a blog post about a feasibility study exploring what video games have to offer forcibly displaced and stateless people — not only as players but as creators.
This client work was performed for UNHCR Innovation Services, where I was the Consultant for Refugee Engagement with Video Games for two years.
In video games, players usually fail before they succeed. They face challenges and surprises that are often unpredictable the first time around. To keep trying in the face of failure requires tenacity, resilience, patience and attentiveness, just for starters. Games are known to be excellent tools for fun and leisure, which is innately important, but they can also improve learning, boost mental health, support social and economic inclusion, and generate livelihood opportunities. Because of these possible benefits, UNHCR is conducting a new feasibility study that examines what video games have to offer displaced communities, not only as players but as creators, and to ask what these communities want out of video games.
Dr. Jess Rowan Marcotte, Petar Dimitrov, and John Warnes, “What do video games have to offer refugees?
