On Sunday, 05.23.2010 the Nonprofit Commons held a brainstorming session in New York City that was streamed into Second Life. This mixed reality event brought interested people from all types of disciplines together to share their ideas and imagine what an NPCGame would look like. Here is my breakdown of the chat transcript, organized for clarity for your viewing pleasure. If I left anything off, feel free to discuss this in the NPCGames Google Group
Our Goals
To launch a community and create a collaborative game for nonprofits focusing on a specific mission/campaign/issue
To discuss platform ideas, On the question about connecting gamers and nonprofits
To develop a game together
We’re talking about methods and practice steps, Create a collaborative game, perhaps coalition of nonprofits working together to create a social issue game that’s fun, engaging and benefits many groups.
We’re thinking about helping communities, locally and globally.
Because we have a lot to learn from one another here
To find a direction to move toward for NPCGames
To bridge the gap between gaming people and virtual world avatars
TechSoup teaches these tools, offers webinars and shares how to do these sorts of development projects,
We aim to create a gateway for all of you to do more with serious and social games
TechSoup provides community resources for nonprofits, 500K users per month
Brainstorming Ideas from the Second Life Chat
Specific Ideas for the point of the game
Teaching about Universal Human Rights
Teaching about Millenium Development Goals
MMOG was where people would pick one or more disabilities instead of superpowers
General Ideas for the point of the game
Reward system for altruism and goodness
Think of this as coalition-based cooperative gaming that can benefit many causes at once
sustainable
engages non-gamers
MMOG – Massive Multiplayer Online Game
Platforms
Most people were for immersive gaming
Some mentioned text-based as a need for countries where mobile phones are available, and the Internet is really not.
Mobile Apps
Augmented Reality
Alternate Reality
Xbox Live
OpenFeint
OpenSim
Google Wave API
Possible Obstacles
accessibility
learning curve
sustainability
digital divide
cost of development
participation levels
Metrics
measurable world change, outcomes,
“yes….The eight MDGs break down into 21 quantifiable targets that are measured by 60 indicators.” –> if anyone can explain this last one, I’d love to know what this means. —-Update: MDG is short for Millennium Development Goals—-
Questions
Hour Destiny
QUESTION: Do we want it to be graphic or text-based? CoffeeMUD is a great Java-based MUD server, but is text-only.
A: Cross-platform
In Kenzo
QUESTION: METRICS, OUTCOMES? How do you fund this? This is the question from Dan Carli
A: BASELINES, METRICS — > Linked to mission, vision
Jackie Rexen
QUESTION: How can this group include folks from developing countries like Africa?
A: Text-based gaming.
Jackie Rexen
QUESTION: What is the mission and visions of this group? How will this game be different then other good ones out there – like Saving Darfur – Urgent Evoke. What can this group produce that is unique, engaging, user-friendly. How can we get gamers and nonprofits with similar interests to get together?
Moundsa Mayo
Question: Should the group consider development of a table-based game creation tool? This would allow creation of many types of games with much less programming effort per each new game.
Moundsa Mayo
Question: Do we consider poverty a disability? Life in a repressive regime? Or in a badly degraded environment? Or an overpopulated one?
Previously listed as:
Question: Or in a badly degraded environment? Or an overpopulated one? Do we consider poverty a disability? Life in a repressive regime?
(thx to Moundsa for contact me to get this corrected)
Moundsa Mayo
Question: Why not make sustainability as the KEYSTONE of the entire framework?
A: Moundsa — your question on sustainability was also asked here….mentioned as a framework for all we want to do
Zinnia Zauber
Question: Will orgs with like missions work together?
A: On Zinnia’s question about orgs with like missions working together == YES!
As you can see, some of the questions were answered, whereas others were not. To help us answer these questions, please join the NPCGames Google Group
Attendee List and Shared Links
To view the list of links that were shared during the chat, and a list of attendees both in New York City, and in Second Life, visit the NPCGames wiki page and click on the NPCGames Brainstorm Session Attendee and Link List link.
Written by: Layal