A screenshot from the online platform and the Zamzee device itself.
While AAA video game titles might have multi-million dollar marketing budgets, if you’re making games for change, you probably have to count on the largesse of grantmakers, the continued of novelty to the mainstream press that games can do something positive, and some quick word-of-mouth marketing hail marys to get your game out in the public eye.
However if a game is created with an accompanying business model in mind, it’s not just a black hole for funding anymore, it can conceivably keep itself afloat and even fund future projects. This is one reason why I think it’s so interesting when a nonprofit making games for change switches to a for-profit social enterprise business model, as happened with HopeLab’s gamified exercise platform, Zamzee.
I mentioned Zamzee in my last post since they were one of the nominees at the Games for Change awards, and the platform is currently being beta tested by 5,000 people with plans for a broader launch in the fall. Before the festival, I spoke with Fred Dillon, HopeLab’s director of product development, and Richard Tate, the VP of communications and marketing about the decision to go for-profit, their use of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, and advice they would offer to other non-profits (or anyone) looking to make a game.
Will Play Games for Change: Why was Zamzee created? What’s the backstory?
Fred Dillon: We had completed the work on our game Remission, it was right when I got hired at HopeLab, and the organization knew it wanted do something in the area of childhood obesity and helping to decrease sedentary behavior, so that was sort of the genesis.
That was about five years ago that that process started. There was a lot of discussion in the beginning of who exactly we would be targeting, what exactly the intervention would look like and then developing prototypes and going through a lot of iterative testing with kids directly and having kids really play a key and crucial role in developing both the device and the online experience.
WPG4C: Could you explain a little bit more about the online interactive components of Zamzee?
FD: We really tried to design an online experience that would keep kids engaged for a long period of time. It includes both some extrinsic rewards you can get for your activity, as well as a bunch of online experiences that also build intrinsic motivation over time. Those include things like earning badges, leveling up, personalizing an avatar, and being able to take challenges and compete and collaborate with other people on the site and really get a sense of how you’re doing compared to your peers or siblings.
One of the ways people can spend their, what we call Zams, which is the online currency, is to actually give to a cause. So you can kind of feel that there’s something greater than yourself here. So for example, you can give to the ASPCA with the Zams that you earn.
Richard Tate: There are a couple of other components on the site that are worth mentioning. There’s an activity chart that users can manipulate and view how much they’re moving around by day, or by week, or even by minute. And the way that you’re awarded points and the way your data gets displayed is based on how much you’re achieving over your average level of physical activity.
A girl dancing on her bed wearing a Zamzee.
WPG4C: What was the most unexpected part of either making Zamzee or putting it out there for people to play and seeing how they interacted with it?
RT: As we saw results from the research we were conducting that Zamzee was getting kids to move around about 30 percent more on average, we really then began to think about how we would introduce this to the public and how might we maximize that impact that we were seeing.
In order to do that, HopeLab made the decision to establish Zamzee as an independent for-profit organization, a social enterprise that had two specific missions: to get kids and families moving more, and to create a sustainable business that would allow us to reach people who would benefit from the intervention the most. I mention it in response to this question because we found that as you move out of a nonprofit context into a business environment you’re introduced to a lot of new challenges.
WPG4C: Given those added challenges, could you tell me a bit more about why you chose to run Zamzee as a for-profit?
RT: Our first product at HopeLab was the Remission video game for cancer, and that is distributed free of charge and we work closely with hospitals and clinics around the world to make that available to young cancer patients and their families.
Now thankfully the incidence of pediatric cancer is relatively small compared to the crisis that we’re facing in terms of obesity and sedentary behavior. So as we began to think about how we would scale the impact of Zamzee, we realized that philanthropic dollars alone, and providing a product free of charge, would really not allow us to reach nearly as many kids as might benefit from this
There are individuals and families that purchase the product directly, but as a business, we’re also working with partners who have an interest in motivating populations of kids and families to move more, who are supporting the cost of distribution and engagement with the product.
WPG4C: What advice would you give to another nonprofit that wanted to make its first game?
RT: First of all, be really clear on the outcomes that you’re after and be flexible about the means by which you achieve them. When it comes to games in particular, there very few if any nonprofits that are really built as game development houses, so by definition that means we need to go out and source collaborators to help us achieve our goals if we want to create a game for a particular social purpose.
We’ve often seen our role in more traditional terms as a producer, really holding the vision for the product. And then the last thing I’d add would be just listen to your customer, pay attention to what you’re hearing from the people that you’re trying to impact.