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Football Manager offers in-game advertising space to mental health charities
With real sports off for the time being, fans are turning to their virtual versions with everything from basketball teams simulating their games in NBA 2K20 to Formula 1 holding races in F1 2019. The footy's off too, so Football Manager 2020 has kindly been free to play in full for a week on Steam. Now developers Sports Interactive have extended that free trial by…
Ukie report shows the UK games industry has an overwhelming lack of diversity
The first ever detailed report on diversity in the UK games industry has been published, showing some pretty eye-opening statistics about the industry's inclusivity, as well as the mental health of people working in games. Conducted by Ukie (the UK Interactive Entertainment trade body), the census revealed that female representation in the games industry "is significantly under the national average" - with 70% of people…
Hellblade developers announce a research program using games to tackle mental health
I’m sceptical of big, commercially-endorsed mental health initiatives with names like “The Insight Project”, which Hellblade developers Ninja Theory announced yesterday. This research program will see them collaborate with Paul Fletcher, a psychiatrist and professor of health neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, to study (and hopefully implement) ways videogames can help people with their mental health issues. Sure enough, their announcement video is largely…
There’s insufficient evidence to call gaming disorder its own clinical condition, report says
Researchers feeling out an edge of what some call 'gaming disorder' have said they "do not believe sufficient evidence exists to warrant thinking about gaming as a clinical disorder in its own right." Their study looked at adolescents who play loads of video games and came to the conclusion that the games aren't the problem, more the wider world is full of problems and young'uns…
World Health Organisation add ‘gaming disorder’ to the International Classification of Diseases
The World Health Organisation (WHO) have voted to recognise ‘gaming disorder’ as a health condition. After drafting it into the updated International Classification of Diseases (ICD) last year, members of the assembly unanimously agreed the draft yesterday, despite dissent from academics, industry groups, and governmental bodies. The classification will come into effect in 2022.
Industry and academics unite to oppose World Health Organisation’s “gaming disorder”
A number of academics and games industry associations, including the UK's Ukie and USA's Entertainment Software Association, have united to oppose World Health Organisation (WHO) plans to define 'gaming disorder' as a health condition. The WHO, an arm of the United Nations, intend to create 'gaming disorder' with the next revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), their big book o' physical and mental…
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice proceeds going to charity on World Mental Health day
Accolade trailers are usually a bit rubbish, so I don’t typically write about them, but Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice [official site] developers Ninja Theory have put together a slightly special one, made up of screenshots taken by players using photo mode, while the ‘accolades’ are, instead of being press quotes, taken from fans who were helped by the way the game tackles mental health. With that…
It's Mental Health Awareness Week here in the UK, so I thought I'd tell you about Echoes [official site] - a newly announced episodic exploration puzzle game that explores themes of psychology, mental health and the relationship between the two. I'm a sucker for games that strive to generate wider and nuanced conversation around sensitive issues. Echoes appears to be one such game AND it…
Feature: Rubber duckies optional
[This article was originally published to our Supporter Program on 22nd February.] I've had a really shitty couple of weeks. I've written before about anxiety disorder, and after a really quite astonishingly awful start to 2016 I had quite the collapse. I share this information for one reason: I know there are many other people out there suffering with anxiety, panic and low mood, and…
Feature:
It's World Mental Health Day today, thus I wanted to draw your attention to Sym [official site]: a stylish, monochromatic puzzle platformer that portrays issues of mental health in a very unique way. Josh, the game's protagonist, suffers from acute social anxiety disorder and has a tendency to shy away from social situations. This is portrayed metaphorically within Sym's abstruse world, where you must switch…
Asylum Jam, a 48-hour game jam to promote mental health, is back for its third consecutive year. Against the tide of misinformed tropes and unfortunate allegories consistent with popular culture that suggest mental health is something to be feared, Asylum Jam asks participants to design horror games that break from such associated stigma.
Feature: Reaching Out
I have generalised anxiety disorder. It’s a condition that falls under "anxiety disorders", which also includes OCD, despite more often being categorised under “depression”. It sort of fits with both. It’s an obsessive condition that causes someone to be unable to control their fear, to become entangled in irrational and debilitating worry, and at its extreme, to be afflicted by horrible intrusive thoughts. I’ve had…
Feature: Games On The Brain
The relationship between gaming and depression tend to only be addressed by sensational misinterpretation of studies by the mainstream press. RPS contributor David Owen set out to find out whether gaming can be linked to mental health, how games could better represent depression, and whether games themselves can be an effective means of helping those who suffer. Far Cry 3 gives a definition for insanity.…
