Tag: games
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NCAA bans ex-Temple basketball player for betting on own games (CBS Philadelphia)
Higher Education Inquirer : NCAA bans ex-Temple basketball player for betting on own games (CBS Philadelphia)
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Games for Change Opens 2026 Student Challenge to Game Creators and Innovators Ages 10–25
The annual global game design awards $20,000 in grand prizes for creative and impactful games that advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals
NEW YORK, NY — [NOV 10, 2025] — Games for Change (G4C), the leading nonprofit that empowers game creators and innovators to drive real-world change, today announced the kick off of the 2025- 2026 Games for Change Student Challenge, a global game design program inviting learners ages 10–25 years old to tackle pressing world issues that address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, through creativity, play, and purposeful design.
Now in its eleventh year, the Student Challenge has reached more than 70,000 students and almost 2,000 educators and faculty across 600cities in 91 countries, inspiring the creation of over 6,600 original student-designed games that connect learning to action. From November to April 2026, participants will design and submit games for consideration in regional and global competitions, with Game Jams taking place worldwide throughout the season.
“The G4C Student Challenge continues to show that when young people design games about real-world issues, they see themselves not just as players, but as problem solvers and changemakers,” said Arana Shapiro, Chief Operations and Programs Officer at Games for Change. “Through game design, students learn to think critically, collaborate, and build solutions with purpose. In a world shaped by AI and constant change, durable skills like problem solving, critical thinking, and game design will allow all learners to thrive in their communities and worldwide.”
This year, students will explore three new themes developed with world-class partners to inspire civic imagination and problem-solving:
Two grand-prize winners will receive a total of $20,000 in scholarships, generously provided by Take-Two Interactive and Endless. Winners and finalists will be celebrated at the Student Challenge Awards on May 28, 2026, in recognition of exceptional creativity, social impact, and innovation in student game design.
“With 3.4 billion players worldwide, the video games industry has an unprecedented ability to reach and inspire audiences across cultures and our next generation of leaders,” said Lisa Pak, Head of Operations at Playing for the Planet. “We’re excited about our collaboration with Games for Change, empowering students to use their creativity to spotlight the threats to reefs, rainforests, and our climate. Together, we’re transforming play into a powerful tool for awareness, education, and action.”
“More than 319 million people face severe hunger around the world today,” said Jessamyn Sarmiento, Chief Marketing Officer at World Food Program USA. “Through the ‘Outgrow Hunger’ theme, we’re giving the next generation a way to explore the root causes of food insecurity and imagine solutions through research, game design, and play. This collaboration helps students connect their creativity to one of the most urgent challenges of our time—ending hunger for good.”
Additionally, G4C is expanding its educator support with the launch of the G4C Learn website, the world’s largest online resource library featuring lesson plans, tutorials, and toolkits to guide students, teachers, and faculty on topics like game design, game-based learning, esports, career pathways, and more. In partnership with Global Game Jam, educators worldwide can receive funding, training, and support to host Student Challenge Game Jams in their classrooms and communities.
“Games turn learning into challenges students actually want to take on,” said Luna Ramirez, CTE teacher at Thomas A. Edison CTE High School based in New York City. “When students design games to tackle pressing global problems affecting their communities, they become curious about the world around them, experimenting, and bringing ideas to life. The best learning happens when students take risks, fail forward, and collaborate, and that’s exactly what the Games for Change Student Challenge empowers.”
Educators, parents, and learners ages 10–25 can now registerfor the 2026 Games for Change Student Challenge and access free tools and resources at learn.gamesforchange.org.
This year’s Student Challenge is made possible through the generous support of key partners, including Endless, General Motors, Verizon, Motorola Solutions Foundation, Take-Two Interactive, World Food Program USA, Playing for the Planet, Unity, and Global Game Jam.
About Games for Change
Since 2004, Games for Change (G4C) has empowered game creators and innovators to drive real-world change through games and immersive media, helping people learn, improve their communities, and make the world a better place. G4C partners with technology and gaming companies, nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies to run world-class events, public arcades, design challenges, and youth programs. G4C supports a global community of developers using games to tackle real-world challenges, from humanitarian conflicts to climate change and education. For more information, visit: https://www.gamesforchange.org/.
Media contact(s):
Alyssa Miller
Games for Change
973-615-1292
Susanna Pollack
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Why stories still matter in a fast-moving world
Key points:
Seventeen years after Suzanne Collins first introduced us to The Hunger Games, the world is still captivated by Panem. The latest installment, Sunrise on the Reaping, dives into Haymitch’s backstory and has been called a “propulsive and heart-wrenching addition” to the series by The New York Times. For many of us, books like these aren’t just stories–they’re cultural moments.
I remember reading the original trilogy on my iPad while training for a half-marathon. Katniss’ fight against the Capitol powered me through some of my longest runs. That’s the magic of books: They meet us where we are and carry us somewhere else entirely. They become part of our personal history, woven into our memories and milestones.
But the power of books goes far beyond personal nostalgia. When a major title drops, it’s not just a release date–it’s a shared experience. Readers rush to get their hands on it. Social media lights up with reactions. Libraries field waitlists. These moments remind us why books matter. They connect us, challenge us, and inspire us.
This fall, we’re about to experience two more of these moments. On October 21, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Partypooper hits shelves. Jeff Kinney’s beloved series has become a rite of passage for young readers, and this latest installment–centered around Greg Heffley’s attempt to throw himself the ultimate birthday bash–is already generating buzz. It’s funny, relatable, and perfectly timed for a generation that’s grown up with Greg’s awkward, hilarious adventures.
Just a few weeks later, on November 11, Dog Man: Big Jim Believes arrives. Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man series has redefined what it means to be a children’s book phenomenon. With its blend of humor, heart, and comic-style storytelling, Dog Man has helped countless kids fall in love with reading. This new title promises to be no different, offering a story about belief, friendship, and finding strength within.
These books aren’t just for kids–they’re cultural touchstones. They bring generations together. Parents read them with their children. Teachers use them to spark classroom discussions. Librarians build displays around them. And kids? They devour them and talk about them with the kind of passion usually reserved for blockbuster movies or viral games.
And yes, there’s a business side to books. Pricing, distribution, marketing strategies–they all matter. Behind every book on a shelf is a network of people working to make that moment possible. Publishers, authors, illustrators, binders, warehouse teams, sales reps, marketers, and more. It’s easy to forget that when you’re holding a finished book, but every title is the result of countless decisions, collaborations, and passions.
In a world dominated by screens, short-form content, and constant notifications, books offer something different. They ask us to slow down. To focus. To imagine. To empathize. And that’s more important than ever.
Literacy isn’t just about reading words on a page–it’s about understanding the world. It’s about critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and the ability to engage with complex ideas. Books help build those skills. They give kids the tools to navigate life, not just school.
Because in a world that’s constantly changing, books remain one of our most powerful tools for understanding it–and each other. The world needs stories. And stories need us.
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Games and their cheat codes can show universities how to unlock new purpose
I was recently browsing Board Game Geek, an online forum for nerds who like tabletop games, and came across a thread entitled “anyone have a use for the University?”
This contained a complaint about the board game Puerto Rico. In Puerto Rico, although the University is potentially a very powerful card, it’s considered too expensive and therefore not worth players’ investment – and I couldn’t help being struck by a resonance with real life higher education in the UK.
Following the recent increase in tuition fees, reports of students perceiving university education as a poor investment of time and money have proliferated. As such, understanding and communicating the value of higher education has become an increasingly pressing concern.
Value and metaphor
In 2024, over 1,000 papers were published which mention the value of higher education, going over themes like economic gain, professional and academic experience, networking, “cultural capital”, and a sense of the value that higher education institutions offer to society in general. Authors explore how value is perceived differently by applicants, students, graduates, staff and the public, and by different demographic communities within these groups. Undoubtedly, the value of higher education is multifaceted and complex.
A powerful way of understanding value is through metaphor. When we use a metaphor, we ascribe the value of one thing to another. For instance, universities are beacons of knowledge positions universities as guiding lights, illuminating the path to progress (or something).
Some common metaphors ascribed to universities include: universities are innovators that drive progress and create new ideas; universities are catalysts for personal and societal transformation; and universities are providers which supply a skilled workforce to deliver economic growth.
When metaphors are layered together, they become a narrative – a way of conveying greater meaning through interconnected symbols. Games, as a form of interactive storytelling, take this concept even further. They combine metaphors with player agency, allowing players to actively engage with and shape the narrative. In games, players don’t just passively observe metaphors at work; they inhabit and interact with them.
The player of games
Because games are dynamic, this means that universities appear in games only when they are actively doing something: acting on the simulation and changing the outcome for the player. Analysing these dynamics leads to some thought-provoking insights into how universities are perceived as acting on the real world, and therefore what value higher education holds in society.
Our most familiar metaphors for universities are easily recognisable in games. For example, in strategy games such as Age of Empires, universities are innovators which generate “research points” which can be spent to unlock new things. In city-building games like Megapolis, universities are providers that give the player more resources in the form of workers. In Cities: Skylines, universities are catalysts for growth: once a citizen has attended university their home will be upgraded to higher building levels, and they can get better jobs, which in turn levels up their place of employment.
To return to Puerto Rico: in the normal rules of the board game, players can “construct” a building (such as a factory or warehouse) but cannot use it until the next “mayor phase” is triggered, at which point they can be “staffed”, and its benefits can be used by the player thereafter. The university card grants the player the ability to both “construct” and “staff” new buildings instantly, without waiting. This significantly speeds up the gameplay for the owner of the card.
When used in this way, the university card changes the mechanics of the game for the player who can use it.
Puerto Rico is not alone in this. For example, in Struggle for Catan, the university card allows the possessor to buy future cards more easily by swapping one required resource for any other kind. This has such an unbalancing effect that it changes the game from that point onwards. As one Board Game Geek user puts it:
When I play with my wife we ban the University to keep it a friendly game […] In a four player game everyone just gangs up on whoever gets the University.
In both of these games, universities are cheat codes: “a secret password […] that makes something unusual happen, for example giving a player unusual abilities or allowing them to advance in the game.”
Cheat codes are used by players to create exceptions to the standard game rules everyone else must abide by. Universities change the mechanics of the game and enable players to act in a way that would be otherwise impossible.
Real-life cheat codes
The idea of students using universities to gain an advantage is not new. When university strategies talk about “transforming students’ lives”, this is generally what they’re referring to. “Educational gain”, “cultural capital”, “graduate attributes”, and “personal development”, are all facets of the same sort of idea.
However, I’d argue that using the metaphor of a “cheat code” forces us to see students as active players who are using their experiences agentically and strategically, rather than just passively receiving something. When a player uses a cheat code, they generally have an intention in mind. Using the game metaphor reminds us to see students as individual players, who are interested in developing their own palette of cheat codes for their own personal goals.
If the value of a university experience for students is in developing and testing cheat codes, then we should be intentionally structuring higher education to teach the most effective “hacks”. As Mark Peace has argued on this site in the past, we mustn’t be complacent about the process by which students “catch” transferrable skills. We need to be much more intentional about how we scaffold the development of these cheat codes, and how we work collaboratively with students to identify the skills they want to build and create meaningful ways to help them develop their own toolbox of cheat codes.
Without this, there is a real danger that we will return to the original scenario of this article, the forum post bemoaning the high-cost, low-return of the university card in Puerto Rico. We must guard against the “university card” being almost unplayable, because it is too expensive, not flexible enough, or too dated. The challenge to institutions is to ensure our provision is more like the university card in Struggle for Catan: truly game-breaking.
Thinking about universities in terms of game design invites us to rethink the rules we’re playing by and imagine a world where some rules don’t apply. It’s a reminder that the narratives that shape higher education aren’t set in stone. Players have autonomy and can change the direction of the game. This might mean building a toolbox for life with students – and for us, it means taking a wider look at the system we’re part of. What would it look like to recover our agency and, as Edward Venning puts it on HEPI recently, “recover an assertive self-confidence”? For too long, universities have been stuck playing the game instead of changing the rules.
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China’s censorship goes global — from secret police stations to video games
Last year, FIRE launched the Free Speech Dispatch, a regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world. Our goal is to help readers better understand the global context of free expression. The previous entry covered Australia’s ban on teen social media, South Korea’s martial law decree, and more. Want to make sure you don’t miss an update? Sign up for our newsletter.
China’s censorship in the news — and in the U.S.
- Late last month, a New York man pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to his role in running a secret Chinese government police station in Manhattan. The Chinese government is accused of setting up over a hundred such stations worldwide and using them to surveil, threaten, and silence dissidents outside its borders. His prosecution is the latest in a series of Department of Justice efforts to combat foreign governments’ targeting their critics within U.S. borders.
- On a related note, President Joe Biden established a “China Censorship Monitor and Action Group” in December. The group’s mission is to “monitor and address the effects of any efforts by the PRC to censor or intimidate, in the United States or in any of its possessions or territories, any United States person, including a United States company that conducts business in the PRC, exercising its freedom of speech.”
- If you’re a gamer, you might be excited about the popular new video game “Marvel Rivals.” But you may be disappointed to learn that the game comes with some strings attached — namely, users cannot make political statements that the Chinese Communist Party dislikes. The game, created by Marvel and Chinese developer NetEase, blocks users from typing phrases in the chat function including “Tiananmen Square,” “free Taiwan,” “free Hong Kong,” “free Tibet,” and “Taiwan is a country.” What is allowed? Negative commentary about Taiwan.
On a somber anniversary, a glimmer of hope for blasphemers
Sign reading Je Suis Charlie at a memorial for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo magazine terror attacks in 2015. (conejota / Shutterstock.com) Jan. 7 marked the tenth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, in which cartoonists and staff from satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed by gunmen over the magazine’s depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. The magazine commemorated the date with a contest for the “funniest and meanest” depictions of God.
As I wrote about the anniversary, we have failed to protect blasphemers since the killings and, in some ways, the legal realities are getting even worse for those accused of transgressing against deities. But there are a couple of bright spots in the wake of the commemoration.
WATCH: UK to create blasphemy laws? A BBC report released on the anniversary itself announced that Nigerian humanist Mubarak Bala was set free from prison after a nearly five year legal battle. Bala was initially sentenced to 24 years in prison for blasphemous Facebook posts. His sentence was reduced last year, and although he has now been released, he is not exactly free. Bala is in hiding in a safe house, due to concerns that he will be attacked by vigilantes or mobs.
And, now, Spain is looking to set a good example, with the Socialist party’s introduction of a bill that would, among other things, repeal the country’s blasphemy law that hands out fines to offenders. This law “rarely achieves convictions and yet it is constantly used by extremist and fundamentalist organisations to persecute artists, activists (and) elected representatives, subjecting them to costly criminal proceedings,” the party’s spokesperson said.
The legislation was prompted by a lawsuit “brought by Abogados Cristianos (Christian Lawyers) against comedienne Lalachus after she, in a state television appearance during New Year’s Eve celebrations, brandished an image of Jesus on which the head of the cow mascot for a popular TV program had been superimposed.”
The latest in speech rulings and regulations
From the UK to Germany to Singapore: Police are watching what you post
Blog
Police detained a pro-Palestinian activist in London under the UK’s Terrorism Act for, as the arresting officer put it, “making a hate speech.”
- Lithuania’s Constitutional Court ruled as unconstitutional a provision in the country’s Law on the Protection of Minors from Negative Effects of Public Information, which stated that information about non-traditional families was harmful to minors and could be restricted.
- Irish media regulator Coimisiún na Meán released a decision last month warning Meta to take “specific measures” to reduce the “dissemination of terrorist content” on Facebook and report its progress. The nature of the “terrorist content” remains unclear.
- The UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal issued a ruling finding that an “undercover surveillance operation” by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Metropolitan Police to identify journalists’ sources was “disproportionate” and “undermined” media protections
- Albania announced a one-year ban on TikTok, with the country’s prime minister blaming the app for violence among young people, including the recent stabbing death of a 14-year-old. (The Supreme Court is deliberating the TikTok ban here in the United States, a ban FIRE opposes as a First Amendment violation.)
- On Christmas Day, Vietnam enacted a new decree requiring social media users to verify their identity, a tool that’s ripe for abuse in a country known for its crusade to silence online government critics.
Maker of infamous Pegasus spyware loses to WhatsApp in California court
NSO Group Technologies is a cyber-intelligence firm known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus. (poetra / Shutterstock.com) Meta’s WhatsApp won a major victory in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against the NSO Group, an Israel-based spyware company. The NSO Group was accused of exploiting WhatsApp to install its infamous Pegasus spyware program into over a thousand phones.
Pegasus, sold to governments around the world by NSO Group, became the center of blockbuster reporting in recent years over its use to target human rights activists and journalists — and the wife of Jamal Khashoggi, the U.S. based journalist who was brutally murdered in the Saudi consulate in 2018.
Deepening repression continues into 2025
The new year unfortunately doesn’t mean an end to repressive trends around the world, some of which have been building for years or even decades.
- Hong Kong is once again attempting to punish its exiled pro-democracy activists. Late last month, Hong Kong police offered large rewards for information assisting in the arrest of activists now in the UK and Canada who are accused of national security law violations. Then the city’s government canceled the passports of seven activist “absconders,” including some based in the U.S. “You will become a discarded soldier, you will have no identity,” Secretary for Security Chris Tang said at a press conference. “After I cancelled your passport, you cannot go anywhere.” And early this week, police raided a pollster’s home and office over claims he assisted a “wanted person who has absconded overseas.”
- Meanwhile, critics are still being punished regularly within Hong Kong. A 19-year-old student is battling charges that he insulted China’s national anthem by turning his back while it played at a World Cup qualifier. He pleaded not guilty this month.
- A teenage girl spent the holidays in pre-trial detention in St. Petersburg, Russia, after being detained on charges of “public calls for committing terrorist activities or public justification of terrorism.” The 16-year-old allegedly put on her school’s bulletin board flyers celebrating “Heroes of Russia” — Russian troops who defected to fight for Ukraine.
- It’s difficult to imagine any more ways the Taliban could dream up to suppress the expression and presence of women of Afghanistan, but they found another. A government spokesman announced that existing buildings and new construction would be required to obscure or eliminate windows showing “the courtyard, kitchen, neighbour’s well and other places usually used by women,” as the sight of them could “lead to obscene acts.”
- Human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa, whose repeat and unjust prosecutions I’ve discussed in previous Dispatch entries, has once again been sentenced to prison for his commentary about Thailand’s monarchy. This time he’s been sentenced to nearly three years in prison over an anti-monarchy Harry Potter-themed 2020 protest. In total, that puts him at almost 19 years in prison.
- Apple and Google pulled VPNs from their app stores in India in response to an order from the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, an act that “marks the first significant implementation of India’s 2022 regulatory framework governing VPN apps.” These regulations require VPN providers to keep for five years records of users’ names and identifying information.
- A Uyghur woman was sentenced to 17 years in prison for engaging in “illegal underground religious activity” by teaching about Islam to her sons and neighbor.
- Kenya’s president claimed for months that allegations of forced disappearances of activists connected to a youth protest movement were “fake news” but now appears to admit the government’s responsibility and promises an end to the kidnappings. “What has been said about abductions, we will stop them so Kenyan youth can live in peace, but they should have discipline and be polite so that we can build Kenya together,” president William Ruto said last month.
- This month, Vietnamese lawyer Tran Dinh Trien went on trial for “infringing upon the interests of the state” in three Facebook posts criticizing the chief justice of the Supreme People’s Court of Vietnam. He’s potentially facing up to seven years in prison.
- And last week, María Corina Machado, opposition leader against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was “violently intercepted” and arrested after exiting a protest in Caracas. Machado had previously been in hiding from an arrest warrant issued against her. She’s since been released but her team alleges that she “was forced to record several videos” before being set free.
Recently unbanned Satanic Verses is popular in India’s bookstores — for now
Salman Rushdie, author of “The Satanic Verses” speaks at the 75th Frankfurt Book Fair on Oct. 21, 2023. In November, I noted that India’s ban on Salman Rushdie’s controversial bestseller “The Satanic Verses” was ending for an absurd reason: No one could find the decades-old order from customs authorities banning its import.
The book is now available in the country’s shops and appears to be a hit. One store manager said he was selling out of copies, despite the book’s higher-than-average cost. But not everyone is thrilled by its popularity. Groups calling for a reinstatement of the ban include the Forum Against Blasphemy and the All India Muslim Jamaat, whose president said, “No Muslim can tolerate seeing this hateful book on any bookstore shelf.”