My RAND Corporation webinar: Becoming Well Played – The Impact of Gaming on U.S. Culture (and Beyond)

This Wednesday I am thrilled to have the opportunity to present a webinar jointly supported by the RAND Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy and the RAND Center for Gaming: Becoming Well Played – The Impact of Gaming on U.S. Culture (and Beyond). More on that below. But first, how did this ever come about?

In 2006, when I worked at Global Kids, I collaborated with indie gaming phenom GameLab and students at Canarsie High School to produce Ayiti: The Cost of Life (check out a walk through video and scores collaborating to min-max the game). In many ways, that was the beginning of my mini-career in Game-based Learning.

The youth program that produced it, Playing 4 Keeps, was one of the first supporting youth to co-design social impact digital games. We went on to produce many more games with youth, it inspired me to co-found Games for Change, and it became the foundation upon which I worked at AMNH to produce both analog (Gutsy) and digital games (MicroRangers) with teenage co-designers.

I have done so much with game design and game play for learning and it all began with Ayiti. And now Ayiti has brought me this latest opportunity.

Jump from the launch of Ayiti to this past September, 15 years to be exact. Their new director, Rhianna Rogers – just a few weeks in – of the RAND Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy reached out to me. As a former SUNY professor, she explained, she used Ayiti in her courses, and encouraged others to do the same. I had heard of RAND, understanding them as the model for the Stark Corporation. What I soon learned was that, yes, after WWII, RAND (the name an amalgam of Research ANd Development) became the think tank for the U.S. Government on military topics. However, what I did not know is that in the ’60s and ’70s they began to address social policy as well. In fact, around 40% of their research is now on social policies, and they even have their own graduate program in public policy.

That public policy school, the Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California, is the nation’s oldest and largest public policy Ph.D. program. Pardee is also home to the RAND Center for Gaming. Gaming has deep roots at RAND, dating back to the 1940s when, as their site describes, social scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and others pioneered the use of political-military crisis games to study nuclear deterrence. Now, the Center for Gaming supports “a wide range of games to explore the sometimes unpredictable drivers behind human decisionmaking and to tap into human ingenuity, helping policymakers make better decisions and develop innovative solutions.”

I am quite humbled to be speaking to such an illustrious group with deep expertise. I hope I will have something of value to support them in their work, specifically in how they might tie their research to games. Below is the language promoting this internal event:

When we say “well-read” it implies one who thinks deeply about books, sees their underlying structures, and can apply literary lessons to other domains. To be “well-played” has a similar meaning in the gaming space, in that it implies one who understands game mechanics, sees how games build on past precedent, and can adapt games to advance personal and professional goals. How then can one become well played? This presentation introduces recent research on youth and games; explores the impact of gaming on U.S. culture in the past 25 years; highlights how policymakers, researchers, and others are bending games to meet their needs; and showcases various ways to approach the utility of games in socio-cultural research. We will conclude with an open discussion on the topics raised. Attendees will leave with a deeper appreciation of why they might become well played and practical next steps they can take when applying games to research.

Did I say internal event? Yes, this is designed for RAND staff, but if you are a professional peer of mine and would like to attend (Wednesday, 12/8/21
9:00am PST / 12:00pm EST, on Zoom), I was told I could bring in a few of my people. Please contact me directly and inquire if there’s any spots left!