Video games can empower players to make the world a better place

 Erin Reynolds is the Founder, President, and Creative Director of Flying Mollusk. 

Hear me out on this with all of today's increasingly complex and varied problems the solution that we need is and bear with me here superpowers we live in a world where there are so many people hurting both in our own backyard and on the other side of the planet our planet .Earth is literally on fire and securities once taken for granted are now crumbling beneath our feet how amazing would it be if we could just teleport to the other side of the world to understand each other better or let's take it a step further body swap to understand the world through someone else's eyes what if we could get a sense of what someone was feeling without them having to say anything at all that'd be really nice right well here's the thing that I'm really excited about superpowers like these are possible through video games and not just employing them but in making them and it's something that each of you can be a part of I'm Erin Reynolds and I'm a game designer I've been making video games for about 15 years but probably not the types of games that you're thinking of I am really interested in games that not only entertain people but also benefit players and communities as a whole I've worked on games that have won awards the White House have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities and have even possibly prevented suicide we live an increasingly complex often confusing and ever more complicated world but here's one thing that I've learned play Plus technology x cross collaboration equals superpowers let me say that again play Plus technology x cross collaboration equals superpowers believe it or not we all have access to incredible superhuman abilities when we come together as share our talents our ideas our perspectives and leverage the amazing tools that modern-day technology has to offer and then frame it using one of the oldest and most natural forms of human interaction play and this realization first occurred to me early on in my career when I had a bit of an existential crisis you see I was working at this large prestigious game company and I loved what I did and the people I worked with but every day I would come home from work and I would walk by my homeless neighbors on the street I would turn on the news to see unimaginable cruelty happening out there in the world and I would log into social media to see a friend struggling with their mental health and this feeling of hopelessness and even guilt would wash over me because the world clearly needed so much and Here I am investing all of my time and my talent and my energy into basically making toys and that's not to diminish the value of entertainment of course but I couldn't help but feel like I was letting everyone down and I was really angry with myself for that ok so one of my high school teachers back in the day always used to say find what fires you up and make it that your mission and those words kept rolling around in my head as I was trying to reconcile my passion and talent for designing games with solving all of the world's problems and it then occurred to me that actually some of the biggest most positive impacts of my life came from video games so when I was a kid there's this game called Ecco the Dolphin and in this game you play as a lost dolphin who has to explore the oceans to find his pod that was turns out abducted by aliens and I loved this game I love this game so much in fact that I took marine biology classes in the summer while my friends were having fun out of the mall I was learning the anatomy of a clam in fact I almost became a marine biologist because of that game and again that motivates a 16 year old to do all that it's kind of amazing and then the more I thought about the more examples came to mind like how this funky dance game called dance dance revelution completely revolutionized my relationship with exercise or how even to this day I know what dysentery is because of a game called Oregon Trail get anyone else here relate to that yeah that's awesome right so I started to pursue this path of making games that entertain and benefit people and the more I learned about played and made games like this the more it was a field just how powerful video games can become games not only invite people to let their guard down but also to cross the divide into different shoes into other worlds into strange circumstances video games have this incredible ability to allow people to experience the in experienceable to go to places that were once out of reach to see through other eyes to experiment with ideas and actions in a place where failure has almost no consequence to take risk and have fun while doing so so combine all of that with all the amazing technological tools we had at our fingertips today I mean we have things like virtual reality which allows you to be digitally transported into brand-new worlds or augmented reality which layers digital objects on top of the real world or even biofeedback which allows technology to get a sense of what's going on on the inside things like heartrate emotion body temperature and more and I mean that's just scratches the surface I mean we have things like emotion AI and eye tracking and voice control and haptics and smart clothing and wearables there's so much amazing technology out there today and just on the way what we have is this incredible ability to create experiences that captivate hearts and minds to listen to people on a level that's maybe even deeper than person-to-person communication and respond in real-time accordingly so as an example what this could look like let's take a game that my team and I made called never mind never mind is a biofeedback enhanced adventure game that when you play it wearing a consumer heartrate device like an Apple watch or using a webcam through motion AI it could respond to feelings of fear and stress so never mind was designed to be a psychological thriller with intense challenges and really intense and creepy narrative scenarios and if you play it while wearing either the heart a monitor or using the emotion a high technology the game responds to feelings of fear stress anxiety even frustration by begetting even harder and more punishing and more surreal but if you take a deep breath calm down the game will respond by becoming easier and more forgiving so the key to success in playing never mind is learning how to stay mindful of any building feelings of anxiety or stress and learning how to stay cool and calm in moments of intensity and discomfort of course the key to success in real life isn't all that different so in this way never mind is not only a psychological thriller it's also a stress management tool and the same skills that you learn to be successful and in playing never mind are the same skills you can use in everyday life when facing those moment-to-moment stressful and uncomfortable situations that we probably all know all too well so a video game that uses biofeedback and virtual reality technology design and collaboration with video game developers and mental health experts never mind gives players the superhuman abilities to see their feelings on the screen and the motivation and encouragement to understand those feelings and and control them in a way that can help them in the real world it was pretty cool and there are so many great game developers universities companies and institutions that are doing work like this combining fun and technology with different ideas and perspectives and talents but you know the surface has only just been scratched and one thing that I cannot stress enough is this is truly something that each and every one of you can be a part of everyone has something amazing to offer when it comes to this equation whether it's ideas or talents or stories or trade knowledge or academic expertise or life experiences so what does that look like in this context let me give you an example it's commonly understood the importance of finding cancer as early on as possible but how many of us know what to actually look out for when it comes to say indications of skin cancer so a game designer could work with an oncologist to come up with a game that maybe challenges players to keep a keen eye out for visual anomalies on the game board and in this way when the player is playing the game they're inherently memorizing these visual anomalies which could be correlated to some of the key signs of skin cancer and as a result the player are now picking up on ways to maybe spot signs of cancer on themselves or a loved one and may be able to find it smooth they would have otherwise or someone who is or has been experiencing homelessness could work with game developers to develop a game that allows people to get insight into what it might feel like to be homeless I think something like this could maybe be a strategy role-playing game that challenges players to come face-to-face with how they would fare in such a punishing and difficult and complex world experiences like this when created with those who have been there I have this incredible ability to shift perspectives and challenge assumptions in ways that are so unique and so powerful and there are so many great TED talks already about each of these components the power of play the promise of technology and of course the importance of cross collaboration what I'm asking is let's bring these all together I think there is some really powerful amazing things we can do when we combine all these concepts in one place and look I could talk about all this for all day if they'd let me by only have about 15 minutes so let's maybe look at two more examples of what can happen when you combined play technology and collaboration with an area expert okay so to start we have here a match-three style game plus augmented reality is the technology and the area expertise of a firefighter so the National Fire Protection Association has reported that almost three out of five home fire deaths between 2012 and 2016 occurred in facilities that had no or faulty smoke alarms what about a game that's an augmented reality match three game that gives players bonuses for creating matches around fire safety devices punishments for fire hazards or let's combine a flight simulation style game plus virtual reality is the technology and the expertise of a meditation teacher so there's an increasing amount of evidence out there that seems to suggest that mindfulness and meditation techniques can be very helpful and therapeutic for folks who are struggling with substance abuse but I think for many people the idea of meditation and mindfulness can feel may be a little hard to grasp may be off-putting maybe even bland so what about a virtual reality game in which you're piloting a ship and you have to avoid thought obstacles don't destroy them you just let them pass you by try not to get distracted and crash into them not only does that sound kind of fun I think it can create a very helpful framework for creating like a foundation for folks to maybe better understand meditation and mindfulness techniques and look I know that these are may be some goofy examples but seriously the implications of this simple idea has for things such as education communication understanding each other better and understanding ourselves better or unless the possibilities are endless all we need to do is come together and share our ideas our passions our talents our backgrounds our stories our technologies and play a little bit and there's so many great ways for us to connect three universities or conferences and events like IndieCade games for change the meaningful play conference just to name a few and if there's a game jam happening in your area check that out and if you don't know what a game jam is look it up there's so much fun and and look the thing is that this doesn't just apply to video games I'm biased of course but no matter what it is that you do or what it is that you want to do find your inner superpower with this simple equation play plus technology times cross collaboration equals superpowers the point here is let's work together let's use the coolest technology out there to make the most impactful experiences let's create the fun moments and experiences and games and and just movements that we need to make the world a more understanding better connected and playful place thank you.