This post accompanies my talk given at AlterConf DC on 30 January 2016. A video of the talk with visible slides can be seen here. Social and Design Factors in Video Games for Therapy and Rehabilitation AlterConf DC 2016 Over the past few years, there has been a growing trend of trying to leverage video games as medical interventions in rehabilitation spaces. This trend has taken many names–gamification, serious games, etc.–but these names also apply to applications and concepts beyond the medical field. We’ll simply use the term Video Game Therapy to mean video games used and/or designed explicitly for self-improvement in the light of some medically-recognized condition. The applications are still broad. Therapy games can be used for addiction recovery, physical and occupational therapy, mental health management, and much much more. In this post I want to talk a bit about my work in this space. The post will be largely introductory, but I want to talk about some specific social factors that can dramatically affect the success of a therapy game that aren’t immediately apparent. ...