A medium constantly in flux, the potential of video games is still being explored by designers and developers. While the commercial power of games continues to rise, their social benefits have only recently been realized.
Game developer, Delve Interactive is one of those leading the charge.
The UK-based designers have created Change: a Homeless Survival Experience.
The three-man team came up with the concept after being weighed down by debt following the commercial failure of a previous game.
In Change the player chooses between several characters, including a drug addict and a war veteran, reflecting the demographics of those sleeping rough on Britain's streets – an estimated 6,000 British military veterans have no permanent address, according to research by Plaid Cymru, the social-democratic political party in Wales.
Players have to beg strangers for spare change (Credit: Delve Interactive)
For Danny Hayes, one of the game's designers, it's "difficult to call the game 'fun', it's more engaging."
Players avoid police officers, search for sympathetic members of the public and seek shelter from the bad weather, while balancing hunger, happiness and hygiene. The end goal of the game is to rent a flat and secure a job – one of the more down-to-earth aims in the video games sphere.
Playing the game, it has as an immediate feeling of jeopardy, the actions of the player's avatar will be familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of homelessness.
"Films and books, they're great at giving people emotion but there's one emotion that games are better at. And that's guilt and pride," says Hayes.
The weather is constantly changing, creating new challenges for the player (Credit: Delve Interactive)
Although fears around video games and their effect on player's mental health are still being realized – in 2018, the World Health Organization added "gaming disorder" to its classifications of diseases – there are also health benefits now linked to the medium.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin recently discovered games that have empathy at their core have the capability to improve social behavior among teenager users.
Hayes and his team are trying to tap into that feeling. The game's core goal is to try "to raise empathy" around "the mental and emotional effects of being homeless," he says.
Adding: "There are a lot of myths about homelessness I wanted to dispel. Many homeless struggle with mental illness, it's not just addiction ... I was tired of the way that certain media are portraying them.
"I want there to be a good voice out there."