About the Serious Games Initiative

The Serious Games Initiative (SGI) was founded with one goal: to use games to engage the broader public in policy discourse. As a dominant form of media used by the average American, games are not only ubiquitous but powerful. Games have the power to make complex ideas accessible, allowing a direct experience to work through the intricacies of policy problems and learn from the experience. It is one thing to read about the potential impact of policy solutions; it is another to live it. Since its founding, SGI has been a leader in the field of serious games, serving as a nexus between key stakeholders in a wide range of sectors, from education to government, students to tech leaders, who are interested in the positive use of games. SGI not only develops games as a dynamic technology to communicate cutting edge research at the Wilson Center and beyond but create cutting-edge research to illustrate the power of games.

Current Projects

• The Plastic Pipeline: Created by the Wilson Center's China Environment Forum and Serious Games Initiative, The Plastic Pipeline aims to raise public awareness on the plastic product lifecycle and policies that can be enacted to help stem the tide of pollution going into our oceans.
  • September 2024: Nominated for Best Game for Government Audiences, Innovation Award, and People's Choice Award, 2024 Serious Games Showcase & Challenge, Orlando, USA.
  • June 2024: Won Best Game in Environmental Impact from the Games for Change Festival in New York City, USA.
  • June 2024: Won Best Game for Government Audiences from the Serious Games Showcase and Competition Europe in Bristol, UK.
• AI's Anatomy: Inspired by Obermeyer et al.'s paper "Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations,” AI’s Anatomy was designed with the intent of portraying how AI models are trained & how implicit bias can be integrated into these models.
  • September 2024: Nominated for Best Game for Government Audiences, Innovation Award, and People's Choice Award, 2024 Serious Games Showcase & Challenge, Orlando, USA.
  • June 2024: Nominated for Best Game for Government Audiences and People's Choice Award from the Serious Games Showcase and Competition Europe in Bristol, UK.
• The Deepfake Files: Coming Soon... The Deepfake Files uses play to help players think critically about deepfakes. Based on extensive research from the Wilson Center including interviewing leading experts from academia, industry, and government in deepfake technology, we look at popular strategies to combat nefarious uses of deepfakes.

Past projects include:

• Fiscal Ship: In collaboration with the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institute, this game challenges players to steer the nation out of debt while adhering to their values
• Budget Hero and Budget Hero 2.0: Highlighting policy objectives around the federal budget, challenging players to aim for fiscal responsibility while carrying out policy objectives.
• Cards Against Calamity: In collaboration with the Environmental Law Institute and NOAA, this game was designed as a tool for Sea Grant teachers and for coastal communities to play and learn about how to build coastal resilience.