Games for change

I was thinking of ways in which one can spread awareness of humanitarian disasters to the general public through the web and one idea kept stabbing at me: online games. Of course, this avenue has been explored by many people. In this post, I want to inform you of the games I came across that made the headlines.

First off, the popular 'game' on http://www.freerice.com in which 20 grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Program for every time a word's synonym is chosen correctly. I am not here to discuss the logistics behind this or to argue as to whether the game IS helping solve world hunger. In an idealistic situation, this game hits two birds with one stone: gives food to the starving, and improves the vocabulary of the more privileged masses.

Who made this site? John Breen, a computer programmer from Indiana. He has also created three other websites : www.thehungersite.com, www.therainforestsite.com, and www.poverty.com.

Also, check out this website - http://www.3rdworldfarmer.com/ . Here, you can play an online game that simulates the daily hardships of a farmer in third-world countries. It is definitely educational as it gives the player an idea of the difficult situations these farmers have to face.

Finally, there is FOOD-FORCE : http://www.food-force.com/. This game makes the player plan against natural disaster situations for a village/community.

Hope this was interesting. More later.