, 2002

Playing 4 Keeps launches summer proof of concept: games as youth media. August, 2002

“ When youth conceive and develop their own socially conscious games, their learning potential can significantly multiply.” August, 2002

“ [Youth-informed games] can have a positive impact on the environmental and social issues that matter most to current and future generations -- fr om climate change, to disaster relief, to causes for social justice. These games can teach kids how to be more aware, active, and empowered to seek change in the world.” August, 2002

First public event by the Serious Games Initiative. February, 2003

Surdna Foundation funds Playing 4 Keeps prototype March, 2003

DC Serious Games Day. One outcome for the day: seed concept for Games For Change. December, 2003

First Serious Games Conference at the Game Developer Conference. March, 2004

Games For Change launches with first conference. Attended by 42 people. June, 2004

Games For Change launches with first conference. Attended by 42 people. June, 2004

Funding For Playing 4 Keeps? January, 2005 $$$?

Funding For Playing 4 Keeps? January, 2005 @%#!

Funding For Playing 4 Keeps? April, 2005 $$$!

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Playing 4 Keeps receives $500k from new Microsoft Corporation Partners In Learning Mid-Tier Grants. May, 2005

United Nations World Food Programme launches Food Force. April, 2005

Grand Theft Auto’s “Hot Coffee” discovered. June, 2005

The Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, calls for federal game regulation and a congressional probe into the producers of GTA. July, 2005

Fully funded Playing 4 Keeps launches after school program in South Shore High School, Brooklyn. September, 2005

Fully funded Playing 4 Keeps launches after school program in South Shore High School, Brooklyn. September, 2005

Second annual Games For Change Conference, at the City University of New York. October, 2005

Senator Clinton introduces Family Entertainment Protection Act. November, 2005

P4K’s High School principal refuses to sign official form unblocking gaming sites. December, 2005

Work begins on Ayiti: The Cost of Life. February, 2006

Darfur is Dying released. March, 2006

Hopelab’s Re-Mission released along results from evaluative study. April, 2006

Third Games For Change conference, held at the New School. First Game Expo. June, 2006

Second year of Playing 4 Keeps begins at South Shore High School. Second Life incorporated. September, 2006

MacArthur Foundation announces $50m Digital Media and Learning Initiative. October, 2006

Ayiti launched at Microsoft Wide World Summit and South Shore press conference. CostofLife.org November, 2006

“ No matter how bad things are going, you could always be a subsistence farmer in Haiti. Ayiti: The Cost Of Life makes the Oregon Trail look like Candy Land.” -- Slate.com

"Cost Of Life is one of the best political web games released in 2006... I'm not sure which was more compelling, the later feelings of success as I worked that dominant strategy, or the early feelings of anguished sympathy as these people helplessly struggled with no way out.” -- Play This Thing

“ If not for the game's chipper sound effects and almost uncomfortably cute graphics, this would be a sure winner for the Web's Most Depressing Flash-Based Game.” -- P.C. Magazine

"Because… you tend to like the family members (they are clearly upbeat people who are working like dogs) the game subtly combats the ever more entrenched idea that poverty is always the ‘fault’ of the impoverished." -- Play This Thing

“ I discovered that some things I consider crucial -- the wonders of education, children needing to be children, not wage-earners -- are, in fact, luxuries which our economic state allows us.” -- Nenya

“ If you play this game more than once you will see that it doesn't matter which strategy you pick -- getting ahead is difficult. If you choose to focus on any one element, you still have to worry about the other three. Just like real life.” -- Dano

“ Ayiti transmits a necessary message: The dream we live in [the game] The Sims is happening today with 2/3 of the world being so far from it, that survival means success and the dream makes no sense at all.” -- Pablo Moreno-Ger

Foreign Blogs

South Shore High School, home of Playing 4 Keeps, announced to be one of the worst schools in NYC and to be fazed out. December, 2006

Production begins on CONSENT! within Teen Second Life. February, 2007

Production begins on CONSENT! within Teen Second Life.

Fourth Games For Change Festival. Second Game Expo. Ayiti wins first GaCha award for the Best Awareness-Raising Game. June, 2007

MacArthur announces funding for the Game School in NYC, “a new 6-12th grade public school that will use game design and game-inspired methods to teach critical 21st century skills and literacies.” June, 2007

M.I.T.’s MediaLab launches public version of Scratch. June, 2007

Playing 4 Keeps moves to Canarsie High School. September, 2007

Playing 4 Keeps moves to Canarsie High School. September, 2007

NYC Department of Education refuses to unblock gaming sites for P4K, even though Canarsie’s principal signed their form, stating the games were not “educational.” December, 2007

M.I.T. Press publishes the MacArthur Series on Digital Media and Learning. One of the volumes is The Ecology of Games, including chapter by GK on games as youth media. December, 2007

Canarsie High School, home of Playing 4 Keeps, announced to be one of the worst schools in NYC and to be fazed out. December, 2007

Interest in Global Kids Playing 4 Keeps experiences sudden increase, leading to plans to develop scalable curriculum. January, 2008

Independent evaluation of Playing 4 Keeps, by the Center for Children and Technology, released. January, 2008

Engaging in activities that require useful life skills related to communication and collaboration; Learning about social issues; Realizing what goes into designing and creating a good game; and Gaining general computers skills. January, 2008

Development begins on latest Playing 4 Keeps Game --Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City. March, 2008

Launch of RezEd: The Hub For Learning and Virtual Worlds. RezEd.org - JOIN NOW! April, 2008 Shameless Plug Alert!!!

Latest release of Grand Theft Auto takes in a half billion dollars in first week. May, 2008

Latest release of Grand Theft Auto takes in a half billion dollars in first week. May, 2008 Craig Furguson, The Late Late Show

Fifth Games For Change Festival. 350 registered for two-day festival. 160 registered for new 101 Workshop. June, 2008

Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City premieres at Games for Change conference expo. < TempestInCrescentCity.org> June, 2008

AMD Foundation announces Changing the Game Initiative. Supports Playing 4 Keeps, G4C, etc. June, 2008

“ AMD Changing the Game... is designed to help youth... harness the power of digital games with social content, while learning critical education and life skills... through the process of developing and playing their own issue-themed games.” June, 2008

“ AMD Changing the Game helps kids enhance their professional and educational skill sets, learn about civics and citizenship, develop a global perspective, and enhance their ability to contribute solutions to the social issues most relevant to their lives.” June, 2008

&quot;Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.&quot; -- Alvin Toffler, Future Shock July, 2008 - Future

Are we ready?

Title card GlobalKids.org