Games for Change London: schedule announced, 02/04/2026
UNICEF! LEGO! Ubisoft! Roblox! Supercell! Award winners! An actual Lord! 😮
We do a really deep dive into the 45+ speakers joining us at Games for Change London
Build a Rocket Boy’s chief goes a bit QAnon with accusations of corporate sabotage
Super Meatboy 3D splatters its way to the front of a quiet week of releases
Hello VGIM-ers,
The Easter weekend is here. I’ll be taking most of it off to visit family, scarf down vast quantities of Mini Eggs, and run on some mercifully flat ground for once.
I had a great time hosting the first-ever VGIM webinar earlier this week, which was all about building healthy video game communities with the help of Catalyst from the Christchurch call.
If you want to catch up with the session to find out about the importance of cultivating healthy communities and get an early heads up on a free training programme rolling out for moderators very soon, you can watch it back in full here.
And if you want to reach VGIM’s audience of engaged (and lovely) readers, I’m looking for partners to support future webinars and events on topics at the intersection of games and policy.
If you’d like to discuss opportunities to work with us, email me at george@videogamesindustrymemo.com. I’ll pick up with you when I’m less full of chocolate.
Oh, and speaking of stuff that VGIM is helping out with…
The big read - Games for Change London schedule announced
Drum roll, please: It’s taken two months of hard work, sweat, and the sending of some emails while I was on holiday in Mexico. But I’m delighted to announce that the full schedule for Games for Change London on Wednesday 15th April is locked down. And if I don’t mind saying so myself, it’s a corker.
A thank you to our partners: The conference, which is supported by Roblox, Xsolla, The Good Game Club, Ubisoft, Tiltify, and Catalyst (hey, we know those guys!), is taking place at the Leonardo Tower Bridge Hotel in the heart of London and is offering up two tracks of content dedicated to the theme Community Channelled.
It’s bigger than that George, it’s large: Every session aims to help our 150+ attendees think about how to use the power of their communities – whether they’re playing your games or making them – to create meaningful, positive impact in the real world. And to help us achieve this, we’ve got over 45 honking big names from the world of games, civil society, and even the ruddy House of Lords chipping in.
Speaking out
Pithy pitch: Our main conference room is offering up talks, fireside chats, and panels designed to get you thinking about the power of game communities broadly, to consider how to create impactful digital environments for them to thrive, and to then direct that impact into building a better world.
The Games they are a Changin’: To kick proceedings off from just after 9am, we’ve got three scene-setting sessions. Susanna Pollack, Games for Change’s President, will be talking about the organisation’s work over the past 25 years with Alan Gershenfeld, Co-Founder of BAFTA award-winning impact-focused game studio E-Line Media.
Truly Remarkable: They’ll then be followed by an interview between documentary filmmaker Alysia Judge and ex-Norwegian politician Robert Steen, who’ll be talking about what society can learn from the lessons of the documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, its forthcoming feature film adaptation starring Stephen Graham, and the success of Norway’s Ibelin Prize in celebrating positive community behaviour.
Parent power: The opening chunk will close off with a chat about the importance of parents to the video game community, featuring Susanna once again, Dr Rachel Kowert of VGIM webinar fame, Andy Robertson from the Family Gaming Database, and Tencent’s Senior Director for Global Video Game Policy Ben Golant. I’ll be on moderating duties for that one.
The RITEC stuff: And from 10am onwards, a special workshop targeted at game developers and designers making games for youngsters will kick off. The 90-minute-long Designing Gaming for Children’s Well-Being workshop, hosted and facilitated by UNICEF, LEGO, and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, will give designers a chance to learn how to apply the RITEC Design Toolbox, which aims to enhance children’s well-being through play. There are only 50 spaces available for this highly interactive workshop, so you'd better be in the room nice and early if you want to come along.
London’s community calling
Making Hay Day: After our morning break, we’ll head into three sessions discussing how you can build community impact within games themselves. The session will open with a talk from Maya Hofree, General Manager of Hay Day, and Deborah Mensah-Bonsu, Supercell’s Social Impact lead and Games for Change London advisory board member, about empowering Hay Day’s community to take meaningful social action. A great contribution from a relatively new part of the London games scene.
Oh my GOSH: Our attention will then turn to the fundraising success story of Great Ormond Street Hospital, one of the UK and London’s most beloved charitable causes. Benjamin Austwick and Sarah Bissell will talk through the ins and outs of a creator-powered campaign which raised nearly half a million pounds for the hospital by leaning into the power of play.
Powerhouse prosocial panel: We’ll then wrap up the morning with a panel all about how to build game communities with prosocial values in mind. Matt Vernon-Clinch from Preloaded will be speaking to a powerhouse panel featuring Roblox’s Senior Director of Community Safety & Civility, Laura Higgins, LEGO’s SVP of Consumer Engagement Anna Rafferty, Shuli Gilmutz, a Programme Specialist from UNICEF focusing on RITEC, and Ben Cowley, Associate Director of Social and Community at Runescape makers Jagex.
Multiple choice
Branching pathways: With lunch behind us, the conference schedule will open up to offer talks and roundtable discussions across our two rooms. Depending on what you’re interested in, of course.
Doing the Lord’s (construction) work: In the main room, our schedule will open with a panel discussion about using games to help communities around the world interact with and design real-world spaces that work for them. James Delaney from the Block by Block Foundation will host this session, where he’ll be joined by Lord Gascoigne, Amy Jenkins-Le Guerroué from Ubisoft, and planners and designers such as Nissa Shahid from ARUP and Tessa McCann of Publica.
Playful partnerships: There will then be a session dedicated to how playful communities from games and sports come together. Special Effect and Stevenage FC will be speaking about their charity partnership alongside the team’s shirt sponsor Xsolla. Alex Moyet, London Games Festival board member, will interview Liam Lawler from Special Effect, Berkeley Egenes from Xsolla, and Stu Dinsey of Curve Games (and Stevenage FC) about how the two communities have merged digital and physical communities for mutual gain.
Final talks: There will then be three final sessions to round off proceedings in the main conference room. Ximeng Fang from Oxford University will discuss research conducted with Sony Interactive Entertainment, which explored whether video games can meaningfully encourage people to make sustainable food choices. Jude Ower MBE, Chief Strategy Officer at PlanetPlay, and Mathias Gredal Nørvig, CEO of SYBO, will be chatting with Anjali Bhimani, Overwatch cast member and Critical Role contributor, about how video game stories can support diverse communities across the world for a live episode of the Good Game Club podcast. Maria Sayans, CEO of ustwo, will then round the day out with a panel about putting advocacy into action, talking to UK video games hall-of-famer Meghna Jayanth, Trailmix’s Tristan Clark, Sona Bona’s Rosa Carbó-Mascarell, and Olivier Mauco of the European Video Game Observatory.
Join the conversation: But if more interactive sessions are your speed, the second room will be hosting roundtable sessions while the main agenda is running. Between 2pm and 3pm, you’ll be able to join six fantastic conversations about reimagining public health through interactive storytelling (Sarah Ticho and Ross O’Brien from the XR Health Alliance), community-led game development (Tomas Rawlings), games and social mobility (Declan Cassidy of Into Games), creating civil spaces with the health of parents (Laura Higgins from Roblox and Dr Michele Veldsman of Playroom), strengthening learning through interactive entertainment (Justin Edwards of Minecraft fame), and creating IRL impact from digital communities (Tom Downie from Tiltify).
Rounding off the tables: And finally, there will be one last batch of roundtables between 3:30pm and 4:30pm for you to enjoy before everyone heads back for the final main talk of the day. Those will explore the dos and don’ts of social impact in games (Wayne Emanuel, CTRL+IMPACT), how to support neurodivergence in game communities (Cinzia Musio, Ukie), boosting games leadership (Mel Phillips from Games Leadership), how to harness player communities through green game content (Louie Keight from Playing for the Planet, plus reps from Supercell, TreesPlease and SYBO) crafting safer communities in partnership with players (Galen-Lamphere Englund alongside Dr Rachel Kowert), and the importance of game preservation to telling our industry’s story (John O’Shea, The National Video Game Museum).
Join us at the conference
Scholarships aplenty: Phew, what a lot of great speakers, eh? So, how can you attend the conference? Well, the good news is that dozens of our attendees have had their passes to Games for Change subsidised by our scholarship partners. The UK Game Angels, YRS TRULY, and Futurlab have helped fund attendees from community organisations like Limit Break, IGDA London, Out Making Games, Into Games, and the University of Manchester to open our doors to as wide a community as possible.
Plugging that ticket link: But if you’re looking to buy your pass (or want to check out the full timings for the event, which should be online now), you can do so on the Games for Change London microsite. We’re selling tickets for industry professionals and corporates for £99+VAT, while also offering a concession rate for students, indie developers, and not-for-profit attendees of just £69+VAT. Thwack the tactically placed button below (and scroll down the ticketing page a teensy bit) to buy now.
News in brief
I don’t think any of us expected him to say that: Build A Rocket Boy’s CEO and CTO Mark Gerhard has told GamesBeat that it will be using a forthcoming mission in its game MindsEye to address alleged ‘corporate sabotage’ affecting the game. Gerhard claimed that the company had “very strong evidence” that the negative reception to the game’s launch was coordinated and that “the authorities” are considering what to do next. He also confirmed that a new mission called Blacklist will “share some of the evidence of the sabotage with the community.”
Aussie don’t-call-it-a-social-media-ban update: Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has published a Social Media Minimum Age: Compliance Update to tell the world how its social media ban for under 16s is coming along. It found that the number of parents reporting that their children had at least one social media account had dropped from 49.7% to 31.3%, and that 4.7 million accounts had been removed or restricted. It also found that a “substantial proportion of children under 16 retained accounts on age-restricted platforms” and that the happiness of some youngsters at having their accounts deactivated was balanced by those “celebrating” successfully circumventing age restrictions. Who’d have thunk it, eh?
DRAMatic price increase: Sony has announced it is significantly raising the price of its PlayStation console hardware due to the ongoing worldwide economic mayhem. The company has announced that a base-level PS5 will increase in cost from £480 to £570, with similarly eye-watering increases for the digital edition, the Pro, and the Portal. Rumours that the men in grey suits on VGIM’s board sanctioned the acquisition of a PS5 Pro before the price increases kicked in are almost entirely unfounded.
Nice cash if you can get it: Saudi-backed not-for-profit The Esports Foundation has announced that 40 esports organisations will receive a share of $20m as part of its 2026 Club Partner program. The funding, worth up to $1m for some teams, has been made available to clubs worldwide, alongside less tangible benefits such as “strategic support” and “international exposure opportunities.” Whether those exposure opportunities are “international” or “Riyadh-based” is unlikely to be much of a question (unless the Iranian conflict runs into the summer, that is…)
Mamma Mia: And finally, the Super Mario Bros Galaxy Movie has been tanked by the critics ahead of its release this week. Empire’s Helen O’Hara appears to be representative of the consensus about the movie’s overall quality, describing it as a “humourless, hysterical trudge” before saying that its plot amounts to nothing more than “a series of moments scavenged from multiple games that happen one after another.” Given that the first movie was not exactly beloved by the critics and still made money hand over fist, don’t expect this critical shoeing to slow its momentum too much.
Moving on
Alexander Rehm has a new position as Product Director, Epic Online Services, Web & Tools at Epic Games…Charlotte Willis has been promoted to Creator and Community Director at Diva Agency…Siân Harding has a new title at Mishcon de Reya as a Managing Associate… Mathew Jones has been promoted to Senior Social Producer at IGN Entertainment…And Sidharth Kedia has been appointed as Chief Strategy and Investments Officer at esports biz Nodwin Gaming…
Jobs ahoy
The LEGO Group is still searching for its Creative Play Lead…Get ready to fight every comms person going for the Associate Director of Communications, UK and Ireland post at Rockstar…Or if that doesn’t float your boat, why not become the Senior Associate Director - Gaming at WPP-owned Burson…Playdemic has opened a post for a Senior Development Director…And let us round off a comms-heavy jobs round with Supercell’s hunt for a Communications Strategist, Games Communications in New York…
Events and conferences
London Games Festival, London - 13th-19th April
Games for Change Summit, London - 15th April
BAFTA Games Awards, London - 19th April
gamescom Latam, São Paulo, 29th April - 3rd May
Summer Games Fest, Los Angeles - 5th-8th June
Games of the week
Super Meat Boy 3D - Die over, and over, and over, and over again in this super hard platformer. This time in 3D!
Darwin’s Paradox - If you prefer your platformers to be a bit more mascoty, why not give this relatively well-reviewed octopus-’em-up a go.
GRIME II - Loved the first GRIME metroidvania? Then chances are you’ll probably like this one too (ok, it’s a thin week for releases, I’ll admit it…)
Before you go…
Hey, everyone! Game Maker’s Toolkit is back! And Mark is giving us what we all desperately want: a deep dive into Zelda.
In his first video since becoming a Dad (congrats!), Mark asks what’s next for the adventure series now that Breath of the Wild and Twilight Princess have completely exploded its traditional formula.
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