Almost as a counterweight to the lawmakers and media personalities that use a single clinical trial to prove games are fundamentally evil, the evangelists use a single clinical trial to prove that games are fundamentally benevolent. “Play, don’t Replay!” is just another example of games evangelists twisting a study into a nail to advance their own hammer under the guise of saving the world, and it’s something that people should be cynical about. If being a games naysayer means thinking critically about the place of games in society and not overreaching the findings of individual studies, I for one will gladly be a games naysayer.

Games evangelists and naysayers

The even-handed approach to using games for change that is championed here is (sadly) still uncommon in industry.

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Kars Alfrink

Designer turned design researcher. Postdoc at TU Delft. Exploring contestable AI.