First Federal Game Jam: Results from an Open Health Game Challenge Event — 2013

Background:  Games have tremendous potential as a vehicle for health communication and education.  According to the Entertainment Software Association, games are played by 58% of Americans—by both genders and by a wide age range. Positive health outcomes from the use of games have been documented.   Game development challenge events known as “Game Jams” are a proven way to bring game developers together to address a specific theme in a competitive, collaborative atmosphere, constrained by location and timeframe (i.e., single venue and 48-hour duration) to produce prototype games.  Despite its potential a health focused game jam had never been attempted. 

Program background:  From September 20-22, 2013, CDC held the first federal game jam: a 48-hour competition to produce a game in support of CDC’s Winnable Health Battles. It was an opportunity for game developers, (designers, artists, and programmers) to work directly with CDC subject matter experts during a 48-hour challenge event to develop games that address CDC’s and HHS’s public health priorities. For this event, CDC partnered with academic and private partners.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  In addition to collecting demographic information via registration, evaluations were administered to participants pre- and post-event to capture key metrics such as interest in public health careers.   We expected 100 participants but 300 entered the contest.  Most of participants (65.7%) were between the ages of 15-24 years.  Most were male (88.6%).   95.0% had never created a health related game prior to the contest.  We had expected 12 game prototypes, but received 29.  The event boosted interest in public health careers among contestants rising from 12.0% to 50.0%.

Conclusions:  The event exceeded forecasts in the number of participants and prototype games developed.  The project team was also able to leverage the $10,000 in HHS funding to obtain an additional $19,000 in matching funds and in-kind donations.  The winning team spent five days (40 hours) at CDC learning more about public health, the federal government, and worked directly with CDC subject matter experts to ensure the accuracy of the game they developed.   17 CDC subject matter experts participated during the Game Jam and 27 during the internship.  The event demonstrated that game jams can effectively and efficiently be used to build inexpensive demos of health-related games and to improve awareness of and interest in public health careers. Future plans include hosting a similar event in 2014 building on the lessons learned during the 2013 event, but also with an emphasis on evaluating the quality of games developed and the game’s effect on behavioral outcomes.

Implications for research and/or practice:  Results of this event were encouraging: Event attendance and number of games produced exceeded expectations, accompanied by robust growth in interest in public health among participants. In this presentation, we will describe the compelling state of the computer game industry and how the authors leveraged federal funding with private donations to introduce a new population to fundamentals of public health. Lessons learned include funding mechanisms, event logistics, and follow-up internship and game refinement for the finalist team at CDC.