GAMES FOR HEALTH JOURNAL: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications Volume 1, Number 1, 2012 Mary Ann Liebert,

, Inc. DOI: 10.1089/g4h.2012.1010

Editorial

The Emergence of Games for Health

Bill Ferguson, PhD

he nature of healthcare services is on the verge of signicant change. The emergence of health games as a signicant resource in human well-being has great complexity and many moving parts. Technology is changing the doctorpatient relationship in every aspectfrom records management to symptom assessment to the delivery of preventive and corrective procedures. Games are rapidly becoming an important tool for improving health behaviors such as healthy lifestyle habits and behavior modication, self-management of illness and chronic conditions, and motivating and supporting physical activity. Utilizing games for health changes the patient care model by involving the patient in his or her own health care with fun, monitored, and managed, technology-enabled preventive and corrective interventions. The new, ground-breaking Games for Health Journal: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications is an important forum for leaders, innovators, and decision-makers who research, purchase, use, prescribe, recommend, design, publish, fund, or invest in digital games for health. Over the years Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. has published health game-related manuscripts in our other journals, including Telemedicine and e-Health as well as Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social-Networking. However, the number of submittals, conferences, and related events convinced us the eld was at the point where it demanded its own publication. The Games for Health Journal breaks new ground as the rst peer-reviewed publication to address this emerging, widely recognized area of healthcare games, including:           Nutrition, weight management, and obesity Disease prevention, self-management, and adherence Cognitive behavior and mental and emotional health Clinical training, simulation, diagnosis, and treatment Rehabilitation and therapy The psychology of game design Social inuence and peer groups in health games Health game sensors Mobile health games Games in home-to-clinic telehealth systems

I am excited about this new journal, and I think as a subscriber you will be, too. The benets for subscribing are considerableGames for Health Journal will provide a forum for peer-reviewed research articles, new system and game reviews, program proles, health game program proles, book reviews, guest editorials, news from the eld, and a great deal more. Journal subscriptions are now available for in print and online bimonthly issues.
Editor-in-Chief, G4H; e-mail: bferguson@liebertpub.com

The development of a new publication of this sort is a metaphor for the maturity and emergence of the health games eld, and I am happy to share the genesis of the journal. Since attending the annual Games for Health conference in Boston in May 2011 I have met with the leading researchers, institutions, and non-government and international government bodies that are at the forefront of health game development as well as monitoring blogs, LinkedIn groups, and Google Alerts. I had the pleasure of attending Gamication in New York and speaking to audiences at the Southern Interactive Entertainment & Game Expo in Atlanta, Games for Health Europe, and the Midwestern Conference on Health Games in Indianapolis, as well as the IEEE Serious Games and Applications for Health in Braga, Portugal. A networked group of people with shared interests is admirable but has only limited effectiveness to share and shape the knowledge, skills, and resources outside their group. On the other hand, having a good journal provides legitimacy, cohesion, and a forum to publish and archive research articles, share benchmarks and lessons learned, illustrate real world examples, broaden attention and interest, and attract funding, developers, and supporters. A journal engages professional writers and publicists to tell the story of the emerging eld. A journal provides a handy reference to the chronological progression across the breadth of the eld. The people I met provided unanimous support for the Games for Health Journalin fact, one expert referred to it as a gift. And like many gifts, there was some assembly required. Malcolm Gladwell states in his powerful book The Tipping Point, The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts. According to Gladwell, economists call this the 80/20 rule or Pareto Principle, which is the idea that in any situation roughly 80 percent of the work will be done by 20 percent of the participants. The challenge for new endeavors is amassing and aligning the 20 percent of the population who can get the work done for widespread change and adoption of new thinking and doing by the remaining 80 percent, thus tipping the trend to new dimensions and directions. The challenge for launching the Games for Health Journal was nding those early adopters and guring out what captured their interest. Innovation is a contact sportyou must enter the arena to understand the game and to know its players. Thats where the near-omniscient vision of Mary Ann Liebert comes into play. She has built a successful publishing enterprise by being aware of new developments

2 in health care, such as Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN), Telemedicine and e-Health, and Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. So off to conferences I went with the goal of enlisting key people to devote their time and expertise to serve on the editorial review board. These are often the 20 percent who can move mountains and change history. The quality of articles is critical to the long-term success of a journal, and rsthand knowledge of who is doing what is vitally important to attracting a broad spectrum of research articles and knowing experts in the eld to review and critique the work. A real milestone for the journal was getting Debra Lieberman and Tom Baranowski to be Associate Editors and to guide the vital review process. The editorial board of a successful journal must have connections with and represent the key players in the eld as well, and to those ends I was very pleased to add Ron Goldman of Kognito, Fikry Isaac from J&J, and expert game designer Jesse Schell from Carnegie Mellon. With a hope and a prayer I asked Martin Seligman to join the Board and was delighted when he agreed. Invitations to health game conferences around the world enabled broad geographic Board membership with researchers like Pier Prins from the University of Amsterdam and Gamercize UKs CEO Richard Coshott. The full Board membership can be found on the inside cover, and I am very grateful to each member for his or her important contribution toward this rst and future issues of the journal. The next challenge was to put our arms around health games. My research led me to Jane McGonigals terric book Reality is Broken (this book review appears on page 77 of this issue ). Her rst chapter was very helpful: She dened a game as having four key elements: 1. A specic goal that people are willing to work fora sense of purpose 2. Rules that stimulate creativity within specied boundaries

EDITORIAL 3. A feedback system that lets individuals know how they are doing with respect to the goal 4. Voluntary acceptance of the goal, rules, and feedback information This denition proved to be important because it helped differentiate health games from simulation and other computer-based activities that lack specic goals, rules, and a feedback mechanism such as a score. Not that simulations and other computer-based activities dont have value as health resources; they are just not games in the denition we chose for this journal. I also had to differentiate between health games and other serious games. This was a little more difcult and will probably lack consistency over time because its somewhat of a judgment call. For example, if a game with all of its dening components makes better soldiers who survive battles, then clearly it impacts their health. But survival is different from the World Health Organizations denition of health, which is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or inrmity. Thus, the Journal will strive to publish research articles concerning games that improve physical, mental, or social well-being via proactive or remedial activities. We will feature rapid peer review and fast track article publication. We will offer rst-class author support. We will have readership in more than 140 countries. The Journal will include articles regarding game design and development as well as clinical briefs in which therapists and practitioners share their experiences with target populations. The time for a health games journal has arrived. We have the critical mass for a burgeoning community of experts to develop, share, review, fund, announce, promote, and direct research in the full spectrum of health games. So subscribe, submit articles, review articles, tell us what is going on in your world. I welcome your involvement in the Games for Health Journals impact and success. Thank you.

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