POWER PLAY

President of non-profit organization, Games For Change Asi Burak's book on how "impact games" are bettering our society and how we can support them in the future; featuring case studies with all the major players in the impact gaming community including Nicholas Kristoff, Sandra Day O'Connor, and many other doctors, engineers, and business people who are using video games as a new vehicle for social change.

The phenomenal growth of gaming has inspired plenty of hand-wringing since its inception--from the press, politicians, parents, and everyone else concerned with its effect on our brains, bodies, and hearts. But what if games could be good, not only for individuals but for the world? In POWER PLAY, Asi Burak and Laura Parker explore how video games are now pioneering innovative social change around the world. As the former executive director and now chairman of Games for Change, Asi Burak has spent the last ten years supporting and promoting the use of video games for social good, in collaboration with leading organizations like the White House, NASA, World Bank, and The United Nations. The games for change movement has introduced millions of players to meaningful experiences around everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the US Constitution. POWER PLAY looks to the future of games as a global movement. Asi Burak and Laura Parker profile the luminaries behind some of the movement's most iconic games, including former Supreme Court judge Sandra Day O’Connor and Pulitzer-Prize winning authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. They also explore the promise of virtual reality to address social and political issues with unprecedented immersion, and see what the next generation of game makers have in store for the future. Asi Burak was named one of the “Digital 25: Leaders in Emerging Entertainment” by the Producers Guild of America (PGA) andVariety Magazinefor his work with Games for Change. He co-founded and led Impact Games, the creators of the acclaimedPeaceMakerandPlay the News. He has also served as an advisor to organizations such as EON Productions (known for producing the James Bond films, Tribeca, Newsweek, and Mcann Erickson around the strategic use of games to further brand engagement. He has been invited to speak at conferences and institutions including TED Talks, Harvard Kennedy School, the Clinton Global Initiative, Sundance, the Skoll World Forum, SXSW, and the US Army War College, among others. He is a faculty member of the School of Visual Arts MFA in Design for Social Innovation and holds a Master of Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon. Learn more about Asi at http://www.asiburak.com/. Laura Parker is a journalist who writes about video games and technology for publications includingThe New York Times, The New Yorker,andVanity Fair. Read articles from Laura Parker on her website, http://www.lauraannaparker.com/. Asi Burak and his game PeaceMaker have been featured in The New York Times, several times. He was also mentioned in an article in the NYT about Half the Sky, a game that focuses on raising awareness of international issues that women face. Asi was interviewed on The Forum by BBC about video games and their future, as well as on NPR with Steve Inskeep about PeaceMaker. He has been featured on ABC News and on Fox.