On the 15th of April, European Parliamentarian Jules Maaten will organise a conference on the European videogames industry in the European Parliament. With this, Maaten will focus attention on this highly innovative sector, which is becoming more and more important to the European economy. The conference is co-hosted by ALDE Members of Parliament Chris Davies, Magor Csibi and Yorgo Chatzimarkakis and Magor Imre Csibi.
A specialist game has helped cancer patients deal with their condition according to recent studies!
Nonprofit Hopelab is teaming with serious games developer Virtual Heroes (America's Army) to create a new version of Re-Mission, a game Hopelab first released in 2006 to inspire and encourage kids suffering from cancer.
In the game, players pilot a microscopic robot named Roxie through the bodies of fictional patients to attack cancer cells and combat the side effects of treatment. According to Hopelab's own studies, which have been published in medical journals like Pediatrics, kids who play games like Re-Mission show positive therapeutic results, like taking their medications more consistently, and better understanding their illness.
Since the original game's release, it's been used at multiple medical centers globally, and HopeLab has also distributed more than 125,000 free copies of Re-Mission in 80 countries.
This new version in partnership with Virtual Heroes is funded by Hopelab partners Vivendi, the Annenberg Foundation, and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
In this interview, Gamasutra speaks with both Hopelab communications director Richard Tate and Virtual Heroes managing director Jerry Heneghan about what's new with Re-Mission V2 and the team effort to use games for health.
