Name: WILL Interactive
Big Idea: WILL Interactive develops Virtual Experience Immersive Learning Simulations (VEILS), which are interactive movies that force users to make serious decisions as a learning experience.
Why It's Working: With more than 70 games on topics including the military, financial decision-making and youth education, WILL Interactive has developed a new form of educational and therapeutic media.
Walk in the shoes of a soldier on the battlefield or learn how to avoid foreclosure in a precarious housing market — if you make a mistake, simply start the game over.
WILL Interactive has found a way to encourage game players to solve real-world problems using interactive role-playing games.
WILL has created more than 70 "serious games." That term, the site explains, "means games that are designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. Higher end serious games are designed to inherently engage their target audience through the use of interactive gaming attributes, which, in turn, ultimately educates them on how to solve a specific problem, task or objective."
The company patented its signature medium, Virtual Experience Immersive Learning Simulation (VEILS), in 1998. VEILS enables players to take on the identities of characters in a movie, and each of the characters' actions result in a different reaction and outcome for the player. This idea evolved into serious games for social good.
One of these games is Ways Home, an interactive game developed in cooperation with Fannie Mae that guides users through various scenarios and teaches them how to avoid foreclosure. Another is Leading the Way, developed with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — the game helps returning soldiers prepare to navigate the worst-case scenarios of re-entering civilian working life.
The company's website states that WILL is the only entity that "holds the patent for the interactive behavior modification process that has been shown in independent studies to improve individual's knowledge, attitudes and behaviors."
The company recently launched the WILL Interactive Challenge, asking players to solve a real-world problem using the game's interactive technology. In the competition, which began on December 14, 2011 and ended April 20, 2012, contestants were asked to create a proposal detailing a virtual experience that could impact the real world in a positive way. The winner will be announced on June 6 and will be awarded $500,000 to develop the idea using WILL's technology. If the idea is commercialized, the winner will receive royalties and co-branding recognition on the simulation.
What real-world problem would you like to see solved using serious games? Tell us in the comments.
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