2019 Games for Change Festival

Game design is a scary thing for filmmakers past, but not for us filmmakers now. This is how game design persists in all forms of creative – and how a singular perspective still can reign true through it all.

What could idea activation look like in XR? Multidisciplinary artist Nancy Baker Cahill combines her fine art and social practice through her free, public art platform, the 4thWall app. Her projects seek to increase access to site-specific, collaborative public art in AR and to prompt dialogue and unlikely communities. In this talk, she explores the cultural value of inclusive creative expression and resistance.

This talk will summarize some of the most exciting affordances of virtual and augmented reality, spatial computing, and immersive storytelling that can be leveraged for the transformation of an individual's consciousness or collective culture. In the midst of great chaos and uncertainty, there are emerging technologies that can cultivate regenerative culture and provide us with embodied experiences of more optimistic speculative futures. Come hear about the frontiers of consciousness hacking, worldbuilding, & immersive storytelling.

Despite its potential to provide tremendous economic and social benefits, extended reality (XR) carries new physical, mental and social risks that require business leaders to proactively design, build and deploy XR tools and business models responsibly from the start, according to a new report from Accenture.

This presentation will provide an overview of new research findings for XR across various industries, including the opportunities, challenges and key actions organizations should take going forward to succeed.

Robin Hunicke is the co-founder and CEO of Funomena, and independent game studio located in the heart of downtown San Francisco. Known for creating uniquely engaging games for both traditional and emerging platforms, Funomena’s first commercial release Luna will come to PlayStation and PSVR in the fall of 2018. Robin has been designing games for over 20 years, and has a background in production as well as computer science, fine art and game studies. Best known for her work on the award-winning PS3 title Journey, her past titles include The Sims2, MySims, and Steven Spielberg’s Boom Blox series for the Nintendo Wii. Recognized in 2018 as one of the top 10 most influential Woman in Games, Robin is an evangelist for diversity of thought and participation in game design and game culture, and speaks internationally on the topic of games, innovation, diversity and inclusion. As part of her continued outreach, Robin founded the Arts, Games & Playable Media BA program at UC Santa Cruz in 2014. An Associate Professor within the Arts Division, she also runs the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program. Robin is dedicated to expanding the reach of games, broadening the topics they engage with and the exploring the technologies on which they can be made.

As technology has become more mobile, it’s become increasingly more inclusive. With spatial computing comes a new and robust feature set that allows for empathetic experiences and interactions with the digital. Diverse teams, equipped with a deep understanding of the needs of their communities, are leveraging this new computing paradigm to create meaningful change. This talk will explore how Magic Leap is working with these diverse teams to foster a new wave of inclusive applications.