CMU gaming summit encourages creativity
Causes seeking ways to marry entertainment to their message
The point of most mainstream console and mobile video games is simply to game for the sake of gaming: Drop the falling cookie next to a pair of matching cookies to clear a row and rack up points. Shoot your way through miles of digital foes to rescue a digital battle buddy.
But what if, instead of shooting a path toward a friend, the mission was to help a traumatized friend find his way back to normalcy? What if dropping cookies turned into dropping bricks, for a lesson on building a three-dimensional cookie factory?
What if the heart and mission of gaming was to use game mechanics to change lives for the better?
Creativity for a greater good was the central theme of Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center’s first Transformational Experiences Summit. Sponsored in conjunction with South Side-based Schell Games, The Sprout Fund, The Grable Foundation and Simcoach Games, among others, Thursday’s summit was an effort to pair some of the nation’s brightest minds in science, technology and engineering with leaders in medicine, education, entertainment, construction and other fields to brainstorm ways entertainment can lead to advancement.
“We thought it would be neat to have an event focused around experiences, instead of just games,” said Drew Davidson, ETC director. “Whether you’re making a short film, a mobile app or any other form of media, the experience itself is what people remember.”
Linking critical experiences with media beyond video games wasn’t just lip service. The center, which is known for creating games with a social impact, was
packed with speakers from across the country with expertise in structural engineering, music production, youth advocacy, museums and other sectors not normally associated with digital gaming.
Emmai Alaquiva, music and television producer and founder of East Liberty based music education program Hip Hop on L.O.C.K., said he’s no gamer. Nonetheless, he found himself among like-minded peers during his breakout session “Yes, Yes Y’all, You Don’t Stop,” a discussion of how aspects of hip-hop culture can be applied toward creativity in everyday life.
“The ability to change lives with the arts, to transform through art and creativity, is what helped me to transform my own life through music,” Mr. Alaquiva said.
Speakers also shared stories of how the creative process led to transformational moments of growth in their own lives.
Bei Yang, creative technologies leader at Los Angeles-based Walt Disney Imagineering, said negative feedback from CMU classmates telling him to check his ego has not only helped him professionally but personally: He went on to marry one of the classmates who chimed in on his attitude.
Although transformative gaming didn’t steal the spotlight during the entire summit, it was star of the show during the closing reception, which featured a showcase of graduate student projects. Twenty-two projects, ranging from “Remembering Randy” a website and kiosk in memory of deceased CMU professor Randy Pausch, to “Patronus,” an interactive graphic novel designed to discourage sexual assaults, were on display to spark a final conversation about the concept of games and media with goals beyond a high score.
The projects, designed by students completing applied research project courses, provide a brief glimpse of collaborative work designed for outside clients seeking to use gaming to solve real-world problems. One such project that has already gotten off the ground is the Triangle Of Life App, a mobile game created in conjunction with Allegheny Health Network that teaches the principles of trauma-based cognitive behavioral therapy to children recovering from crisis.
The app uses animals in an African safari to demonstrate how to handle negative emotions and interactions. Judith Cohen, of Allegheny General Hospital’s Center for Traumatic Stress in Children and Adolescents, said children who have used the app so far have had an easier time grasping concepts taught during therapy sessions. It also had an impact on student developers, she said.
“Helping children who had been through things like child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence and seeing family members murdered was pretty inspirational to them,” she said.
Etaba Assigana, a secondyear master’s student who was part of the team that created the app, said games and other media designed for a greater good are on the rise, but currently cater only to niche demographics. And while he doesn’t think that every game created needs to address a societal ill, he also said it was natural that the idea of changing lives through media would be promoted at ETC.
“One of the things that gives games a leg up in terms of seeking change over other entertainment mediums is the agency involved. You can present them with an idea in the game world and they can experiment with that idea, without dealing with repercussions of the real world,” he said.
“Then they can look at that virtual world and say, wow, I see how that can actually occur in real life.”