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Community Improvement/Development
Social Impact Games: Do They Work?
Social impact games can help engage community members in ongoing efforts to address local issues such as neighborhood revitalization and disaster preparedness, a report from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation finds. Social Impact Games: Do They Work? (8 pages, PDF) highlights findings from an evaluation of two such game scenarios. In one example from Georgia, players of a game called Macon Money had to find the holder of the other half of their bond to spend it at local businesses. While the report found that players made new connections and boosted the level of social capital among community members, African Americans were underrepresented relative to Macon's overall population and relatively few strong ties were created across racial lines. In the second example, from Biloxi, Mississippi, children between the ages of 10 and 14 played a disaster-preparedness game called Battlestorm, a combination of dodgeball, capture-the-flag, and freeze tag. According to the report, the game increased kids' awareness of disaster procedures and contributed to better preparation of hurricane emergency kits by players' families, but it was less effective in terms of improving preparedness at the community level.
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