Keynote: Game Design Thinking + Social Justice
summary
Games reach 1.82 billion self-identified players and the industry grosses $139.7B in 2020, with Minecraft at 200M copies and Among Us downloaded 264M that year, so game design becomes a lever for societal change. Demonstrates procedural rhetoric (rules-as-argument), uses serious games built at an academic lab for measurable agency and safe failure, and analyzes real-world gamelike phenomena: QAnon as an alternate-reality game and WallStreetBets’ Gamestop action. Argues specific fixes—redistricting as game rules, testing with diverse players, and centering edge cases to make systems fair.
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