Three lessons from Games for Change London, 16/04/2026
Unpicking the 80/80 dilemma, the value of consistent campaigning and oh Lords (like games) đ
We wrap up three big lessons from Games for Change London
Video game spend hits ÂŁ8.76bn in the UK, says Ukie
Weâre excited to play Vampire Crawlers at New Game Plus this week
Hello VGIM-ers,
London Games Festival has been taking place this week. That means things have been busier than working the morning shift at the Pitt.
Weâll give you a speedy rundown of what we learned at this weekâs Games for Change Summit shortly. But Iâve got a few things to tell you about.
Iâm currently in a taxi on my way to Sky News to talk about the economic impact of the video games industry. Iâll be live at 8:40am UK time today, unless I get bumped for something more interesting (note: that is eminently possible).
Next, the first London tour date for the Power Play book tour has been announced.
Join me on Tuesday 16th June at Backstory in Balham to hear about the making of the book, why games have become a channel for political influence and nab your hardback two days before launch by buying a ticket here.
Finally, and somewhat excitingly, Iâm heading into the studio next week to record the audiobook version of Power Play so you can listen to me read it/fall asleep to my witterings after Thursday 18th June.
However, that does mean Iâll be forced to spend four days in a padded room talking to myself. Expect a shorter VGIM next week as a result.
The big read - Three lessons from Games for Change London
We need a big lie down: Well, we did it. After two months of hard work, many emails and only a handful of meltdowns, Games for Change London went off with nary a hitch.
Full house: Over 200 industry professionals piled into the Leonardo Hotel near Tower Bridge to attend a day full of talks, roundtables, panels and workshops designed to channel the power of video game communities to deliver good in the world. All of it was ably supported by the eventâs partners Roblox, Xsolla, the Good Game Club podcast, Ubisoft, the Christchurch Call and Tiltify.
Get ready to learn: But what on earth could we learn from all those fabulous talks? Here are three things that VGIM learned from the day that we think youâd be interested in.
We need to solve the 80/80 dilemma if we want to win over parents and policymakers
80/80 vision: Robert Steen knows the power of video games. The story of his son Mats Steen, who found friends, love and purpose in video games when a degenerative muscular disease would have otherwise stopped him, reached millions through the documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin. But Steen thinks that the impact of such stories canât reach beyond games until the industry resolves a thorny problem: the 80/80 dilemma.
Major misunderstanding: âThe 80/80 dilemma is that 80% of our teenagers are regular gamers, but 80% of parents donât know what theyâre doing online,â he told documentary film-maker Alysia Judge. âThe most popular leisure activity is not understood by parents. Youâve read Lord of the Flies, you can see what young people can do without them [present in those spaces].â
Social solutions: But unlike many with a background in politics, Steen believes that the solution to the problem cannot be found in restrictive laws. Instead, itâs about working with civil society to celebrate when players reach standards within games that resonate with the behaviour in the physical world that we love to see.
Prime Minister of life: In Norway, this led to the creation of a civil society award called The Ibelin Prize, which celebrated a young person who made an outstanding positive contribution to Norwegian life via a game community. And with Steen seeking to recreate a prize that was built on the direct instruction of Norwayâs Prime Minister and Culture Minister around the world, the industry has an opportunity to resolve the 80/80 dilemma in partnership with key audiences â rather than in opposition to them.
Games have been changing society for a lot longer than you think
The long game: Games for Change is a new addition to the London Games Festival. But the idea that games have the potential to drive change is older than I am.
Well into adulthood: In the opening session of the conference, Alan Gershenfeld, President of E-Line Media, and Susanna Pollack, President of Games for Change, showed that Games for Changeâs 25-year-long life span started decades after the first game-changing titles entered the market.
Still shaping our play: Gershenfeld highlighted a number of games from the 1980s that were developed before the concept of serious games or games for social impact had coalesced into a movement. Titles like Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and Sid Meierâs Civilisation shaped the way players learned decades ago. But the impact of these games â and the many sequels, spin-offs, and successors they inspired â is still being felt today because they established why games can teach ideas in a way that no other medium can.
Doing games: âGame mechanics are verbs,â explained Gershenfeld. âThey can be action verbs. They can be thinking verbs. They hit the organic alignment between game mechanics and learning goals.â And though the games for change movement has grown and evolved considerably since those early forays into history-tinged titles in the 1980s, Gershenfeldâs opinion on the peculiar power of game mechanics was shared by hundreds of people in the room, explaining the growing impact of the industry across society.
Consistent community campaigning is more effective than one-offs
All the live long year: Community campaigning isnât just for Christmas; itâs effective all year round. Or at least, thatâs the conclusion of Maya Hofree and Deborah Mensah-Bonsu from Supercell, whoâve turned its farming game Hay Day into a year-round canvas for community campaigning.
Keep it simple, stupid: After successfully engaging its community in social impact campaigning through Playing for the Planetâs Green Game Jam, Hofreeâs team has built a seasonal calendar to engage players with causes they care about. Operating on the principle that âif you canât explain it in a sentence, itâs too complicatedâ, Hay Dayâs team created a range of seasonal activations targeted at supporting causes close to the communityâs heart: conservation, animal welfare and hunger relief.
Pure performance: The results were impressive. The Let it Bee campaign, which aimed to preserve habitats in line with the Green Game Jam, led to a 3% increase in player engagement during the campaign and a 10% boost in what Supercell called âhelping behaviourâ. A Halloween Haunted Feast campaign with the World Food Programme engaged 90% of players and led to the donation of 200,000 meals (well in excess of the forecasted 50,000). And a Christmas campaign supporting loveable pet dogs across the world (featuring an in-person photo op for players and their pups) drew participation from 92% in players, a 7% increase in engagement and, most interestingly of all, a 4% boost to revenue.
Ready for more: But while each campaign performed effectively in isolation, Hofree and Mensah-Bonsu argued that the cumulative impact of consistent campaigning grew from activation to activation. And by consistently offering players the chance to do good, the Supercell team saw players shift from saying that they were enjoying the campaigns to actively asking for further opportunities to do good.
Best of the rest - Games for Change London
Ambitious goals: I chaired a panel featuring Ben Golant from Tencent, Dr Rachel Kowert of Psychgeist, Andy Robertson of the Family Gaming Database, and Susanna from Games for Change, all about helping parents to raise good gamers. The session, which followed Robert Steenâs genuinely inspiring chat about Ibelin, doubled down on the importance of communicating to parents on their terms, with resources that help them and encourage them to reframe games. Tencent and Games for Changeâs Raising Good Gamers Initiative announced that new resources will be rolled out this summer, alongside a white paper authored by Kowert. And they set themselves the lofty goal of reframing the way parents think about the positives of video games in five years.
Prosocial systems: A big theme for the conference was how wider systems or tools designed for change are more successful when theyâre tailored to the game and community. A panel about Prosocial design featuring Laura Higgins from Roblox, Meredith Ford from Jagex, Anna Rafferty from LEGO and Shuli Gilutz from UNICEF agreed that tools like the RITEC child-friendly design framework are handy for developers seeking to make games that respect all the rights of players. But equally, the worlds of Runescape, the experiences within Roblox, and LEGOâs numerous games each offer tangibly different environments from one another. That means shared objectives like striving for safer game worlds must be as flexible as games themselves are to ensure that they can be built into them effectively.
Fishing in other places: Thereâs a tendency for games for good practitioners to go fishing for cash from corporate social responsibility budgets. However, Great Ormond Street Hospitalâs Ben Austwick and Sarah Bissell suggested another way forward. The charity tapped up video game companies and brands outside the sector to match-fund donations for The Curious Case of the Copper Key creator-led fundraising campaign, which also featured star turns from Gordon Ramsey, Tim Peake and Emma Bunton. But rather than go the usual route, the charity instead hit their marketing and advertising budgets because the stream comfortably reached an enormous audience. The result? Great Ormond Street raised ÂŁ469,282 over the course of the livestream.
Planning for engagement: Games for Change was graced with an appearance by Lord Gascoigne, a member of the House of Lords and chair of the Built Environment Committee, for a session about using video games to build more effectively in the real world. The session, which featured reps from Arup, Publica, Brightwild Ventures, Ubisoft and The Block by Block Foundation, explored how video games like Assassinâs Creed, Roblox and Minecraft encourage participation in the understanding and design of urban spaces. By the end of it, Lord Gascoigne, who has a bee in his bonnet about Britain building new towns with a vision behind them, was directly asking how policymakers could do more to use games to inform their work. Positive signs indeed.
The beautiful games: Finally, I really enjoyed the chat between Special Effect, Xsolla and Special Effect about their charity partnership (which resulted in the first team wearing a specially branded kit in a recent home game against Blackpool). As a keen football fan, someone who loves games and who has done plenty of fundraising for the charity by running many miles, it was a lovely fusion of my interests (and a reminder in the best way possible that there really is no distinction between physical and digital communities).
News in brief
The Great British Game Spend: The UK consumer video game market grew by 7.4% to reach ÂŁ8.76bn, according to new research from industry trade association Ukie. Hardware, software and game culture spend all grew, as the launch of the Switch 2 and the arrival of the Minecraft Movie raised the 2025 market tide. Ukie also reported that mobile game monetisation ticked upward, despite a decline in overall downloads within the territory.
Doki Doki Literature Clubbed: Google Play has whipped cult horror game Doki Doki Literature Club from its store for terms of service breaches relating to sensitive content. The visual novel, which combines a cutesy aesthetic with some deep psychological horror, has a PEGI 18 and has openly advertised the nature of its content since arriving on the Play Store last December. But developer San Salvato and publisher Serenity Forge Team have confirmed that the game was removed last week and remains delisted at the time of writing.
Dr Oh No: Story spoilers for IO Interactiveâs 007: First Light and hundreds of other games are circulating online after another cock up from Indonesiaâs video game rating board. Hours of in-game footage, thousands of documents and private email addresses of industry staffers were leaked online after someone got access to the boardâs sophisticated back-end system of *checks notes* a load of Google Drive links. Gulp.
Hack attack: Hacker group Shiny Hunters has released confidential telemetry data relating to Rockstar Games on the dark web after the company refused to respond to a ransom request. Kotaku reports that the hacked data, which appears to have been sourced by exploiting the companyâs cloud server provider, relates to the spending habits of players of games such as GTA Online. No information about GTA 6 appears to have been released by the group.
I donât think any of us expected him to do that: Sony has announced that it is making an R-rated film adaptation of Bloodborne, which perhaps isnât too unexpected given the consistent success of video game IP on the silver screen. What is unexpected is that JackSepticEye, content creator and From Software enthusiast, has a co-production credit. This can only go wellâŚ
Moving on
Haley Uyrus is now Head of Marketing at Critical ReflexâŚThaine Lyman, Katya Baukova and MichaĹ Gembicki have joined Bloober Team as Head of Studio, Director of Business Development and Head of Publishing as it gets ready for growth...Jennifer Estaris, Sara Veal and Haz Dulull are three of the eight people selected for this yearâs Ensemble showcaseâŚAnd congratulations to Illka Paananen of Supercell, who is picking up this yearâs BAFTA Fellowship during tomorrowâs awardsâŚ
Jobs ahoy
Electronic Arts needs a Senior Game Designer to work on The SimsâŚOr if game modes and online functionality are more your cup of tea, Sega is looking to snaffle up a Game Designer tooâŚSony Interactive Entertainment has a Senior Manager, Production and Localisation QA openâŚGames Workshop is hiring a Background WriterâŚAnd video funsters RKG has a rare position open for a Video ProducerâŚ
Events and conferences
BAFTA Games Awards, London - 17th April
gamescom Latam, SĂŁo Paulo, 29th April - 3rd May
Gamesbeat Summit, Los Angeles - 18th-19th May
Nordic Game, MalmĂś - 26th-29th May
Summer Game Fest, Los Angeles - 5th-8th June
Games of the week - New Game Plus edition
Iâve picked out three games that Iâm looking forward to playing at New Game Plus, when/if I successfully rock up there tomorrow morning.
Vampire Crawlers - First-person turn-based deckbuilder with roguelite elements based on the exceptionally moreish Vampire Survivors? Inject it into my veins.
The Restricted Index - Discover a hidden truth as Britainâs last librarian by recommending, banning, or burning books under the glare of an authoritarian regime.
Tournamentris - Clear blocks by matching them up via tournament brackets in a puzzler that looks like a pleasing blend of Tetris and a New York Times word game.
Before you goâŚ
What happens when players of a popular shooter stop fighting each other and start talking instead?
The Guardianâs Keith Stuart unpicks the emergence of an intriguingly peaceful subculture within the hit multiplayer shooter Arc Raiders, something thatâs caught the attention of psychologists in the process.
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