Side Quests: Games for Change, Frameworks & the Fight for Physical Media with Rachel Kowert

What does a healthy gaming community actually look like, and can you measure it?

In the first episode of Side Quests, our recurring gaming series, I sit down with Rachel Kowert fresh off Games for Change in New York. We dig into what's moving in gaming right now: community health frameworks, the slow death of physical media, industry layoffs hitting safety and accessibility teams, and why the future of games is social.

We also get into Rachel's framework era (EFFECT, reporting categories, and the CHEER model for measuring community health), what actually makes a code of conduct work, and a preview of the Digital Thriving Summit in Helsinki.

About Rachel:
Rachel Kowert, Ph.D is a research psychologist, award winning author, and globally recognized leader in game and game adjacent spaces on issues relating to mental health and trust and safety. Dr. Kowert is the founder of Psychgeist, a multimedia content production studio for the intersection of science and games. She currently serves as the Researcher Director for Games for Change and is a Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge (UK). She is also the founder the DLC Leadership Program.

Links:

Raising Good Gamers: https://raisinggoodgamers.org

DLC Leadership Program: https://dlcleadership.org/

Music by Robert Taylor Jr.