N.Y. Festival Highlights Growth of Video Games for Good

The New York Times reports on this week’s Games for Change Festival, which spotlights the burgeoning development of video games designed to bring about social change as well as entertain players.

The festival is a project of the 10-year-old nonprofit organization Games for Change and is being held this year in partnership with the Tribeca Film Festival. It highlights projects such as Block by Block, a United Nations program that uses the popular game Minecraft for urban planning in countries affected by poverty or natural disasters, and NanoCrafter, which aims to discover molecular structures that could benefit medical research.

“Gaming is social, participatory, and has learning at its core,” said Asi Burak, president of Games for Change. “These are powerful things for social impact, and it makes sense for us to take full advantage of it.”