Meaningful Play 2010 Conference

The Meaningful Play 2010 conference will be held at Michigan State University on October 21-23. It’s so close to me that I think I may attend.

Though it’s your fairly typical glorified-brochure-as-conference-website — even just the list of topics in the program and background on the speakers is quite educational and thought provoking.

Designing and Studying Games that Matter:

Whether designed to entertain or to achieve more “serious” purposes, games have the potential to impact players’ beliefs, knowledge, attitudes, emotions, cognitive abilities, physical and mental health, and behavior.

Meaningful Play 2010 is a conference about theory, research, and game design innovations, principles and practices. Meaningful Play brings scholars and industry professionals together to understand and improve upon games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful ways.

Sadly, it does not appear that Jane McGonigal will be speaking.