Human Rights Meets Virtual Gaming

Contributed by Fred W, Kathmandu:

There seems to be an interesting intersection of new technology, youth market and human rights developing. A team of students at USC, have designed a prototype game for a contest run by MTV. It’s actually a collaboration between mtvU, Reebok and the International Crisis Group – who are offering $50,000 to the winning design for a game to raise youth consciousness about the crisis in Darfur.

You can play the prototypes and vote for your favorite on the site. The USC games (‘the village’ and ‘fetching water’), which are two of the four finalists, and define the concept in general. To be honest, they were ripped apart in last week’s Voice but a more sympathetic review is here in Toronto Star.

It might be stretching to call it a trend, but this is not the first collaboration between media companies, designers and human rights organizations to create games that appeal to a certain socially  conscious segment of the youth market. The UN World Food Program did a similar thing with Yahoo at www.food-force.com.  Last year, Sony was almost a partner with us on a game concept relating to the Rwandan genocide which would have used their panoramic camera. And there was even a national conference on "serious gaming" in NYC a few months  ago – details here.