Worldwide
Electronic Games Take on Violence Against Women
PMC has partnered with the Emergent Media Center (EMC) at Champlain College in an exciting project aimed to engage, educate, and change attitudes of boys between the ages of 8 and 15 to help end violence against girls and women. With support from UNFPA, this mark’s PMC’s inaugural endeavor in adapting our expertise in the use of entertainment-education strategies for positive behavior change to the world of gaming.
Electronic games are experiential and immersive and increasingly popular, especially among adolescent boys. Games encourage change from within by presenting opportunities for the player to think critically about actions. Employing the world’s most popular sport, soccer (football), our game links the winning benefits of respect on the field to respectful behavior toward girls.
When the GAME is your life, will you BREAKAWAY?
This is the question the game teaser asks. Breakaway is both the title of the game and a term used in the sport to describe the exciting moment when a forward with the ball has penetrated the last defender leaving only the goalkeeper to keep the forward from scoring. Breakaway is also an apt metaphor for this groundbreaking project. Scoring on a breakaway requires courage and calm. Breaking away from attitudes and behaviors that allow or perpetuate violence against girls and women also requires inner strength and courage.
A game changer
Violence against women is one of the least recognized human rights abuses. Around the world, as many as one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused is some other way. While some games today may promote the exact behaviors PMC is trying to change, games have the potential to have a very positive impact on gender issues by profoundly shifting beliefs, stereotypes, and attitudes. In Breakaway, the player encounters real-life situations that resonate with a teen’s experience such as peer pressure, competition, collaboration, teamwork, bullying, and negative gender stereotypes. Breakaway gives players choices that allow them to make decisions, face consequences, reflect, and practice behaviors in a game and story format.
What sets our approach from the other games for change is the framework designed by PMC and EMC to help inform the development of the game. The game utilizes three complementary methods: the UNFPA toolkit of culturally-sensitive approaches to create change, Sabido methodology of entertain-education, and FIFA (Féderation Intérnationale de Football) “Fair Play” rules.
Breakaway has received designation under United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon’s, UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, which aims to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls around the world.
Breakaway’s spokesperson: A champion on and off the field
World famous soccer star Samuel Eto’o, captain of Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions and Inter Milan striker is the spokesman for Breakaway. Mr. Eto’o is committed to making the world a better place. In May 2010, members of the Breakaway team flew to Milan to meet and film him. Mr. Eto’o will be featured in interviews, game trailers, PSAs and as an in‐game character.
Ready, Set, Score!
After nearly two years in development with on-the-ground research and pretesting in South Africa, Eastern Caribbean, and the United States, Breakaway launched on June 22, 2010, building on FIFA World Cup fever. Play Episodes 1-3 now on the web.
Features of the Game
• It’s FREE! Go to www.breakawaygame.com to join others around the world in playing the game.
• The game is being distributed globally via the web in English, French, and Spanish.
• The game website will include pages with fun stuff for players, social networking opportunities, lots of information about the game and design team, links to organizations partnering with the project/engaged in the issues (“Our League”), forum for discussions, and information for parents.
• The game will be released episodically in six chapters (13 episodes) from June through December 2010.
• The game is being distributed locally in Africa during the FIFA World Cup.
• Over 70 design and programming students from the Emergent Media Center, most of whom aren’t that much older than the target audience, were involved in creating the game.
For more information, check out the following links:
Game website
Game Facebook fan page
Project documentary video
Project Facebook fan page
Project blog
